The ninth letter of the Latin and English alphabets. The form of the capital "I" has its origins in the North Semitic yodh (a consonant, equivalent to the English "Y"), which mutated into the Greek vowel iota. The form of the lowercase "i" was first written with a dot in Medieval Latin, to distinguish it from the lowercase "m" and "n" (which at the time utilized three and two—respectively—vertical strokes without the connecting curves).
|