The I and J are not only imme¬
diately adjacent in alphabetical
sequence and look a lot alike,
but to a great extent they also
share the same history.

The original Phoenician
symbol evolved over time into
a zigzag shape, which was even¬
tually adopted by the Greeks.
The Greeks tended to simplify

Like the G and the F, the I
took some time to make up its
mind deciding which sound to
represent. The Phoenicians
used it as a semiconsonant, as

Я я

Egyptian Sumerian

The Phoenician ancestor to
our present-day I was a charac¬
ter called yodh, which meant “a
hand bent at the wrist.” With a
real stretch of the modern
imagination, this sign can be
interpreted as a hand. Some say
that the yodh can be traced
back even further, to the
ancient Egyptian hieroglyph of
a leaf, which supposedly later
evolved into a hieratic symbol
that also resembled a hand.
This Egyptian part of the I’s
story is most probably a typo¬
graphic fairy tale, for two com¬
pelling reasons: first, because
there are at least as many
experts who disagree with the
theory as there are those who
agree; and second, because the
analogous Sumerian and Assyr-
ian-Babylonian symbols that
predate the Phoenician yodh
and were, to some degree,
influenced by Egyptian culture
bear no resemblance to a hand.

Phoenician

the symbols that they adopted
from the Phoenicians, and the
yodh was no exception. In
their hands the zigzag became
a simple vertical line. They also
changed the name of the letter
to iota. Yodh was the smallest
letter of the Phoenician alpha¬
bet, and perhaps cognate with
this fact is that the word “iota”
means “immeasurably small,”
as in, “There isn’t one iota of
truth in what you just said.”
Also related is “jot,” which
means a small note or mark.

Univers 75

Charlemagne

Clarendon Bold

Monotype

Onyx

і 1Щ ц

ШииНШ

.Л

Greek 16th Century

the у in “toy.” When it was
adopted by the Greeks around
900 B.C., they used it to repre¬
sent the vowel sound of long e.
Then it was used in early Latin
to represent both the vowel i
and the consonant y. Eventual¬
ly somebody got tired of using
the same letter to represent two
distinct sounds, and tried to
differentiate them by lengthen¬
ing the I slightly to represent
the у sound. When a sixteenth-
century calligrapher decided
that this refinement was too
subtle, he added a hook to the
bottom of the stroke, the dis¬
tinction between the I and the
J was finally established.

Thus the ninth, simplest,
and smallest letter of our alpha¬
bet also has one of the more
complicated histories—one that
is made even тоце intricate
because it is shared with the
tenth letter of our alphabet.

ІВВ ITC Ozwald

The I isn’t difficult to design,
and has no optical considera¬
tions or caveats to contend
with. A straight vertical line the
width of the particular type¬
face’s standard stroke, seasoned
with serifs when desired, is
pretty much all there is to it.

The hook of the J should
either extend just slightly below
the baseline (for optical rea¬
sons) or very far below the line.

J

Caslon 3

Caslon 540

•J

The latter treatment allows the
character more even spacing in
relation to others and imparts
a little more drama to the basic
shape. The end of the hook ter¬
minates in either a serif or a
ball terminal, a typographical
feature exclusive to the J: In
the classical Latin alphabet (to
which the J does not belong),
the ball terminal appears on no
other capital letter.

ITC Lubalin Graph Book

GoudyText
Lombardie Capitals

Industria Inline

Adobe Caslon
Swash Italic

Letraset Follies
ITC Bookman Demi

Futura Light

Insignia

Madrone
Latin Extra Condensed

Friz
Quadrata
Bold

Copperplate
Gothic 31

Adobe Garamond Italic

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