Why you should write J in Latin

Why do I use the letter 'j' in Latin instead of using a letter 'i' in names like "Jūlius Caesar" ? Didn't the Romans not have a 'j'? In my opinion, using the J and the V is much better in standard Latin spelling. Find out why Indiana Jones is wrong!
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[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I have a written a new short story in Latin! with drammatically acted audiobook. Check it out: luke-ranieri.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/fabula-anatina-a-duckish-tale-in-latin 🦆 It's a children's book about the odyssey of a duckling who wants to learn how to fly.

[@ldmtag]

Lūcius: his name is not Jū-lus, it's I-ū-lus Auto-generated captions: YOU LOSE!

[@MRHEY]

Indiana Jones: Has been studying ancient languages for all his life, can read latin, is an archeologist and a professor at university… Indiana Jones: *_J_*

[@sahinoudiengo816]

Press J to pay respects to Indiana

[@matthewkoob7600]

J

[@matthewmorrisdon6906]

The name of the island in Scotland is Iona.

[@michaeldonoughue1690]

Well, the film Indy 3: The Last Crusade is set in the 2nd World War... in real world history, early 20th century linguist theories about Latin may not have been as well informed because 1) only professors, priests, and a subset of artistic enthusiasts would learn Latin; for most people that aren't historians or enthusiasts it's a dead language so that limits the ease of practice for those who studied it in the early 20th century 2) the scholars could only get information from books which can be outdated with present understanding or interpretation 3) The movie is made to appeal to all ages and especially kids in mind (directed by Speilberg, also known for E.T.) a 7-13 doesn't care about complete accuracy, they like a good immersive story. Latin professors and enthusiasts are a small minority niche of society and the only ones who care to know the language to exactness.

[@igorvoloshin3406]

Indiana Īones ✌🤠👍

[@larrykuenning5754]

For what it's worth: I'm holding an English book, printed 1709, with an alphabetical index, in which all the "I" and "J" entries are grouped together under the heading "J." Alphabetically "Jamaica" and "Jersey" are placed before "Ifield," "Ilchester" and "Ilmore," with "Jordans" and then "Ipswich" coming later -- and yet what is considered a single letter of the alphabet is printed in different shapes depending on whether it's a vowel or a consonant. I guess this represents a transitional era. Of course this is somewhat peripheral to your video since it's not in Latin.

[@matthewmorrisdon6906]

The name of the island in Scotland is Iona.

[@lagomoof]

I believe I once saw an older English dictionary, glossary or similar where the separation between I and J was beginning to happen and J was sorted before I. Either the collator was a contrarian who believed J ought to go first, or they weren't aware of the consensus, or no consensus had been reached at that time as to which ought to be first. I can imagine that J=Jehovah coming first might have been the argument!

[@ceruchi2084]

Fascinating stuff! I heard about this being an issue in Spanish dictionaries up until very recent times. All digraphs were grouped separately from single letters, so that words starting CH appeared in their own section, after all words starting C.

[@DonPaliPalacios]

@@lagomoof I have the 1611 Covarrubias dictionary of Spanish and it's the same as you describe. However, both I and J (and Y) are spelled in capital letters as "I"! So Covarrubias first has a section for consonantal I (modern-day J) and then a section for vowel or semiconsonant I (modern-day I and Y). For example: IVSTICIA goes before IO, which goes before ITALIANO. Nowadays the order is: italiano, justicia, yo.

[@alonsoACR]

@@ceruchi2084 The uppercase form of the letter ch is Ch, and never CH. Well I guess I shouldn't be calling it a letter anymore but, that's how I've been taught as a child. The "extra" letters back in the day were Ch ch which goes after C, Ll ll which goes after L, rr which goes after R. For reference, Im 24 years old. It has been changed at the times of my parents but the change was accepted slowly.

[@DonPaliPalacios]

Paradoxically, the names for J in some European languages such as German (“Jot”), Portuguese and Spanish (“jota”) descend from the name of the Greek letter iota.

[@gunjfur8633]

Same with Jason

[@wazzup233]

In German and Russian languages, the J sounds like the letter Y or Ya sound while the Spanish version of J is an H or Huh sound.

[@turkoositerapsidi]

@@wazzup233 Russian doesnt have J it has Й, its not written in latin script mate, i thik you mean Check, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian or Kroatian. Also Baltic, Uralic and Scandinavian languages written with latin have J as /j/ similarly to German.

[@rodholseth6354]

"Joð" in Icelandic. In the language, the chemical element Iodine is also named "Joð".

[@turkoositerapsidi]

@@rodholseth6354 Interesting. Thats propably a coincidence, i guess, or was the element named after the greek letter, as many element names came from Greek or Latin language.

[@Bunnokazooie]

I remember watching that scene and thinking "Huh, it's debatable whether or not Jehovah begins with J in Latin" and here is the video! You read my mind.

[@adarkerstormishere]

I mean, from Hebrew it's YHWH, so of course it's "ee-y", right?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Nice!

[@Perririri]

Life of Brian potential defence: But I said Jehovah, not Iehovah!

[@alonsoACR]

@@adarkerstormishere The Y in latin carries the sound of the German Ü or the French U. The name is never to be written as Yehova.

[@peterlongan]

You are the voice of Common Sense that classicist *need* to hear.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Happy to express my opinion

[@iberius9937]

Your very well-informed opinion.

[@GodmyX]

assentior!

[@janmelantu7490]

Honestly J and separating U/V are just way too good at improving legibility to not use

[@nicolanobili2113]

I beg your pardon, but your observation only makes sense if you specify the context. If the idea is to simplify reading classical Latin poetry, I agree. If it is to pronounce Medieval/Catholic Latin, I daresay U/V is MUCH more important than "I/J". When we say "Latin" we should always bear in mind that it is not a monolithic bloc.

[@spaghettiking653]

@@nicolanobili2113 ??? Pretty sure he said both of them serve to improve legibility together, I don't see what's monolithic about that.

[@nicolanobili2113]

@@spaghettiking653 "Monolithic" means "extremely uniform, homogeneous". What I said is that his observation only makes sense if he specifies a context: Latin is not "monolithic", there are several different pronunciations, depending on the historical period, the country where it is taught and the purpose of studying it. So, saying that distinguishing "V/W" and "I/J" makes it easier to pronounce it only makes sense if we are speaking about a variety of Latin which does make these distinctions. And I even added that in some of them, V/W is much more important than I/J, in order to pronounce correctly.

[@spaghettiking653]

@@nicolanobili2113 I see. Thanks for explaining. I do guess that's reasonable. Sorry for being so brash. At any rate, in the modern day, feel it's best practice to use both U and J, like Luke outlined in the video, as long as we're talking about classical Latin.

[@el_canchero]

I could see you in that scene in Indiana Jones and saying, “oh, dear…do I choose the more accurate answer here, or should I just fall to my death?”

[@a.kenneth3521]

English writers: 👏🏻👏🏻 Hahaha! Spanish writers: 👏🏻👏🏻 Jajaja! I always enjoy your insights. Thank you for sharing your work with us! 👏🏻 Bravo!

[@brutusthebear9050]

Latin writers: Iaiaiaia (kidding of course)

[@alonsoACR]

@@brutusthebear9050 Fir those who wanna know, in Latin it is hahaha

[@ilghiz]

Portuguese writers: rarara! (At least Brazilians)

[@simonmonsour9289]

I always thought it made perfect sense to distinguish the vowel “i” from the semiconsonant “j” by writing them differently. Very cool to learn how j came about in Latin. Thanks Luke!

[@SchmulKrieger]

For Italians, it doesn't matter.

[@Pidalin]

Well, most of languages have J for what is written with Y in English, but for some reason, English decided mark "dž" sound with that. English spelling is mess, G is sometimes J and sometimes just G, like if they could not choose how to writte language.

[@robbadob9929]

@@Pidalin English isn't the only language to have this convention: it was borrowed from the Romance languages that used for the sound that it had evolved into over time, which in Old French was [dʒ] or the English J/"soft" G (the same sound spelled with before a soft vowel in French because of its origins). You can still see other ways of writing this sound in native English words like "bridge", which in Old English was spelled because the sound basically didn't come at the start of a word until Romance borrowings like "joy" (OF joie, LA gaudia). The Western European convention was also implemented around the world for romanizing languages like Mandarin, Hindi or Malay with a palatal affricate.

[@nicolanobili2113]

Allow me to be unbearably precise: "j" is not a "consonant" but a "semiconsonant".

[@simonmonsour9289]

@@nicolanobili2113 comment edited to fit your needs……

[@paynedv]

If Polymathy says it I believe it

[@ajthebestguy9th]

Are you david payne

[@paynedv]

@@ajthebestguy9th, In the flesh. (Comments)

[@luise.perezv.8702]

"In Polymathy we trust" 😎

[@adnanbezerra6014]

Luke locutus est...

[@arthur_p_dent]

3:40 actually, modern Welsh uses the letter "w" in the exact same manner the Romans used the "v" - it doubles as a vowel and a consonant, and incidentally it's almost the same vowel and consonant as in Latin (if you employ classical pronunciation where the v is pronounced like "w" in English). And yes, if you don't know that "w" can be a vowel, then Welsh words can occasionally look a little consonant-laden.

[@sekhmara8590]

Like the town in Wales, Ebbw Vale

[@DieFlabbergast]

"w" and "y" are not, in any case, fully-fledged consonants. They are more correctly defined as "semi-vowels" or even "semi-consonants." This is how the equivalent letters are regarded in Arabic, for instance.

[@Drazzz27]

The word "cwm" looks and sounds funny.

[@russellhall4945]

Also in Welsh the letter i followed by a vowel has the consonant sound y as in the name Ianto 'Yanto'. In English Y more often represents a vowel sound than its consonant sound eg. In funny, sky, syzygy (3 different vowel sounds in one word, all represented by Y)

[@wazzup233]

But in German or even the Dutch language, their w is sound as a v and the letter v is sound as an f.

[@andryuu_2000]

In some southern italian dialects j is still used, like in Neapolitan "jamme jà" we also differentiate the English J ("Jay") from the Italian J which is called "i lunga" litterally long i

[@alfredorotondo]

Ma anche nell'italiano standard anche se è oramai desueta

[@ikbintom]

@@alfredorotondo Italjano 😎

[@zucc4764]

funiculi funiculaaaa

[@iestebanez]

That's so interesting, Luke! The words for "TO HELP" in modern Portuguese (AJUDAR) / Galician (AXUDAR) / Spanish (AYUDAR) may tell a good story on how the languages evolved from Latin. While some Spanish speakers would pronounce the Y similarly to what the ethimological latin root (AJUTARE) suggests, the Galician-Portuguese went to another direction and developed a novel J sound that is not even present in Spanish (well, Argentina might be an exception).

[@TheZenytram]

j in portugues is like in French, and J in Spanish is like a H. the Galician was equal to the Portuguese but they just unvoiced the phoneme some where after the separation with Portugal. and all this changes come from palliation of the Y phoneme on languages that dIdnt have this new consonant like a voiced "ich". The fr-pt-gl made this new consonant more up front, when Castilian made it more to the back.

[@TheOnyomiMaster]

Nitpick: the Latin root of "ayudar" is "adiūtāre"

[@fallinginthed33p]

Would it be related to the English adjutant? That word is pronounced with a hard j sound.

[@bilbohob7179]

@@TheZenytram Spanish use the letter Y for the latin consonant I, aka J. And the Letter J in spanish is the germanic CH (like Scottish Loch), not the soft H in English. CH in spanish is CH in English or TSCH in German. In portuguese depends, in old classic regions still is CH, but the most of speakers say SH... Galician has lost the voiced J by unvoiced X(SH) or perhaps never had it?

[@TheZenytram]

@@bilbohob7179 record 100 native spanish speaker saying "Jose" the J will have a range from H to german "ACH" or russian X, almost like Portuguese "the start R" and "RR". the op used an unfortunate example that use the y in the word, what i wrote was for words that still have the J. was Galician that lost the voiced J, cus G also become X.

[@sahinoudiengo816]

Press J to pay respects to Indiana Iones

[@Thelaretus]

Requjéscat jn páce.

[@Perririri]

Normie

[@ZupTepi]

My elementary school teacher called it: "i lunga". And now I know why, thanks Luke!

[@nicolanobili2113]

Well, it is actually LONGER than the normal "i". Couldn't you figure it out even before you watched this video?

[@ZupTepi]

@@nicolanobili2113 how could I?

[@nicolanobili2113]

@@ZupTepi Well, the SHAPE is clearly longer than a normal "i"! Look: I vs J... Isn't "J" longer?

[@ZupTepi]

@@nicolanobili2113 Sure, and number 8 is CLEARLY a double O. What I meant is, thanks to Luke, I finally understood the meaning of long I, which is due to the quantity of the sound in Latin.

[@igorvoloshin3406]

Interesting fact: in modern Georgian language there is no sound 'v' and Georgian letter 'ვ' represents both sounds 'w' and 'u'. This may be confusing, but Georgians used to it and often treat 'u', 'v', 'w' in foreign words as the one same sound 'ვ'.

[@igorvoloshin3406]

Me and my Georgian friend Giwi Mewzwrishwili: - Giwi, read this: 'two'. - Tuo! Ah, some more details: in Georgian, stress is always placed at the second syllable from the end. And the sound 'L' is always soft. And the counting system is vingedecimal (by 20's). It's an old language. Not Indo-European, too.

[@cemreomerayna463]

On the contrary, Modern Georgian doesn't have the sound w and it clearly distinguishes consonant v (ვ) from vowel u (უ) in both phonetics and writing. Old Georgian used to have a letter for w (ჳ) as well, even though the sound was not in Georgian's native inventory but was found in loanwords.

[@igorvoloshin3406]

@@cemreomerayna463 there are 10 dialects in Georgian actually, and they may have differences in writing and pronunciation. I tell what I heard from my Georgian friend, he is Kakhetian and really used to mix 'u' and 'v'.

[@theodiscusgaming3909]

@@igorvoloshin3406 to be fair, the English word 'two' is pronounced /tu:/ or something like that

[@igorvoloshin3406]

@@theodiscusgaming3909 I know. "Tu:" But not "tuo" :)

[@mfaizsyahmi]

Luke is like a Roman tutor sternly scolding kids who are learning latin. That's how I imagined things would go if we're in ancient Rome. But since this is the contemporary age without a universal latin tutelage system, this would suffice.

[@manorueda1432]

What a calm voice you had today! (Well, you always have a calm voice...)

[@luise.perezv.8702]

I know nothing of Latin, yet I love watching your videos, Luke. Someday I'll start learning it 😂

[@jac6547]

This is the video I needed to cheer up my day.

[@albuso1974]

Another reason why it makes sense to use J in poetry is that it makes clear to the reader that it is a consonant and so the rule of elision when the preceding word ends with wovel or M does not apply

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Exactly.

[@GiulioImparato]

This totally makes sense because in old fashioned italian J is called "I lunga". And I I am kinda sad it is not really in use in italian anymore except toponyms (Jesi or Ajaccio) and some surnames. I think in the first 1900s some authors like Pirandello still wrote some words like Aiuto as Ajuto (which is more correct phonetically) . I was enlightened reading a renaissance book that could distinguish between principi (princes) and princjpj (principles) which you cannot do in Italian anymore, where both are "principi" Fun fact the very old professor I had in middle school said Jungla (jungle) as Yungla! If we were to call that letter "Jay" in the "English fashion " and not " I lunga" She would get really mad.

[@pasqualesimonelli1513]

Teoricamente si potrebbe scrivere "principii" o "principî" ma nessuno lo fa

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

@@pasqualesimonelli1513 Rimovendo la lettera j dalla lingua italiana è stato un gran errore. Perchè oggi dobbiamo sempre sostituirla con Gi. Per esempio: Giustizia

[@pasqualesimonelli1513]

@@Michael_the_Drunkard si effettivamente la j aveva senso

[@marius9372]

Sì Pirandello usava tantissimo la j, specie per le "i" tra due vocali. Bellissimo l'esempio "principi"-"princjpj", effettivamente l' "i lunga" è proprio una "i" un pelo più lunga di quelle normali, non ci avevo fatto caso 😁

[@weirdlanguageguy]

Another great explanation! I love these resources you put out.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Glad you like them!

[@dellamotta]

I love this video! You've said exactly what I've always thought!

[@CannedMan]

4:35 J was also used as a terminal for Roman numerals ending in ones: 𝔪𝔠𝔠𝔩𝔵𝔵𝔦𝔦𝔧 instead of 𝔪𝔠𝔠𝔩𝔵𝔵𝔦𝔦𝔦.

[@MouYijian]

The reason behind the incoherent use of “i” for both the consonant and the vowel while keeping “u” and “v” distinct, is the Ecclesiastical Pronunciation, which is largely based on the Vulgar Latin dialect that ultimately has evolved into Italian. /i/ and /j/ sound sufficiently similar to one another to an Italian ear so as to represent them -albeit ambiguously- with just one grapheme; while /u/ and /v/ sound completely different to us, and therefore, two different graphemes are regarded to be necessary. However, up until the end of the XIX c. AD, it wasn’t uncommon at all to see such spellings as “cujus” and “major” in Latin textbooks printed in Italy, probably because back then, “j” was used profusely in Italian as well. After all, we still write “Juventus”, don’t we?

[@kazioglod]

Giuventus

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

> which is largely heard on the Vulgar Latin dialect that has ultimately has evolved into Italian Luke has made two videos that disprove this theory, located here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpbUhaiGj9tsl9U and kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpi1qaiGr8l8pKs. the ecclesiastical standard is not from a vulgar latin dialect since it was made well into the proto-romance days. vulgar latin is also not a thing, since that is way too much of a broad term

[@MouYijian]

Soulcatcher, sure, I watched his video about Vulgar Latin, which indeed is not a thing. But if I understand that correctly, Luke meant that when Latin *proper* was spoken, there was not a cut glass distinction between the cultivated speech of the upper class and the language spoken by the commoners. Rather, it was a continuum. He is right. What I meant in my original comment by “vulgar” is that kind of transitional stage wherein the language spoken by the uneducated and in informal contexts by everyone was neither Latin (partial loss of declension and/or incorrect use of standard grammar) nor anything recognizable as Italian. I should have used a better term but frankly I do not know which one would work. Proto-Italian? Maybe. I hope that is clear now.

[@MouYijian]

Or probably just “the vulgar”. A good example of what I am referring to is the Verona Riddle, where the word for “oxen” is BOVES, purely Latin, with the correct -es ending. But the word for “plough” is VERSORIO, which rather is Italian. And the imperfect tense termination -BA is just at mid way between Latin -BAT and Italian -VA. Cicero would have understood that with some effort, but would have not recognized the language as his own; we Italians understand the text with some effort (we study the Riddle as part of our curriculum in high school) but we do not recognize that as Italian, not even a very archaic form thereof. Generally we react to it as if it was a joke by someone who attempted to write in Latin with hardly any knowledge of the language. And that is the intermediate stage I was implying when I referred to Vulgar Latin.

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

Thanks for the information! I have also noticed the paradox of the "nonexistent" J being used in the trap! However, I never noticed exactly _what_ else is off about it! I'll subscribe now!

[@belialord]

Great as always and the sound improved a lot!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Good to hear!

[@Jan_Koopman]

I do not speak or understand Latin, but I always find your videos very interesting.

[@joaoooob9304]

Toda vez que eu vejo os vídeos dele minha vontade de aprender latim aumenta

[@sekhmara8590]

Have often wondered about that scene, and now I need wonder no more! Always fascinating, thank you. One of these days I shall have to ask a question about the Korean language. I'm very much intrigued by it, and was wondering if you had any interest. Seems very unique.

[@gerardquinn4513]

An amazing man. A great teacher.

[@ZechsMerquise73]

The Indiana Jones scene feels like the work of a bunch of screen writers getting high together, and one of them had a mild interest in slightly obscure trivia.

[@PC_Simo]

8:00 I think the ”J” is there, just as a beginners’ trap 😅.

[@haywardgaude8589]

One of the biggest reasons I’m interested in Latin is the history and etymology- great information!

[@tibsky1396]

Talking about that, I was watching on "The Last Crusade" lately, and realized that I've always wondered why Indiana doesn't communicate with the Knight of the First Crusade in Latin? Or at least in 11th century Old French, but Latin would have been more evocative, and above all it would have put Indiana's skills in ancient language with a character from several centuries ago.

[@klausbrinck2137]

Latin has been the language for diplomacy for centuries, like french did in the years of "le grand Nation" and much later still, and english is today... To the time of this crusader, if educated enough, foreigners would have really communicated with each other in Latin, if it was in western Europe (since the lingua diplomatica for the rest was still greek, also for people coming from the region that mostly used the word Iehova, Judea was just lost some years ago for the eastern Roman empire back then, the 1st crusade should help the eastern Roman Empire regain Judea)...

[@anulak2970]

my god man i love your videos so much, thank you

[@jacobparry177]

Every sound in a language should have its own unique letter. Just makes reading so much easier. In Welsh every letter has 1 sound except: Y /ɨ/ or /ə/, W /u/ or /w/, and i /i/ or /j/. And even though it's not standard orthography, I usually mark the different sounds by either writing the letters in a stylistic way when representing the different sounds, or by putting a little dot above the letter. Just makes more sense

[@nicolanobili2113]

Allow me to correct you: Every PHONEME in a language should have its own unique letter". In linguistics, there is a difference between a phoneme (which is an abstract concept) and a sound (which is one of the numerous practical forms of a phoneme). For example, if you listen to many people pronouncing the same word, you may notice slight differences in the pronunciation of a letter (those are SOUNDS), whereas they all understand the word the are saying, because they recognize the phonemes. This is also why we can understand when someone with a speech defect speaks.

[@jacobparry177]

@@nicolanobili2113 Sorry, yeah, that's what I meant. Tha k you for clarifying for anyone who might read my comment!

[@user-gj1np9rp4d]

Sometimes that's not necessary. For example the /ɜ:/ sound ( the "i" sound in the word bird) in standard English appears only in front of the letter r. Also representing the schwa /ə/ (the "e" sound as in the word father) is also not necessary, but it can be done. Also sometimes there are sounds that are rare and don't appear often. And in that case it might be better to just use a diagraph instead of adding a whole letter for a sound that might appear only in 50 words in the whole language. I have actually developed a more phonetic writing system for English. Here are some examples: Ðe kwik braun foks džampt óver ðe fens en óver ðe leizí dåg. (The quick brown fox jumped over the fence and over the lazy dog.) Hau mäní šips dú jú ón? (How many ships do you own?) Hau fár ewei iz ðät bridž? (How far away is that bridge?) Dú jú laik cíz? (Do you like cheeze?) Wat iz ðät þing? (What is that thing?)

[@pagibaikbaik]

Sounds better at 1.5x playback. Beautiful video. Thank you so much.

[@Flacklp]

I hate to be wrong, but you convinced me I am. Thank you, I'm totally on board with your explanation ;)

[@hadcrio6845]

Siempre Luke Ranieri siendo un total basado.

[@MouYijian]

In a few handbooks, I have even encountered “i̯ , u̯” to mark /j, w/. Btw, an official request has been submitted to Unicode to add a few extra characters to the Latin set, including an extra tall I LONGA to mark /i:/.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

Wiktionary recently changed its standard IPA transcription of latin works to have /i̯, u̯/ as well

[@xotan]

A few weks ago in Rome I was sitting I was sitting outseide the Palazzo Doria-Pamphilij on the Piazza Navona. As I sat there I pondered over Olimpia Maidalchini whose first name was Olimpia. She married into the Doria family and had such great influence ove the popeof the time that she was commemorated in a pasquinade which referred to her Olim Pia - a nice Latin joke. But to our theme, The Dorias still use the J to spell their hypenated second name.

[@divarachelenvy]

yet another informative video... cheers

[@dmsanct]

I'd love a video about the series about El Cid campeador in amazon prime!

[@eugenedumitrescu2187]

@3:58 i caudaāta. I with a tail? Most succinct description ever of j.

[@birthe9439]

At least my Latin linguistics professors have always been honest that it's an arbitrary choice to distinguish u/v but not i/j. I've grown up with textbooks and critical text editions that don't write J (u/v is pretty equally mixed), so I'm used to that look and I'm not sure if I'm likely to change it in my own Latin writing, but you make a good argument for writing J. I have just started my teaching degree for Latin and Ancient Greek, so this might be something to think about, though I will also be bound to the preference of the other Latin teachers in the school in the future. Interesting video! I didn't know the long i could have a tail in the classical period already.

[@amadeosendiulo2137]

In Esperanto there is a difference between, for exemple, the word "ia" (some kind of) and the word "ja" (indeed) 😃

[@igorvoloshin3406]

anyway, you have no letter 'щ' (shch) :D

[@amadeosendiulo2137]

@@igorvoloshin3406 That's true, but we write it just as "ŝĉ" and not like the Polish "szcz' or the German "schtsch" :-)

[@robertjenkins6132]

@@igorvoloshin3406 Isn't it true that ш and щ are really the same sound, but the Russian people play an elaborate practical joke on Russian-language learners by pretending that they are different?

[@dimeswrth4021]

@@robertjenkins6132 Jokes aside it's not. In ruſsian «ш» is [ʂ], and «щ» is [ɕˑ]; and in ukrainian and bulgarian the latter is pronounced [ʃtʃ] and [ʃt], respectively, juſt so you know that in advance.

[@igorvoloshin3406]

@@robertjenkins6132 no. These two are really different sounds. ш = sh, щ = shch For instance: чаша [chasha] = bowl, чаща [chashcha] = thicket

[@memorydrain7806]

Whoa.... I haven't watched Last Crusade in decades. I thought this scene, Indy and Jones Sr. were talking about Greek.

[@rtyria]

In official Catholic Church documents there was no J until John Paul II was elected. The first time he signed his name he used a J. Some official (I forget his position) sent the new pope a note, "There is no J in Latin." JPII wrote back, "There is now." Don't know how true that story is, but it is a great one all the same.

[@Fool3SufferingFools]

I believe that official was the late Fr. Reginald Foster, longtime papal Latinist, who was a doctrinaire anti-J-ite. He didn’t allow the J on his watch, but I imagine if you looked far back enough in history you’d find plenty of J’s coming out of the Vatican.

[@rtyria]

@@Fool3SufferingFools I found J's in Latin textbooks printed in the 30's (I think).

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

What a shame! Fr. Foster was wonderful, but he was not right in his recommendation here, which doubtless came from the odd thinking of the Classics community of his day.

[@oriomenoni7651]

In Italian until the 19th century the letter J was sometimes written to signify the semi-consonant status of the letter "i" when it happened between two vowels (e.g. in the word "ajuola" o "ajola") or at the beginning of a word followed by another vowel (e.g. the word "jato" or the personal name "Jacopo").

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed, I believe this fell out of use just a couple hundred years ago.

[@marius9372]

It appears in Pirandello as well, so I guess the use of J disappeared in the last century or so, but I think it also varied from region to region or so

[@rodrigodepierola]

I see a David Crystal book, I press like.

[@anthonyvlogs01]

The movie “The Last Duel” has some spoken Latin in it. Could you possibly do a review on that one when you have the chance.

[@TheAntiburglar]

I always remember that scene for making me wonder how the whole rest of the floor that isn't supported by the riddle pillars doesn't fall out from under him >.>

[@rcarullomd]

My dad’s town in Abruzzo has a mountain called la Majella. Local legend attributes the Name Majella (Maiella in Italian) to Magna Mater, Maior->Major

[@Aditya-te7oo]

I think it's better to distinguish the vocalic /i/ sound and the semivocalic /j/ sound.

[@VeronicaBrandt]

Thank you! I feel vindicated! I get to cut and paste Latin hymns and change all the consonantal 'i's into 'j's for consistency. My main reason is to make it easier to read.

[@Fool3SufferingFools]

Tangentially related story: The non-distinction between U and V is probably the reason the British pronounce the word “lieutenant” as “leftenant.” When U and V were indistinguishable, if you didn’t already know the word, you had to guess which sound that letter represented. Unfortunately, when “lieutenant” came into English from French, everyone guessed wrong and pronounced it like our modern V. Later, once British colonists in America had mingled with French settlers for a while, the American pronunciation of “lieutenant” shifted into line with “lieu” (as used in the phrase “in lieu of”). But in the UK it remains “leftenant.”

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Probably not; it most likely is a devoicing of final /w/ in Old French, such as latin novus > nou > neuf english.stackexchange.com/questions/12171/reason-for-different-pronunciations-of-lieutenant

[@Fool3SufferingFools]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Perhaps; I've seen both theories.

[@robertweidner2480]

I remember an anecdote about St. John Paul II. He signed his new Papal name with a “J”. And he was politely told, “Your Holiness, Latin doesn’t have a J.” The Pontiff paused for a moment, and then replied, “There is now.”

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Haha indeed, that was Father Reginald Foster who tried to correct him. He was a famous speaker and teacher of Latin, and a wonderful human being, as I have heard. But his opinion against the J is something I find silly.

[@Andrea_Alesiani]

Hugely interesting as usual. In Italian the "j" letter was often interchangeable with "i" in many words but was gradually abandoned throughout the XXth century. It survives, always in dual forms, in very few words ( like "fidejussione"/"fideiussione" in law) or names such as Jacopo/Iacopo. For this reason, it "feels" kinda unnecessary to me also in Latin writing, but it's really just a mere feeling (or an outright bias). Your example on Iulus vs Iulius was really interesting. However, considering the former is a Greek word, how common is such an ambiguous case in your experience? Especially from a pedagogical perspective, would it really be worth it - regardless of personal preferences - to learn Latin with Js for this reason (especially considering that most books do not use it, as you also mentioned)? You always make me/us think. Thanks!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ciao Andrea! Grazie per il commento. Yes, for me the lack of J in recitation is a real pain; Ovid and Vergil have quite a few Greek names and words to make it aggravating, at least for me. I used to write just u and i for years during my study of FR and after, but then I realized how useful they were in poetry. I'm a convert to J and V.

[@ruralsquirrel5158]

J still used in some Italian dialects as well as Sicilian and Sardinian.

[@captainufo4587]

It's not really interchangable. In the XIX century, when modern Italian was codified, it was used for the "y" sound as Luke says. If you pay attention, fidejussione DOES have a y sound in it instead of an I. Same as Jacopo. J was actually used in a few other words where that sound occourred (calamajo - calamaio, for example), but later dropped because Italian phonetics considers I and Y allophones (that is, variants of pronunciation of a sound that do not bare any grammatical value), so nothing is achieved by marking the difference, and to a native Italian speaker's ears it's hard to pay attention to it anyway.

[@nicolanobili2113]

@@captainufo4587 Although I occasionally use "J" in Italian, and although my mother's name was "Iolanda", which some people used to spell "Jolanda", I daresay that the "j" was also dropped for another reason: there was no consistency or logical rule. I mean, you could use "j", optionally, when it was between two vowels or at the beginning of a word if followed by a vowel (e.g. Jonio, fidejussione...), but you could not use it after a consonant (*bjanco, *occhjo...), which made its use hard to explain and, practically, did not provide any real advantage.

[@micheleferretto7079]

Always so clear. Just out of curiosity: how did you manage to have so a pleasant voice? What do you suggest in order to improve one's own voice emission?

[@ceunori]

Please make series about English pronunciation! :D

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Sure, but what do you mean?

[@ceunori]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Some kind of explanation how it is now, how it came to that point, maybe about variety of it and of course some guide if it's not a problem :)

[@satyr1349]

Fascinating. Led to me to wonder which other ancient language families had letters 'missing' once they adopted the Latin alphabet. E.g one of the modern brythonic languages Cymraig (Welsh) has never (to my knowledge) adopted Z or X.

[@jdonland]

Not all languages which use the Latin alphabet use both upper and lowercase letters. SENĆOŦEN, part of the Northern Straits Salishan dialect continuum, uses all uppercase letters (with modifications and diacritics and one exception for the third person possessive suffix borrowed from English) because its orthography was developed for use with unicase typewriters. There's also the reconstructed pan-Tasmanian language palawi kani which uses only lowercase letters. The popular conlang toki pona is also usually written using only lowercase Latin letters.

[@BramVanhooydonck]

So today I learned the origins of the Dutch [ij] Very interesting to compare with other languages.

[@MouYijian]

Yes, “ij” is just a way to improve the legibility of “ii”, which in Old Dutch was pronounced similar to “ie” and, without dots, would have looked like “u” or “n”. In fast handwriting, “ij” would often coalesce into something resembling a cursive “y”, and that is way “y” in a number of Dutch words is pronounced like “ij”, while normally is pronounced /i(:)/.

[@teucer915]

One of my favorite weird v/u examples comes from Spanish - I was reading a 16th-century poem and stumbled over the word "vuo" for a little bit. The early modern spelling is based on the fact that Latin h had been silent for centuries and was often not written (as distinct from a later h which derived from initial Latin f, as in halcón, hablar, which is now also silent but wasn't at the time). The Spanish consonants v and b merged to become the same sound. Later, but after this poem was printed, the RAE would restore the silent Latin h in most written forms and the use of whichever is more etymologically suitable between b and v. The mystery word is modern "hubo," he had, a form of haber (or, I suppose, auer?) derived from Latin habēre.

[@renaudfabre4791]

Classical french texts can be as well difficult to read when they mix u/v and skip j. Auoir et iniuste seem seem coming from different language and you have to unlearn the way you read french.

[@jhanschoo]

Now this is my jam

[@gator_bait_8583]

Waiting for you to review Adam Driver speaking Latin in the Last Duel.

[@JamesMartinelli-jr9mh]

My Roman rite missal ( 1962 edition, Angelus Press ) has both i and j. Thank you for soothing my conscience ;). BTW, my brother had 3 years of Latin and his teacher went on a rant against the letter 'j'. The ecclesiastical pronunciation, in illo tempore, was also a subject of ridicule.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Very interesting! You may like this video of mine about Ecclesiastical vs Classical: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iH6ueqCjjbGVacUsi=o0oTinYHfEKhi9zs

[@ad_exodus]

funny thing is i watched this recently, and i did wonder about this

[@PC_Simo]

I have pretty much the same issues, when I read Russian text that doesn’t have the ”Ё”/”ё”. At least, it wouldn’t mess up any meter; but, I think, it does have grammatical signifincance; since I’ve seen and heard both: ”Знамёна” and: ”Знамена”; and, often times, ”Знамёна” is written, as: ”Знамена”, but still pronounced, as: ”Знамёна”; and both have stress, on the 2nd syllable; so, you can’t even use the stress pattern to infer, which sound you should make: /jo/ or: /je/. *EDIT:* In fact; there’s another such minimal pair, with that very distinction, in Russian: ”Все” (= ”Everyone” (referring to people)) vs. ”Всё” (= ”All” / ”Everything” (referring mostly to inanimate objects, or uncountable nouns)).

[@daciaromana2396]

Interesting. Romanian doesn't have a distinct letter like "J" to represent the sound for "ya". Instead this sound is produced by digraphs from combining "i" with any other vowel; like "iu" or "ia". So Romanians say "Iuliu" and "Traian" instead of "Julius" and "Trajanus". And the only way to make a distinction between a long "i" and a short "i" is to simply add another "i". So if we were to write out the correct pronunciation of the character from the Aeneid, we would write "Iiulus".

[@WarpRulez]

Every connoisseur of the Latin language knows that it's written IVLIVS CAESAR (insert self-important laughter here.)

[@Jorell420]

Great video! Thanks from all of us with J names heheh

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@SchmulKrieger]

It is strange that Italian doesn't use in any word. The and is in Latin the same letter and just a matter of individual style. This is a slightly different story with and , which was used in later periods in the Empire frequently distinguished.

[@malarobo]

Until the early XX century italian language used the letter "j" as the semi-vowel [j] (english "y", german "j") or as the long [i:] (ii=j). Even today there are personal names or geographical names with "j" in italian, like "Jacopo" or "Jesolo" (a city in northern Italy).

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@malarobo and why is *io* written as this and not *jo* ?

[@malarobo]

@@SchmulKrieger Because its pronunciation is different. It isn't [jo] (semivowel +vowel) but [i-o] with stress on "i" and a very little pause between the two vowels. In italian there are "diphthongs" (like in german "jo") when a semi-vowel is united with a vowel, and "hyatus" when two vowels are in contact and thery are pronounced separated. In the first person of personal pronoun ("io") there is a hyatus, in the word "iena" (english hyena) there is a diphthong (and in the ancient orthography it was written "jena"). The rule is: there is a diphthong ([j]- or [w]- plus vowel) when the stess is on the second element, there is a hyatus ([i]- or [u]- plus vowel) when the stress is on the first element. However as I said, in modern orthography the letter "j" is used only in personal names and geographical names as a relic.

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@malarobo so in Italian you don't say yo (io), but ee-o?

[@malarobo]

@@SchmulKrieger yes. In spanish instead they say and write "yo"

[@matthewheald8964]

Just out of curiosity, when were the interpunct & the "g" invented relative to the "j"? "G" I wonder because modern Latin texts make that distinction, & interpunct because I thought the Romans used at least that much pretty early on. Great video! Your channel's one of my favorites!

[@rogerc7960]

Could you do a video on plant taxonomy. What do the words mean?

[@IONATVS]

Same for all taxonomy based on Linnaeus’ work: the actual words are just used as symbols, so while some folks try to give names that make sense in Latin or Latinized-Greek, ultimately the category’s name is only there AS a name, so a lot of them are pretty arbitrary, or reflective of an older definition of the category that has since been discarded in favor of a different understanding. The individual names are often quite fun to figure out, but you really can’t make any systematic generalizations beyond that-Linnaeus explicitly stated when setting out his taxonomy that the categories could be called anything, but he simply preferred to use Latin and Latinzed-Greek names for the categories so they weren’t common vernacular names (since changes in living language really can’t be controlled to match the science) or bland, meaningless labels like numbers.

[@AelwynMr]

@@IONATVS Yep! Still like this today: most new names make some sort of sense in Latin or Greek, some just do not and must be treated as indeclinable if writing in Latin.

[@wofi784]

Oh wow I always thought it was Julus! The copy of the Aeneid I have doesn't have J's so I of course assumed it was just a consonant, that's really interesting!

[@weirdlanguageguy]

An interesting consequence of this in english is that names with i + a vowel from Latin are pronounced with /d͡ʒ/ but the sequence from greek is pronounced /aɪ̯/. For example, IVLIVS is /ˈd͡ʒul.i.ʌs/ but ιοτα is /ˈaɪ̯.oʊ̯.tə/.

[@Yamikaiba123]

Iod Ei Yau Ei In Hebrew, the Name starts with the Canaanite letter Iod, which looks like a capital I with serifs. But because our fonts here don't have serifs, it can get confusing to tell I apart from l, so I actually use J. Also, E used to be a breathy consonant pronounced the way we say "hey". Lastly, in Canaanite, the letter Waw/Uau/Vav was Y or rather a U with a stick on the bottom. Oddly, English has preserved the sound for Y in its name only, "whY".

[@alexpleshy8565]

On the punctuation: If I'm not mistaken, later (at least starting with the classical) Latin used interpuncts in order to separate words. Though no commas and question marks were introduced so far

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Right. Interpuncts are hardly akin to the sophistication of modern punctuation.

[@hjf3022]

I accept your arguments as legitimate, but I still did a 'find and replace' on the Js in my Ranieri-Dowling spreadsheet. At least while I'm still in the LLPSI universe, it's a preference to keep it the same.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Wow! Well, as you like, that's why it's a spreadsheet. They're terribly useful though.

[@shellyharry8189]

the most important thing we have to remember is that despite the booby trap.... Indiana Jones didn't lose his hat! 😉

[@christopherstein2024]

0:46 No, but that is because I have never seem this. I would like to understand it and I think it should be shown much more often.

[@theprinceofdarkness4679]

It's interesting that the v in modern english word love is a replacement for f in old English Love in old English was lufu The f in old English was used for both the f and v sounds Unfortunately the modem english usage makes confusion when discussing other languages

[@Michail_Chatziasemidis]

I also have started using j's, although I'm acquainted with u/v distinction-only i's through FM. Only u's and only i's is still too difficult for me, even while reading prose. But, I have a question: I thought that Julius was etymologically connected with Iulus, so that J there seems to me ἀναιτιολόγητον. I wanted to ask you, also, are these names like Iulus, and even words like these, many? Is there a complete list of them that I could read?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Hello my friend! As for a list, you can just skim through Ovid or Vergil and find more than a few. Plus native Latin words can have i or j in places not clear from context alone. As for Julius, evidently the connection to Ἰουλος was made in order to justify a grand history for the Julian family, but in actuality it is thought to come from Jove.

[@Michail_Chatziasemidis]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Thanks, I'll look it up, when I'll be more fluent in the language! As for the etymology, it seems then to be a difference between φαίνεσθαι and εἶναι.

[@MensHominis]

In prints and manuscripts up until the 17th century (just my personal statistics), the distinction between u and v, in Latin as well as in German/Italian/..., simply was: "We write v at the beginning of words and u i between", even though there already were two distinguishable sounds intended by _both_ u and v.

[@smittoria]

In the middle ages j was also used in Roman numerals like IIIJ

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Good point!

[@saddasish]

It always seem odd to me that U and V are popularly distinguished yet I and J aren't. I really think J should be embraced more. "iam" for example barely looks like a one-syllable word with the way it's written. I'm glad that you stand by using J in Latin writing

[@isancicramon0926]

12:00 I sympathize, but i also wish i could show you what scanning poetry in Persian poetry looks like. (Arabic abjad, indo-euro language, arabic metrics). The poetry itself is a delight, but latin i/j orthography sounds trivial compared to this. Still, we have similar issues (آه… no writing system is perfect i guess), only each letter (in the semiconsonants, say, vav) can be read in context o/ō/ow[*aw]/u/ū/v[*w]/wa _(sic)_ and every ya is potentially i/ī/ej[aj]/ē/j. & Alef is yet another matter.

[@andrewhicks]

Can you do a video on that weird s that appears in the Shakespeare sonnet text, that looks like an f?

[@larrykuenning5754]

That tall s (ſ) was standard usage in (I suppose) all European languages that used the Latin alphabet. It even had a handwritten form (looking like a cursive f with its bottom loop formed in the opposite direction) which persisted into the 19th century. When followed by a final-style s or sometimes by a z, the result could be a ligature ß that lasted longer in German ("scharfes Es" or "Es-tset") but can also be found in older English books.

[@peterfireflylund]

Greek had two lower-case sigmas - ς, σ - for essentially the same reason.

[@jewhunterbiden]

in dutch we have a contraction where I + J = IJ =+- Y, we pronounce it as [ɛɪ]

[@gymnosophist7471]

Thanks Luke that was great! I’m curious though why the inscription on Jesus’ cross is traditionally represented as “INRI”, which I presume you know stands for “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum”. Why didn’t they write it with a J? (If they wrote it at all; let’s say for argument’s sake they did).

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Well like I mention in the video, the J letter as a consonant to represent [j] didn’t become standard until the Renaissance

[@gymnosophist7471]

@@polyMATHY_Luke ah thanks! Got it!

[@jacemeldrum5052]

I actually do often write Latin using ancient Roman style orthographic conventions...the lack of spacing drove my Latin teacher crazy (unless I used PVNCTA)

[@ncsbear]

Are there any other examples like this where you would show something differently than the way LLPSI does it? Deciding between /iu/ and /ju/ has been the hardest part of sight reading through LLPSI for me. Curious if there any other things to be aware of.

[@kori228]

5:00 well, from what I'm aware, we write 'love' as 'love' with the silent "e", because the "e" wasn't silent. It was pronounced as a separate vowel in Old English, reduced to schwa in and slowly disappeared through Middle English. From Wiktionary: PIE: *lewbʰ- Proto-Germanic: lubō /ˈlu.βɔː/ Old English: /ˈlu.fu/, [ˈlu.vu] Middle English: /ˈluv(ə)/ Your description probably _does_ apply to why we write "love" instead of "luve", but the final "e" isn't there for no reason.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

See David Crystal's book

[@kori228]

@@polyMATHY_Luke from Chapter 15: More exceptions "But what about the other minims? Was there anything that could be done to help readers work out how to read sequences where a u was followed by a v, n or m? Several words fell into this category, such as cum (‘come’), sum (‘some’), huni (‘honey’), tung (‘tongue’) and luv (‘love’). These would all appear as a consonant followed by four or five minims. Munuc (‘monk’) would be a sequence of nine. *The problem remained even if these words were spelled with a final e. So, as the modern spellings immediately show, they hit on the idea of replacing the u with an o.* " The passage doesn't actually address the silent e, only that it directly states the spelling of would be just as confusing as in minims. How would compare with is not mentioned. The above examples are implied to be as confusing. Is it implying that scribes initially tried to disambiguate by spelling it , only to find it still confusing, and then spelling it because they already got used to spelling it with the final e? It's not really clear, and I would say it would be unlikely given its OE pronunciation had a final vowel. What's more likely is that the final e was disappearing, which is why it went from to in some texts. Why it didn't entirely disappear in writing, and instead was preserved as is another question. It then goes on to provide a counterexample for something else, why is spelled with rather than as with ; which is unrelated. It mentions "But anyone who began to spell tung as tong in the 14th century would soon encounter a different sort of clash: with tongs (the lifting implement). *Both words often appeared with a final e: tonge.* But a final -ge spelling, as we saw in Chapter 5, was being pronounced /dʒ/, as in refuge, visage and so on. So, tonge would look as if it was to be pronounced to rhyme with sponge" It again doesn't actually provide an explanation for the final e, only mentioning that it occurs. It does reference -ge spellings as being pronounced as /dʒ/ in Chapter 5, but the referenced time frame is Old English, at which point it's not relevant, as final e was not silent, and it didn't have the ME borrowed words from French (whence the spelling -ge for /dʒ/). The other source of final -e was to mark long vowels, but doesn't have a long vowel in OE or ME, so that can't have been the source for this particular word. I'm not looking to argue per se, English historical phonology isn't my forte, but the explanation you provide does not make sense with what I know.

[@kennymixter6475]

Hey Polymathy, when I was reading Oedipus Rex in high school by was Jokaste spelled Iokaste? Is this because it was originally written in Ancient Greek? Or is it because of someone translating it to English and wanting to use an I?

[@matthewmorrisdon6906]

As a artist, I have studied the Book of Kells. I have even attempted to make my own illuminated manuscript of the Book of Mark but only got to chapture 6. There was no "j" in the first half of Mark.

[@MatthewDoye]

My Latin textbook (from over forty years ago) had no J. I just got used to sight reading.

[@sazji]

In modern Greek the decision to pronounce iota before a vowel as an i or a y is largely one of enunciation or formality. Ιούνιος officially would be “Ι-ού-νι-ος” but in quick speech would be indistinguishable from the Greek version of “y”. which has merged in everyday speech with the palatized “γι”. So Ιατρός is pronounced “γιατρός” and often written that way, but so would the i in “ιατρικό,” even though it’s almost interchangeable now with the spelling “γιατρικό.” For “Γιανουάριος” I’ve never seen “Γιανουάριος,” but γ is used in the somewhat hyper-demotic “Γενάρης.” But for foreign words they definitely prefer “γι” (or simply γ before high vowels), as in Turkish words like γιαούρτι, γιουβαρλάκια, γενίτσαροι, etc. So technically there is a difference but “γι” has basically won the battle. :-)