N, orn, is the fourteenthletter of theLatin alphabet, used in themodern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English isen (pronounced/ˈɛn/), pluralens.[1]
One of the most commonhieroglyphs,snake, was used inEgyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" wasdjet. It is speculated by some, such as archeologist Douglas Petrovich, thatSemitic speakers working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphs to create the firstalphabet.[2]
Some hold that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, with a great proponent of this theory beingAlan Gardiner,[3] because their word for "snake" may have begun with n (an example of a possible word beingnahash[4]). However, this theory has become disputed.[5] The name for the letter in thePhoenician,Hebrew,Aramaic, andArabic alphabets isnun, which means "fish" in some of these languages. This possibly connects the letter to thehieroglyph for a water ripple, which phonetically makes the n sound.[6] The sound value of the letter was/n/—as inGreek,Etruscan,Latin, and modern languages.
⟨n⟩ is generally silent when it is preceded by an⟨m⟩ at the end of words, as inhymn; however, it is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as inhymnal. Other consonants are often silent when they precede an⟨n⟩ at the beginning of an English word. Examples includegnome,knife,mnemonic, andpneumonia.
The letter⟨n⟩ represents avoiced dental nasal/n̪/ orvoiced alveolar nasal/n/ in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. In many languages, these nasal consonantsassimilate with the consonant that follows them to produce other nasal consonants.
Inmathematics, the italic formn is a particularly common symbol for avariable quantity which represents anatural number. Theset of natural numbers is referred to as.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
^"N"Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989);Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "en," op. cit.
^LeBlanc, Paul (2017).Deciphering the Proto-Sinaitic Script: Making Sense of the Wadi El-Hol and Serabit El-Khadim Early Alphabetic Inscriptions. SubclassPress.ISBN9780995284401.
