How did "i" become "j"?

[Caius Maxentius]

I'm curious to know how the "i" in Latin (Julius = Iulius = yoo-lius) became the "j" we now say in English. The shift obviously happened in Italy as well, since they have names like "Giuliana." Though it's interesting that they use different letters to get the same phonetic. Did the "j" sound develop in Latin in a certain region or dialect, or start appearing at a certain time? Was it there by late Antiquity?

[Emperor Goblinus]

I'm curious to know how the "i" in Latin (Julius = Iulius = yoo-lius) became the "j" we now say in English. The shift obviously happened in Italy as well, since they have names like "Giuliana." Though it's interesting that they use different letters to get the same phonetic. Did the "j" sound develop in Latin in a certain region or dialect, or start appearing at a certain time? Was it there by late Antiquity?

 

While much of the shift from Vulgar Latin to other languages occurred largely in the absence of any serious "barbarianisms," this strikes me as something that might come from a Germanic source. Also, remember that there are other variations of this; in Spanish, the J in Julius is pronounced like an H in the form of Julio.

[Northern Neil]

I'm curious to know how the "i" in Latin (Julius = Iulius = yoo-lius) became the "j" we now say in English. The shift obviously happened in Italy as well, since they have names like "Giuliana." Though it's interesting that they use different letters to get the same phonetic. Did the "j" sound develop in Latin in a certain region or dialect, or start appearing at a certain time? Was it there by late Antiquity?

 

While much of the shift from Vulgar Latin to other languages occurred largely in the absence of any serious "barbarianisms," this strikes me as something that might come from a Germanic source. Also, remember that there are other variations of this; in Spanish, the J in Julius is pronounced like an H in the form of Julio.

Also, in French and Portuguese the J phonetic is also pronounced, albeit slightly softer than in English.

[Primus Pilus]

I believe J wasn't formally introduced as a standard letter until the middle ages and wasn't really an ancient letter at all, but I don't have source material at the moment, I'm afraid. Perhaps docoflove could help.

[sylla]

While waiting for the expertise of Docoflove:

 

Quote (SIC): " J was originally used as a swash character to end some Roman numerals in place of i.

There was an emerging distinctive use in Middle High German.

Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478-1550) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana ("Trissino's epistle about the letters recently added in the Italian language") of 1524."

Edited August 6, 2009 by sylla

[docoflove1974]

This is a great question, and one which doesn't have a single answer. That is to say, the formation of the sound is one set of answers (and varies from language to language), while the convention of using the letter "J" is another issue altogether.

 

One thing is certain, that the 'fall' of the Roman centralized education system, which is held to be in the 6th century, led to various differences around the former Empire--one of these being decline of open education (usually being pushed to the realm of the monastic life), and another fall in literacy rates. In general, when this type of situation happens, it creates a vacuum in the 'standards' of acceptability; one of the results is isolation of linguistic speech communities, which facilitates divergence among speech communities. Simply put, these steps help in the development of the Romance languages that we have had for some 1200 years.

 

The word-initial Latin "I" represented a sound which in reality could have represented a number of sounds. What is probable is that, when followed by another vowel, it probably was more fricated--think 'friction'--and that, with certain combinations, this led to a variety of possibilities. It is a type of 'yod'--a palatal (think the roof of the mouth) semi-vowel/semi-consonant (a sound which is more vowel than consonant), which affects the consonants around them. This is a very rich area of historical Romance phonology, one which has been documented and studied for centuries. What it boils down to is this: this yod makes sounds more palatalized--pronounced more in the central part of the mouth. It works in different ways in the various Romance languages, which explains why "JULIUS" (the voiced palatal semi-consonant, which sounds like a "y" in English) in Latin became: "Giulio" (with a voiced palatal affricate) in Italian, "Jules" and "Julio" (with a voiced palatal fricative) in French and Portuguese respectively, "Julio" (with a voiceless velar fricative) in Spanish, etc. All in about the same range, but different. (This information is a paraphrase of both Herman (2000) and Elcock (1960)...see the next post for reference information.)

 

What seems to have happened is that as this yod became more fricated ("harder") and represented not only the sound of the initial "I" in Latin words, and as this yod worked more of its palatalization magic, the various languages had to represent the sound in various ways. Herman (2000:44) states that the various inscriptions of the second century CE are full of confusions.

 

Herman (2000:44) said:

...[the yod was written as] i when it represented [j], as in maior; di when it represented [dj] before a fowel; g when before [e], [ i ], or [j]; and even the letter z, which had been borrowed from the Greek alphabet. Examples of these confusions include the form baptidiata for baptizata (baptized) in a Christian inscription from Rome (ICVR (=Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae), 927, of AD 459); the form septuazinta for septuaginta in Hispania (Vives 1969:52); Ionisus for Dionysus in Rome (ICVR 943, of the fourth or fifth century); Genuarias for Ianuarias ("January," CIL V 6209); congiugi for coniugi ("wife," CIL XI 1016, although perhaps the first gi here could be seen as a kind of anticipation of the second one.

 

Herman goes on to say that these various spellings and 'confusions' could have represented different, although similar, sounds, which all merged into the same type of sound...which we see today.

 

As far as the actual orthography issue, well, I don't have a specific answer. The materials I have here (the major handbooks on Romance) don't mention this specific orthographic question--other issues ("H" is a great one) are taken up in much more detail. If I run across something, I'll add it...and hope that some others do the same.

 

For more information on this, go to any of the handbooks on the formation of the Romance languages, both individually or collectively. I'll post a list in a later post.

[docoflove1974]

Vulgar Latin and Early Romance 'handbooks'--basic references that one should consult:

 

Elcock, W.D. 1960. The Romance Languages London: Faber & Faber

 

Herman, J

[docoflove1974]

I just found this in the Oxford English Dictionary:

 

the tenth letter of the alphabet in English and other modern languages, is, in its origin, a comparatively late modification of the letter I. In the ancient Roman alphabet, I, besides its vowel value in ib{imac}dem, m{imac}litis, had the kindred consonantal value of modern English Y, as in iactus, iam, Iouem, i{umac}stus, adi{umac}ro, maior, peior. Some time before the 6th century, this y-sound had, by compression in articulation, and consequent development of an initial ‘stop’, become a consonantal diphthong, passing through a sound (dj), akin to that of our di, de, in odious, hideous, to that represented in our phonetic symbolization by (d{zh}). At the same time, the original guttural sound of G, when followed by a front vowel, had changed to that of palatal g ({vpal}, gj), and then, by an advance of the point of closure, had passed through that of (dj), to the same sound (d{zh}); so that i consonant and the so-called g ‘soft’ came to have, in the Romanic languages, the same identical value. In Italian, this new sound is represented by g before e and i, gi before a, o, and u. Thus, L. gestus, I{emac}s{umac}s, iam, ioc{amac}re, i{umac}dicem, are represented in Italian by gesto, Ges

Edited August 6, 2009 by docoflove1974

[Caius Maxentius]

Many thanks to those who responded to this query. I wrote it in February, and when there was no response after a few months, I stopped checking! It was a pleasant surprise to see these points.

[Caius Maxentius]

Looking at my own alias on this site -- Caius -- I always assumed it would be pronounced "Kye-uss." But maybe it evolved into something else? Did Caius (and Gaius) die out as names, or do they have modern Romance equivalents?

[Nephele]

Looking at my own alias on this site -- Caius -- I always assumed it would be pronounced "Kye-uss." But maybe it evolved into something else? Did Caius (and Gaius) die out as names, or do they have modern Romance equivalents?

 

While some Roman praenomina have survived to modern day times as popular first names with variants (Marcus, Marco, Mark, Lucius, Tiberius, Titus, Tito), it doesn't appear to have been the case with Gaius. Perhaps the television series, Battlestar Galactica, with its character Gaius Baltar, may result in a resurrection of the name.

 

-- Nephele

[Axel]

I'm curious to know how the "i" in Latin (Julius = Iulius = yoo-lius) became the "j" we now say in English. The shift obviously happened in Italy as well, since they have names like "Giuliana." Though it's interesting that they use different letters to get the same phonetic. Did the "j" sound develop in Latin in a certain region or dialect, or start appearing at a certain time? Was it there by late Antiquity?

 

 

Not only I

 

The equevalent prononciation differse according to local traditions and tongs :

All probabilities for letter "J" are :

I Also the german J in Julia (Yulia)

J Like German Julia (Yulia) i love it

G Like most north africa germany egypt Gemella (Guemella)

Rh Arabic appelation of the Gazal is a french R (Rhazal) we can find also (Gezel or Jezel or even Casal)

K or Deutsch Ch : Peoples who can't pronociate Spanish J they turn it to Deutscher Ch or K

Kh : Like spanish Julio.