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The fourteenth letter of the modern English alphabet is represented by nin [Irish, ash] in the ogham alphabet of early Ireland.

• Abbreviations - N: north, northern

This article is about the letter. For other uses, see N (disambiguation).

ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh
Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll
Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt
Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx
Yy	Zz

N (named en /ˈɛn/^[1]) is the fourteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.

Contents 1 History of the forms 2 Usage 3 Related letters and other similar characters 4 Computing codes 5 Other representations 6 References 7 External links

History of the forms

One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated that Semitic people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for "snake" may have begun with that sound. However, the name for the letter in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic alphabets is nun, which means "fish" in some of these languages. The sound value of the letter was /n/—as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin and all modern languages.

Egyptian hieroglyph for '?'	Phoenician N	Etruscan N	Greek Nu

Usage

An illustration of the letter N

N represents a dental or alveolar nasal in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet, and in the International Phonetic Alphabet. A common digraph with ⟨n⟩ is ⟨ng⟩, which represents a velar nasal in a variety of languages, usually positioned word-finally in English. Often, before a velar plosive (as in ink or jungle), ⟨n⟩ alone represents a velar nasal. In languages like Italian and French, ⟨gn⟩ represents a palatal nasal (/ɲ/). The Portuguese and Vietnamese spelling for this sound is ⟨nh⟩ (while Spanish and a few other languages use the letter ⟨ñ⟩). In English, ⟨n⟩ is generally silent when it is preceded by an ⟨m⟩ at the end of words, as in hymn; however, ⟨n⟩ is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as in hymnal.

⟨n⟩ is the sixth most common letter and the second-most commonly used consonant in the English language (after ⟨t⟩).

In mathematics, the italic form (n) is the common symbol for a variable quantity, especially one which represents an integer. is often used to refer to the set of natural numbers.

In chemistry, N is the one-letter code symbol for the amino acid asparagine. It is also the symbol for the SI unit of force, the newton.

Related letters and other similar characters

• Ν ν : Greek letter Nu
• П п (П п) : Cyrillic letter Pe
• Н н (Н н) : Cyrillic letter En
• И и (И и) : Cyrillic letter I
• Ń ń : Latin letter N with acute
• Ñ ñ : Latin letter N with tilde
• Ň ň : Latin letter N with caron

Computing codes

character	N		n
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N		LATIN SMALL LETTER N
character encoding	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	78	004E	110	006E
UTF-8	78	4E	110	6E
Numeric character reference	N	N	n	n
EBCDIC family	213	D5	149	95
ASCII 1	78	4E	110	6E

¹ and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic	Morse code
November	–·

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	Braille

References

1. ^ "N" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "en," op. cit.

External links

• Media related to N at Wikimedia Commons
• The Wiktionary entry for N
• The Wiktionary entry for n

The ISO basic Latin alphabet v t e
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter N with diacritics
Ńń	Ǹǹ	Ňň	Ññ	Ṅṅ	Ņņ	Ṇṇ	Ṋṋ	Ṉṉ	N̈n̈	Ɲɲ	Ƞƞ	Ŋŋ	Ꞑꞑ	ᵰ	ᶇ	ɳ	ȵ
Related
History Palaeography Derivations Diacritics Punctuation Numerals Unicode List of letters ISO/IEC 646

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - national, north(ern), new, navy, noun, det 14.bogstavet i alfabetet

2.
abbr. - neuter; neutrum, noon; middag, noun; navneord, number; nummer

Nederlands (Dutch)
noord, nummer, netto, nominatief, nieuw, normaal, Noors, november, naam, nano-, neef, middag, aantekening, (zelfstandig) naamwoord, onzijdig, neutron, stikstof, loper (bij schaken)

Français (French)
1.
n. - n (quatorzième lettre de l'alphabet), (Phon) nasale alvéolaire

2.
abbr. - (abrév) de né(e), neutre, nouveau, nominatif, midi, note, nom, nombre

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - n

2.
abbr. - Norden, nördlich, Neu, Kern-, Substantiv, Name, Neutrum, Mittag, Note

Ελληνική (Greek)
abbr. - Βόρεια, Βόρειος, (σκάκι) ιππότης, πυρηνικός, όνομα, ουδέτερος, μεσημέρι, σημείωση, (μαθημ.) αόριστος αριθμός, η νιοστή δύναμη, (καθομ.) και
symb. - το δέκατο τρίτο γράμμα του αγγλικού αλφαβήτου, (τυπογρ.) μισό τετράγωνο, (χημεία) άζωτο

Italiano (Italian)
n, nord, sostantivo, azoto, all'ennesima potenza

Português (Portuguese)
abbr. - nome, marinha de guerra, novo, norte, setentrional, neutro, nominativo, meio-dia, substantivo, número
symb. - Newton (Fís.), algarismo romano correspondente a 90, nitrogênio (Quím.), asparagina (Bioq.), número de Avogadro (Quím.), número de nêutrons (Fís.), índice de refração

Русский (Russian)
14-ая буква англ. алфавита, север, существительное, азот

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - decimocuarta letra del alfabeto inglés

2.
abbr. - norte, sustantivo, nitrógeno, enésimo, número o potencia indeterminada, nombre, nacido, neutro, sobrino, nuevo, nominativo, mediodía

Svenska (Swedish)
abbr. - National, north(ern), New, Navy, noun, noon, neuter, nominative, newton
symb. - kväve, Avogadros konstant (kem.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 字母n

2. 牛顿, 记录数目

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 字母n

2.
abbr. - 牛頓, 記錄數目

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 영어에서 14번째의 글자

2.
abbr. - neuter(중성) , nominative(주격의)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - エヌ, N字形のもの, 中性子

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الحرف الرابع عشر من الابجديه الانجليزيه (اختصار) اختصار ل : north)ern( شمال او شمالي, لمظذ محايد, name او : noun اسم (علامه) النيتروجين ni- trogen :‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮האות N, בעל צורת N, חנקן (יסוד), מספר לא-מוגדר (מתמטיקה), מספר‬
abbr. - ‮אטומי, חדש, פרש (שחמט), צפון, שם-עצם, ניוטון (יחידת-כוח)‬

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