N#cite note-3

One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English {{angbr|J}}, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated by some, such as archeologist Douglas Petrovich, that Semitic speakers working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphs to create the first alphabet.{{Cite web |date=2016-11-19 |title=Oldest alphabet identified as Hebrew |url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/oldest-alphabet-identified-hebrew |access-date=2024-06-24 |language=en-US}}

Some hold that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, with a great proponent of this theory being Alan Gardiner,{{Cite book |title=The world's writing systems |date=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507993-7 |editor-last=Daniels |editor-first=Peter T. |location=New York |language=en |editor-last2=Bright |editor-first2=William}} because their word for "snake" may have begun with n (an example of a possible word being nahash{{Cite web |last=Goldwasser |first=Orly |title=How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs |url=https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/how-the-alphabet-was-born-from-hieroglyphs/ |access-date=2024-06-24 |website=The BAS Library |language=en-US}}). However, this theory has become disputed.{{Cite book |last=LeBlanc |first=Paul |title=Deciphering the Proto-Sinaitic Script: Making Sense of the Wadi El-Hol and Serabit El-Khadim Early Alphabetic Inscriptions |date=2017 |publisher=SubclassPress |isbn=9780995284401}} The name for the letter in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic alphabets is nun, which means "fish" in some of these languages. This possibly connects the letter to the hieroglyph for a water ripple, which phonetically makes the n sound.{{Cite web |title=Gardiner's Sign List of Egyptian Hieroglyphs – Egyptian Hieroglyphs |url=https://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/gardiners-sign-list/ |access-date=2024-06-24 |language=en-US}} The sound value of the letter was {{IPA|/n/}}—as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin, and modern languages.

In English, {{angbr|n}} usually represents a voiced alveolar nasal {{IPA|/n/}}, but can represent other nasal consonants due to assimilation. For example, before a velar plosive (as in ink or jungle), {{angbr|n}} represents a voiced velar nasal {{IPA|/ŋ/}}.

{{angbr|n}} is generally silent when it is preceded by an {{angbr|m}} at the end of words, as in hymn; however, it is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as in hymnal. Other consonants are often silent when they precede an {{angbr|n}} at the beginning of an English word. Examples include gnome, knife, mnemonic, and pneumonia.

The letter N is the sixth-most common letter and the second-most commonly used consonant in the English language (after {{angbr|t}}).{{cite web| url = https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencies.html| title = English Letter Frequency}}

The letter {{angbr|n}} represents a voiced dental nasal {{IPA|/n̪/}} or voiced alveolar nasal {{IPA|/n/}} in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. In many languages, these nasal consonants assimilate with the consonant that follows them to produce other nasal consonants.

In Italian and French, {{angbr|gn}} represents a palatal nasal {{IPA|/ɲ/}}. The Portuguese and Vietnamese spelling for this sound is {{angbr|nh}}, while Spanish, Breton, and a few other languages use the letter {{angbr|ñ}}.

A common digraph with {{angbr|n}} is {{angbr|ng}}, which represents a voiced velar nasal {{IPA|/ŋ/}} in a variety of languages.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, {{angbr|n}} represents the voiced alveolar nasal {{IPA|/n/}}.

{{main article|N (disambiguation)}}

• In mathematics, the italic form n is a particularly common symbol for a variable quantity which represents a natural number. The set of natural numbers is referred to as $\backslash mathbb\{N\}$.

• N with diacritics: Ń ń Ñ ñ Ň ň Ǹ ǹ Ṅ ṅ Ṇ ṇ Ņ ņ Ṉ ṉ Ṋ ṋ Ꞥ ꞥ ᵰ{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2003/03174r2-mid-tilde.pdf|title=L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS|date=2003-09-30|first=Peter|last=Constable}} ᶇ{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf|title=L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS|date=2004-04-19|first=Peter|last=Constable}}
• Phonetic alphabet symbols related to N (the International Phonetic Alphabet only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems):
• Ŋ ŋ : Latin letter eng, which represents a velar nasal in the IPA
• 𝼔 : Small letter eng with palatal hook, which is used in phonetic transcription{{Cite web|title=L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20125r-ipa-retroflex.pdf|date=2020-07-11|first=Kirk|last=Miller}}{{Cite web|title=L2/21-021: Reference doc numbers for L2/20-266R "Consolidated code chart of proposed phonetic characters" and IPA etc. code point and name changes|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21021-consolidated-ipa.pdf|date=2020-12-07|first=Deborah|last=Anderson}}
• 𝼇 : Small letter reversed eng, which is an extension to IPA for disordered speech (extIPA){{Cite web|title=L2/20-116R: Expansion of the extIPA and VoQS|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20116r-ext-ipa-voqs-expansion.pdf|date=2020-07-11|first1=Kirk|last1=Miller|first2=Martin|last2=Ball}}
• Ɲ ɲ : Latin letter Ɲ, which represents a palatal nasal or an alveolo-palatal nasal in the IPA
• ⁿ : Superscript small n, which represents a nasal release in the IPA
• Ƞ ƞ : Latin letter Ƞ (encoded in Unicode as "N with long right leg"), a mostly obsolete letter used to transcribe various nasal sounds
• ɳ : Latin letter n with a hook, which represents a retroflex nasal in the IPA
• ᶯ : Modifier letter small n with retroflex hook{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf|title=L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS|date=2004-04-19|first=Peter|last=Constable}}
• ᶮ : Modifier letter small n with left hook
• ɴ : Small capital N, which represents a uvular nasal in the IPA
• ᶰ : Modifier letter small capital N
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to N:{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf|title=L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS|date=2002-03-20|first1=Michael|last1=Everson|author-link1=Michael Everson|display-authors=etal}}
• {{Unichar|1D0E|LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL REVERSED N}}
• {{Unichar|1D3A|MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL N}}
• {{Unichar|1D3B|MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL REVERSED N}}
• {{Unichar|1D51|MODIFIER LETTER SMALL ENG}}
• _n : Subscript small n was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2009/09028-n3571-upa-additions.pdf|title=L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet|date=2009-01-27|first1=Klaas|last1=Ruppel|first2=Tero|last2=Aalto|first3=Michael|last3=Everson}}
• The Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses {{Unichar|AB3B|LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH CROSSED-TAIL}} and {{Unichar|AB3C|LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG WITH CROSSED-TAIL}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf|title=L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS|date=2011-06-02|first1=Michael|last1=Everson|first2=Alois|last2=Dicklberger|first3=Karl|last3=Pentzlin|first4=Eveline|last4=Wandl-Vogt}}
• ȵ : N with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics{{Cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01347-n2366r.pdf|title=L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS|date=2001-09-20|first1=Richard|last1=Cook|first2=Michael|last2=Everson}}
• Ꞑ ꞑ : N with descender
• : Small letter n with mid-height left hook was used by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the early 20th century for romanization of the Malayalam language.{{Cite web|title=L2/21-156: Unicode request for legacy Malayalam|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21156-legacy-malayalam.pdf|date=2021-07-16|first1=Kirk|last1=Miller|first2=Neil|last2=Rees}}

• 𐤍 : Semitic letter Nun, from which the following symbols originally derive:
• Ν ν : Greek letter Nu, from which the following symbols originally derive:
• {{Script|Copt|Ⲛ ⲛ}} : Coptic letter Ne
• Н н : Cyrillic letter En
• 𐌍 : Old Italic N, which is the ancestor of modern Latin N
• {{Script|Goth|𐌽}} : Gothic letter nauþs

• ₦ : Nigerian Naira

{{anchor|Codes for computing}}

{{charmap

| 004E | 006E | FF2E | FF4E | name1 = Latin Capital Letter N | name2 = Latin Small Letter N | name3 = FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N | name4 = FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER N

| map1 = EBCDIC family | map1char1 = D5 | map1char2 = 95

| map2 = ASCII{{efn|Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.}} | map2char1 = 4E | map2char2 = 6E

}}

{{Letter other reps

|NATO=November

|Morse=–·

|Character=N

|Braille=⠝

|fingerspelling=N

}}

{{clear}}

• {{Unichar|0418|Cyrillic capital letter I|nlink=И}}
• {{Unichar|1D0E|Latin small capital reversed N|nlink=Phonetic Extensions}} – phonetic symbol

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Commons-inline|N}}
• {{Wiktionary-inline|n}}

{{Latin alphabet|N|}}

Category:ISO basic Latin letters