# J and I



## Dr Mjau

Hello,
Have detected the situation, that in Wiki and other sources a new orthography comes out - instead J - I.
I don`t know much Latin but in previous times people wrote jus/jura/Juppiter and now I see ius/Iuppiter and so on.
Is this a new trend or return to classic writing, what are grounds for this and will this trend prevail in future? 
I should be grateful if somebody could give me some information about the topic.


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## asanga

The Romans only had I for i and j and V for u and v, so it conforms to classical spelling. The use of j and v may have become more popular in the 20th century, but spelling the semi-vowels with i and u never disappeared completely, so I wouldn't call it a return. It seems to be up to the personal preference of the editor, or the style guide of the publisher.


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## Dr Mjau

Thank you, asanga.
So, it comes out, as I understand, that the original latin spelling was "I".
I made a look into the topic and it seems that "J" was introduced in Old French and from there came in all european languages.   
But it makes me curious, 
1) why I was substituted by J,
2) why original spelling was lost,
3) and why I is coming back.
Though you wrote about editors and publishers, the fact is, that J was always written in overwhelming majority of classic author`s editions, dictionaries and textbooks.
And now I see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ius an incomprehensible mixture of spellings.


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## djmc

The norm in standard editions of classical texts (Oxford classical texts, Teubner, Budé) seems to use I for both, but to distinguish between U and V. This seems  to have been the case since the nineteenth century.


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## asanga

Yes, I should have mentioned that the mixed system of i and u/v seems to be most common.  Thanks to google books, it's easy to find many editions which only use i & u. They mostly date from the 16th--18th century. Just search for common words like _uix, uerum, uirtus_, etc.

As for your questions:

1 & 2) I suspect j & v were substituted because the traditional pronunciation of Latin in many European countries did not pronounce them as semivowels (Latin /j/ = French /ʒ/, Spanish /ʝ/, English /dʒ/, Latin /w/ =  /v/ in most European languages), so it made sense to distinguish consonants and vowels more clearly than in classical Latin.

3) The comeback may be related to the increased use of restored classical pronunciation. If it's spelled _arma uirumque cano_, or _in nomine iesu_, a modern reader will be more likely to pronounce /w/ and /j/ than /v/ and  /dʒ/.


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## Dr Mjau

Thank you, friends.
I`m sorry I have no competence to take part in a discussion like this.
I have looked into my dictionary, it is written, that I and J had the same shape but I meant vowel(syllabic) and J meant semivowel(non-syllabic), so iaceo must be sought under jaceo, iam - jam, ieiunus - jejunus, iocus - jocus, ius - jus, conicio - conjicio etc. 


> A distinctive usage emerged in Middle High German. Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his Epistola 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. (From Wiki)





> In the Romance languages J has generally developed from its original palatal approximant value in Latin to some kind of fricative.(From Wiki)






> in many European countries did not pronounce them as semivowels


But in many languages it remains /j/ - all Germanic(except English), Baltic, Uralic and Slavic. 
I understand it can be a stupid question but why Romance languages change the pronunciation and others not?


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## asanga

Dr Mjau said:


> But in many languages it remains /j/ - all Germanic(except English), Baltic, Uralic and Slavic.
> I understand it can be a stupid question but why Romance languages change the pronunciation and others not?



There's evidence intervocalic -i- already changed to an affricate in Vulgar Latin. Väänänen's _Introduction au latin vulgaire_ cites Pompeiian inscriptions _aiutor_, _aiutoris _for _adiutor, adiutoris. _Maybe the Romance languages continued local pronunciations of Latin, whereas non-Romance languages applied the pronunciation rules of their own spelling systems.


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## Dr Mjau

> There's evidence intervocalic -i- already changed to an affricate in Vulgar Latin. Väänänen's _Introduction au latin vulgaire cites Pompeiian inscriptions aiutor, aiutorisfor adiutor, adiutoris. Maybe the Romance languages continued local pronunciations of Latin_


Maybe. I must add to consideration the case with italian pronunciations.


> whereas non-Romance languages applied the pronunciation rules of their own spelling systems


I wish to add that Latin in non-Romance countries was not used so wide and did not intermix so deep with national languages. So their pronunciations could remain more stabile in the classic variant.


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## fdb

Dr Mjau said:


> I wish to add that Latin in non-Romance countries was not used so wide and did not intermix so deep with national languages.



This is a delusion. Latin was very widely used in all provinces of the Western Church, from Ireland to Hungary.


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## Dr Mjau

That`s right. But it was used among clergy and educated people and it makes a big difference.


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