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IJ (letter)
Encyclopedia
< PLEASE: Do not replace the IJ/ij written as two letters in this article with >
< Unicode IJ / ij (U+0133). Though these characters obviously exist their >
< use is officially discouraged. They are mentioned in the sections "encoding" >
< and "keyboards" and that should remain the only places where they are used. >
< Richardw NL / 2007-10-15T0717 >
< -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
The IJ (lowercase ij) is the digraph
of the letters i and j. Occurring in the Dutch language
, it is sometimes considered a ligature
, or even a letter in itselfalthough in most fonts that have a separate character for ij the two composing parts are not connected, but are separate glyphs, sometimes slightly kerned
.
An ij in written Dutch usually represents the diphthong
[ɛi].
In standard Dutch, and most Dutch dialects, there are two possible spellings for the diphthong [ɛi]: ij and ei. This causes confusion for schoolchildren, who need to study lists of words with ei and with ij. To distinguish between the two, the ij is referred to as the lange ij ("long ij"), the ei as korte ei ("short ei") or simply E – I.
The ij originally represented a 'long i'. This can still be seen in the etymology of some words, and in the Dutch form of several foreign placenames: Berlin
and Paris
are spelled Berlijn and Parijs. Nowadays, the pronunciation follows the spelling, and they are pronounced with [ɛi].
In certain Dutch dialects (notably West Flemish
and Zeelandic
), as well as the Low German
Dialects of Dutch Low Saxon
, which today are written based on Dutch spelling, a difference in the pronunciation of ei and ij is maintained.
Whether pronounced identically to ei or not, the pronunciation is often perceived to be difficult by native English speakers. The tendency is to pronounce ij as [aɪ], which in turn can lead to confusion among native listeners.
The IJ is different from the letter Y
. It used to be common, in particular when writing in capitals, to write Y instead of IJ. In fact this was the official spelling in the earlier part of the 19th century. That practice has now long been deprecated, but Dutch children still tend to pronounce the letter Y as ij when reading the alphabet. Also, in scientific disciplines such as mathematics
and physics, the symbol y is usually pronounced ij.
In Dutch, the letter Y only occurs in loanword
s, proper names, or in (variantly spelled) old Dutch. Y is called Griekse IJ ("Greek Y"), I-grec (the latter from French
, with the stress on grec), or Ypsilon. However, in the related language Afrikaans
, the Y has replaced the IJ. Furthermore, the names of Dutch immigrants to the United States, Canada
and Australia
often were Anglicized, so that the IJ became a Y; for example, the surname Spijker often became Spyker.
, the i was written without a dot in handwriting, and the combination ıı was often confused with u. Therefore, the second i was elongated. Later, the dots were added, albeit not in Afrikaans
, a language that has its roots in Dutch. In this language the y is used instead.
Alternatively, the letter J
developed as a swash
form of i. In other European languages it was first used for the final i in Roman numerals
when there was more than one i in a row, such as iij for "three". In Dutch, which had a native ii, the "final i in a row elongated" rule was applied as well, leading to ij.
Another theory is that IJ might have arisen from the lowercase y being split into two strokes in handwriting. At some time in the 15th or 16th century, this combination began to be spelled as a ligature ij. Contradicting this theory is the fact that even in handwritings which do not join letters, ij is often written as a single sign.
Some time after the birth of the new letter, the sound which was now represented by ij, in most cases, began to be pronounced much like ei instead, but words containing it were still spelled the same. Nowadays, ij in most cases represents the diphthong
[ɛi], except in the suffix -lijk, where it is usually pronounced as a schwa
. In one special case, the Dutch word bijzonder, the (old) sound [iː] is correct standard pronunciation, although [i] is more common and [ɛi] is also allowed. Interestingly, the Yiddish
counterpart of ij is יי, two yod
s (I and J are both Latin equivalents of yod), which is also pronounced [ɛi] and typically transcribed ey. Yiddish also parallels Dutch ui in a similar fashion with וי, oy.
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The IJ is not only confusing to foreigners. It is also a source of discussion among those who speak Dutch, since its actual usage in the Netherlands and in Flanders (Belgium
) sometimes differs from the official recommendations.
and the Genootschap Onze Taal consider the ij to be a digraph of the letters i and j.
There are a few Dutch compound words containing a ij that is not a digraph. An example is the mathematical term bijectie, which stems from bi-jectie (bijection
in English).
), IJ is generally described and used as two separate characters:
In Flanders, this rule is not followed as strictly, resulting sometimes in spellings such as Ijzer. Although this is not standard usage, one can sometimes even find this type of capitalization on official road signs in Flanders.
Many software packages with automated spelling corrections have the tendency to change the capital "J" to lower case, resulting in the frequent erroneous combination Ij in text prepared in such programs.
Other problems occur as well. Newer versions of Microsoft Word
, for example, know that IJsselmeer is the correct spelling: both Ijsselmeer and ijsselmeer are rejected. When the user enters IJsselmeer the previously mentioned error (auto-replacement by Ijsselmeer) no longer occurs. However, when a sentence is started with ijsselmeer (all lower case), only the first letter (i) is capitalized, resulting in Ijsselmeer which is subsequently rejected.
On the other hand, some encyclopedias, like the Winkler Prins, 7th edition, sort ij as a single letter positioned between x and y.
Telephone directories
as well as the Yellow Pages
in the Netherlands (but not those in Belgium) sort ij and y together, as if they were the same, between x and z. Thanks to this, surnames like Bruijn and Bruyn which sound, and even (to some extent) look the same, can be found in the same area. (Bruin, however, though it sounds the same, is placed with "Brui-" and not with "Bruy-".)
When words are written with large inter-letter spacing, IJ is often, but not always, kept together. F r a n k r ij k or F r a n k r i j k.
When words are written from top to bottom, with non-rotated letters, IJ is usually, but not always, kept together. Keeping it together is the preferred way.
The Dutch football team of Feyenoord
changed its name from the original "Feijenoord" to "Feyenoord" after achieving some international successes. This was done as a reaction to foreign people often mispronouncing the name. The Feijenoord district
in Rotterdam
, where the team is from, still writes its name using the original ij. The names of the soccer football players Johan Cruijff
and Ruud van Nistelrooij
are often written as Johan Cruyff and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
s (except for Scrabble - see next paragraph), and in the game Lingo
, IJ is considered one letter, filling one square, but the IJ and the Y are considered distinct. In other word games, the rules may vary.
The Dutch version of Scrabble
has a Y with a face value of eight. Most players used it to represent IJ or Y. The recent Dutch version comes with an example game, which clearly indicates that Y is only Y and IJ should be composed of I and J.
In word games that make distinction between vowels and consonants, IJ is considered to be a vowel, if it is considered one letter. Whether Y is a vowel or a consonant, is another matter of discussion, since Y can represent both a vowel or a (half-)consonant.
with diaeresis) and ij look very different, but in the handwriting
of most Dutch speakers, ÿ, ij and Y, IJ are identical. Fortunately, since the y occurs only in loanwords, the letter ÿ is extremely rare (if not altogether non-existent) in Dutch.
The long ij extends below the baseline and is therefore written with a long stroke. Even in handwriting that does not join letters, it is often written as a single sign.
On some road signs in the Netherlands, IJ appears as a single glyph formed like a U with a break in the left-hand stroke.
, the IJ is represented by ⠽, which represents a Y in standard Braille. The Y is written as ⠠⠽.
code, nor in any of the ISO 8859 character encoding
s, and therefore the digraph is most often encoded as an i followed by a j. The ligature does exist in Unicode
in the Latin Extended-A range as and . These characters are considered to be compatibility-decomposable characters. They are included for compatibility and round-trip convertibility with legacy encodings. Their use is discouraged. So even with Unicode available, it is recommended to encode ij as two separate letters.
computer keyboard lay-out is common. The standard US layout (often in "International Mode") is widely used, although a specific Dutch variant (KBD143) is available. The latter is much less common. In Belgium, a specific Belgian variant of AZERTY
keyboard layout (KBD120) is widely used. None of these keyboards features a key for ij or IJ.
(syllablized "bi•jec•tie"), they are not considered to form a ligature or a single letter. Earlier statements about sorting ij on par with y, keeping ij together in wide inter-letter spacing, the single square in crossword puzzles, etc., do not apply.
In some other languages, the combination i+j can exist as well, but in those foreign (from Dutch point of view) words, that combination should not be considered to be a single letter either. In the Netherlands, this letter combination is sometimes confused with the letter y. In several Dutch shops, byoux or byous are for sale according to the signs, instead of bijoux (jewels).
< Unicode IJ / ij (U+0133). Though these characters obviously exist their >
< use is officially discouraged. They are mentioned in the sections "encoding" >
< and "keyboards" and that should remain the only places where they are used. >
< Richardw NL / 2007-10-15T0717 >
< -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
The IJ (lowercase ij) is the digraph
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
of the letters i and j. Occurring in the Dutch language
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, it is sometimes considered a ligature
Ligature (typography)
In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms", where the specific shape of a letter depends on...
, or even a letter in itselfalthough in most fonts that have a separate character for ij the two composing parts are not connected, but are separate glyphs, sometimes slightly kerned
Kerning
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning is the adjustment of the space between individual letter forms vs. tracking which is the uniform adjustment of spacing applied over a...
.
An ij in written Dutch usually represents the diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
[ɛi].
In standard Dutch, and most Dutch dialects, there are two possible spellings for the diphthong [ɛi]: ij and ei. This causes confusion for schoolchildren, who need to study lists of words with ei and with ij. To distinguish between the two, the ij is referred to as the lange ij ("long ij"), the ei as korte ei ("short ei") or simply E – I.
The ij originally represented a 'long i'. This can still be seen in the etymology of some words, and in the Dutch form of several foreign placenames: Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
are spelled Berlijn and Parijs. Nowadays, the pronunciation follows the spelling, and they are pronounced with [ɛi].
In certain Dutch dialects (notably West Flemish
West Flemish
West Flemish , , , Fransch vlaemsch in French Flemish) is a group of dialects or regional language related to Dutch spoken in parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France....
and Zeelandic
Zeelandic
Zeelandic is a regional language spoken in the Dutch province of Zeeland and on the South Holland island of Goeree-Overflakkee...
), as well as the Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
Dialects of Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon is a group of Low Saxon, i.e. West Low German dialects spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. In comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects.The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous...
, which today are written based on Dutch spelling, a difference in the pronunciation of ei and ij is maintained.
Whether pronounced identically to ei or not, the pronunciation is often perceived to be difficult by native English speakers. The tendency is to pronounce ij as [aɪ], which in turn can lead to confusion among native listeners.
The IJ is different from the letter Y
Y
Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound...
. It used to be common, in particular when writing in capitals, to write Y instead of IJ. In fact this was the official spelling in the earlier part of the 19th century. That practice has now long been deprecated, but Dutch children still tend to pronounce the letter Y as ij when reading the alphabet. Also, in scientific disciplines such as mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics, the symbol y is usually pronounced ij.
In Dutch, the letter Y only occurs in loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s, proper names, or in (variantly spelled) old Dutch. Y is called Griekse IJ ("Greek Y"), I-grec (the latter from French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, with the stress on grec), or Ypsilon. However, in the related language Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, the Y has replaced the IJ. Furthermore, the names of Dutch immigrants to the United States, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
often were Anglicized, so that the IJ became a Y; for example, the surname Spijker often became Spyker.
History
IJ probably developed out of ii, representing a long [iː] sound (which it still does in some occasions, such as in the word bijzonder and in several Dutch dialects). In the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the i was written without a dot in handwriting, and the combination ıı was often confused with u. Therefore, the second i was elongated. Later, the dots were added, albeit not in Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, a language that has its roots in Dutch. In this language the y is used instead.
Alternatively, the letter J
J
Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic...
developed as a swash
Swash (typography)
A swash is a typographical flourish on a glyph, like an exaggerated serif.Capital swash characters, which extended to the left, were historically often used to begin sentences. There were also minuscule swash characters, which came either extending to the left, to begin words, or to the right to...
form of i. In other European languages it was first used for the final i in Roman numerals
Roman numerals
The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
when there was more than one i in a row, such as iij for "three". In Dutch, which had a native ii, the "final i in a row elongated" rule was applied as well, leading to ij.
Another theory is that IJ might have arisen from the lowercase y being split into two strokes in handwriting. At some time in the 15th or 16th century, this combination began to be spelled as a ligature ij. Contradicting this theory is the fact that even in handwritings which do not join letters, ij is often written as a single sign.
Some time after the birth of the new letter, the sound which was now represented by ij, in most cases, began to be pronounced much like ei instead, but words containing it were still spelled the same. Nowadays, ij in most cases represents the diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
[ɛi], except in the suffix -lijk, where it is usually pronounced as a schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
. In one special case, the Dutch word bijzonder, the (old) sound [iː] is correct standard pronunciation, although [i] is more common and [ɛi] is also allowed. Interestingly, the Yiddish
Yiddish orthography
The Yiddish language is written using Hebrew script as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. This adaptation uses letters that are silent or glottal stops in Hebrew, as vowels in Yiddish...
counterpart of ij is יי, two yod
Yodh
Yodh is the tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Yud , Syriac and Arabic...
s (I and J are both Latin equivalents of yod), which is also pronounced [ɛi] and typically transcribed ey. Yiddish also parallels Dutch ui in a similar fashion with וי, oy.
Status
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
) sometimes differs from the official recommendations.
Official status
The smaller Van Dale Handwoordenboek Hedendaags Nederlands (descriptive) dictionary states that ij is a letter sign, consisting of two i’s, with the second elongated. On the other hand, both the Dutch Language UnionDutch Language Union
The Dutch Language Union is an international institution for discussing issues regarding the Dutch language. It was founded on 9 September 1980 by the Netherlands and Belgium...
and the Genootschap Onze Taal consider the ij to be a digraph of the letters i and j.
There are a few Dutch compound words containing a ij that is not a digraph. An example is the mathematical term bijectie, which stems from bi-jectie (bijection
Bijection
A bijection is a function giving an exact pairing of the elements of two sets. A bijection from the set X to the set Y has an inverse function from Y to X. If X and Y are finite sets, then the existence of a bijection means they have the same number of elements...
in English).
Netherlands
In the Netherlands, IJ is often used as a ligature:- In Dutch primary schools, ij used to be taught as being the 25th of the alphabet.
- In the NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, when a word starting with IJ is capitalized, the entire digraph is capitalized: IJsselmeerIJsselmeerIJsselmeer is a shallow artificial lake of 1100 km² in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland, with an average depth of 5 to 6 m. The IJsselmeer is the largest lake in Western Europe....
, IJmuiden. - On mechanical Dutch typewriters, there is a key that produces 'ij' (in a single letterspace, located directly to the right of the l). However, this is not the case on modern computer keyboards.
- In word puzzles, ij fills one square.
- The Winkler Prins encyclopedia states that ij is the 25th letter of the Dutch alphabet, placed between X and Y.
Flanders
In Flanders (BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
), IJ is generally described and used as two separate characters:
- In Flemish primary schools, IJ is taught as being two letters.
- Other letter combinations, such as ou, au, eu, ui, are not considered to be one letter, either. Even ligatures, such as the French œ, are usually considered as two letters. The sound [ɛi] can occur in words as ij or ei, both of which have two letters.
- Sometimes only the I is capitalized, resulting in spellings like Ijzer. This is seen more often in officially bilingual Brussels, where e.g. French speakers who create signs are unfamiliar with this spelling rule for Dutch words. However, capitalization of the entire digraph is the norm.
Capitalization
When a Dutch word starting with IJ is capitalized, the entire digraph is capitalized: IJsselmeer, IJmuiden.In Flanders, this rule is not followed as strictly, resulting sometimes in spellings such as Ijzer. Although this is not standard usage, one can sometimes even find this type of capitalization on official road signs in Flanders.
Many software packages with automated spelling corrections have the tendency to change the capital "J" to lower case, resulting in the frequent erroneous combination Ij in text prepared in such programs.
Other problems occur as well. Newer versions of Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, for example, know that IJsselmeer is the correct spelling: both Ijsselmeer and ijsselmeer are rejected. When the user enters IJsselmeer the previously mentioned error (auto-replacement by Ijsselmeer) no longer occurs. However, when a sentence is started with ijsselmeer (all lower case), only the first letter (i) is capitalized, resulting in Ijsselmeer which is subsequently rejected.
Collation
Dutch dictionaries since about 1850 invariably sort ij as an i followed by a j, i.e., between ih and ik. This is the preferred sorting by the Taalunie.On the other hand, some encyclopedias, like the Winkler Prins, 7th edition, sort ij as a single letter positioned between x and y.
Telephone directories
Telephone directory
A telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory...
as well as the Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...
in the Netherlands (but not those in Belgium) sort ij and y together, as if they were the same, between x and z. Thanks to this, surnames like Bruijn and Bruyn which sound, and even (to some extent) look the same, can be found in the same area. (Bruin, however, though it sounds the same, is placed with "Brui-" and not with "Bruy-".)
Abbreviations
When words or (first) names are shortened to their initials, in the Netherlands a word or proper name starting with IJ is abbreviated to IJ. For example, IJsbrand Eises Ypma is shortened to IJ. E. YpmaWide inter-letter spacing
When words are written from top to bottom, with non-rotated letters, IJ is usually, but not always, kept together. Keeping it together is the preferred way.
F r a n k r ij k |
or | F r a n k r i j k |
Spelling
Vrijdag can be spelled out in two ways, depending on whether the speller considers ij to be one letter or not:- V – R – IJ – D – A – G
- V – R – I – J – D – A – G
Spelling of proper names
In Dutch names, interchangeability of ij and y is frequent. Some names have changed officially, for commercial reasons or by indifference:- Johan Cruijff/CruyffJohan CruyffHendrik Johannes Cruijff OON , known as Johan Cruyff, is a retired Dutch footballer and is currently the manager of the Catalan national team as well as a member of the AFC Ajax board of directors. He won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973 and 1974, which is a record jointly held with...
, former football player and manager - Ruud van Nistelrooij/NistelrooyRuud van NistelrooyRutgerus Johannes Martinus "Ruud" van Nistelrooy, , is a Dutch footballer who plays as a striker for Málaga CF in Spain's La Liga. He is the second-highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 60 goals...
, football player - Piet Heijn/Heyn/HeinPiet Pieterszoon HeinPieter Pietersen Heyn was a Dutch naval officer and folk hero during the Eighty Years' War between the United Provinces and Spain.-Early life:...
, a Dutch Navy admiral - Dirk Kuijt/KuytDirk KuytDirk Kuyt is a Dutch footballer who plays for English club Liverpool. He started his career as a striker, but he has been converted into a winger and plays the position for both Liverpool and the Netherlands national team....
, football player - Arie Luijendijk/LuyendykArie LuyendykArie Luyendyk, originally Arie Luijendijk is a Dutch auto racing driver, twice winner of the Indianapolis 500....
, a race-driver - Spijker/SpykerSpykerSpyker was a Dutch car manufacturer, started in 1880 by coachbuilders Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker, but to be able to market the brand better in foreign countries, in 1903 the 'ij' was changed into 'y'...
, car manufacturer
The Dutch football team of Feyenoord
Feyenoord Rotterdam
Feyenoord is a Dutch professional football club located in Rotterdam. Along with Ajax and PSV Eindhoven, Feyenoord is one of the "big three" clubs in the Netherlands. These three clubs and Utrecht and Roda JC are the only clubs never to have been relegated from the Dutch first division...
changed its name from the original "Feijenoord" to "Feyenoord" after achieving some international successes. This was done as a reaction to foreign people often mispronouncing the name. The Feijenoord district
Feijenoord district
Feijenoord is a district in Rotterdam and is located south of the Nieuwe Maas. As of 1 January 2004 there were 72,320 citizens. The area is 6.44 km²...
in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, where the team is from, still writes its name using the original ij. The names of the soccer football players Johan Cruijff
Johan Cruyff
Hendrik Johannes Cruijff OON , known as Johan Cruyff, is a retired Dutch footballer and is currently the manager of the Catalan national team as well as a member of the AFC Ajax board of directors. He won the Ballon d'Or three times, in 1971, 1973 and 1974, which is a record jointly held with...
and Ruud van Nistelrooij
Ruud van Nistelrooy
Rutgerus Johannes Martinus "Ruud" van Nistelrooy, , is a Dutch footballer who plays as a striker for Málaga CF in Spain's La Liga. He is the second-highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 60 goals...
are often written as Johan Cruyff and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Phonetic Radio Alphabet
In the Dutch phonetic radio alphabet, the codeword IJmuiden represents the IJ. This is clearly different from the codeword Ypsilon, which is used to represent the Y. However, the Dutch and Belgian armed forces use the official NATO phonetic alphabet, "Y" is "Yankee" and "IJ" is spelled out "India Juliet".Word games
In crossword puzzleCrossword Puzzle
For the common puzzle, see CrosswordCrossword Puzzle was the second to last album made by The Partridge Family and was not one of the most popular albums. It was released in 1973 and did not produce a U.S. single. This album was finally released on CD in 2003 on Arista's BMG Heritage label...
s (except for Scrabble - see next paragraph), and in the game Lingo
Lingo (Dutch game show)
Lingo is a Dutch television game show based on the North American format of the same name. Each episode involves two teams of two people trying to guess and spell words. There are usually six letters, but on a Friday, there are seven...
, IJ is considered one letter, filling one square, but the IJ and the Y are considered distinct. In other word games, the rules may vary.
The Dutch version of Scrabble
Scrabble
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
has a Y with a face value of eight. Most players used it to represent IJ or Y. The recent Dutch version comes with an example game, which clearly indicates that Y is only Y and IJ should be composed of I and J.
In word games that make distinction between vowels and consonants, IJ is considered to be a vowel, if it is considered one letter. Whether Y is a vowel or a consonant, is another matter of discussion, since Y can represent both a vowel or a (half-)consonant.
Technical details
Print and handwriting
In print, the letter ÿ (lowercase yY
Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet and represents either a vowel or a consonant in English.-Name:In Latin, Y was named Y Graeca "Greek Y". This was pronounced as I Graeca "Greek I", since Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing , which was not a native sound...
with diaeresis) and ij look very different, but in the handwriting
Handwriting
Handwriting is a person's particular & individual style of writing with pen or pencil, which contrasts with "Hand" which is an impersonal and formalised writing style in several historical varieties...
of most Dutch speakers, ÿ, ij and Y, IJ are identical. Fortunately, since the y occurs only in loanwords, the letter ÿ is extremely rare (if not altogether non-existent) in Dutch.
The long ij extends below the baseline and is therefore written with a long stroke. Even in handwriting that does not join letters, it is often written as a single sign.
On some road signs in the Netherlands, IJ appears as a single glyph formed like a U with a break in the left-hand stroke.
Braille
In Dutch BrailleBraille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
, the IJ is represented by ⠽, which represents a Y in standard Braille. The Y is written as ⠠⠽.
Encoding
The Dutch ij is neither present in the ASCIIASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
code, nor in any of the ISO 8859 character encoding
Character encoding
A character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...
s, and therefore the digraph is most often encoded as an i followed by a j. The ligature does exist in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
in the Latin Extended-A range as and . These characters are considered to be compatibility-decomposable characters. They are included for compatibility and round-trip convertibility with legacy encodings. Their use is discouraged. So even with Unicode available, it is recommended to encode ij as two separate letters.
Keyboards
While Dutch typewriters usually have a separate key for lowercase ij, Belgian typewriters do not. In the Netherlands, a QWERTYQWERTY
QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...
computer keyboard lay-out is common. The standard US layout (often in "International Mode") is widely used, although a specific Dutch variant (KBD143) is available. The latter is much less common. In Belgium, a specific Belgian variant of AZERTY
AZERTY
AZERTY is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys...
keyboard layout (KBD120) is widely used. None of these keyboards features a key for ij or IJ.
Exceptions
If the i and the j belong to different syllables, such as in the mathematical term bijectieBijection
A bijection is a function giving an exact pairing of the elements of two sets. A bijection from the set X to the set Y has an inverse function from Y to X. If X and Y are finite sets, then the existence of a bijection means they have the same number of elements...
(syllablized "bi•jec•tie"), they are not considered to form a ligature or a single letter. Earlier statements about sorting ij on par with y, keeping ij together in wide inter-letter spacing, the single square in crossword puzzles, etc., do not apply.
In some other languages, the combination i+j can exist as well, but in those foreign (from Dutch point of view) words, that combination should not be considered to be a single letter either. In the Netherlands, this letter combination is sometimes confused with the letter y. In several Dutch shops, byoux or byous are for sale according to the signs, instead of bijoux (jewels).
External links
- Steven PembertonSteven PembertonSteven Pemberton is one of the developers of the ABC programming language and of the Views system.He is chair of the W3C XHTML2 and XForms Working Groups and also member of RDFa Taskforce....
. An Englishman's Difficulties with the Dutch. - Andreas K. Horlings. De lange IJ bestaat niet.
- R. Harmsen. The Dutch "letter" IJ.