| Nj (digraph) | |
|---|---|
| NJ Nj nj | |
 | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Language of origin | Serbo-Croatian language,Albanian language |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Transliterations | Њ њ |
Nj (titlecase form; all-capitals formNJ,lowercasenj) is a letter present inSouth Slavic languages such as theLatin-alphabet version ofSerbo-Croatian and inromanisedMacedonian. It is also used in theAlbanianalphabet.[1] In all of these languages, it represents thepalatal nasal/ɲ/, like the pronunciation of⟨gn⟩ in Dom Pérignon. For example, the Serbo-Croatian wordkonj is pronounced/koɲ/.
InSerbo-Croatian, the digraph is treated as a single letter, and therefore it has its own place in thealphabet (as the 20th letter, following N), takes up only one space incrossword puzzles, and is written in line in vertical text. However, it does not have its own key in standardcomputer keyboards as it is almost never represented by a single character.
Other letters and digraphs of theLatin alphabet used for spelling this sound areń (inPolish),ň (inCzech andSlovak),ñ (inSpanish),nh (inPortuguese andOccitan),gn (inFrench andItalian),ņ (inLatvian andLivonian), andny (inHungarian,Catalan, and among manyAfrican languages). TheCyrillic alphabet also includes a specific symbol, constructed in a similar fashion asnj:Њ.
InFaroese, it generally represents/ɲ/, although in some words it represents/nj/, like inbanjo.
Ljudevit Gaj first used this digraph in 1830.
It is also used in some languages ofAfrica andOceania where it represents aprenazalizedvoiced postalveolar affricate orfricative,/ⁿdʒ/ or/ⁿʒ/. InMalagasy, it represents/ⁿdz/.
The digraph Nj is encoded in Unicode at 3 code points.
