The words “ijsvrij” and “yoghurt” in various forms of handwriting.

The IJ (lowercase ij) is the digraph of the letters i and j. It is often described as a ligature, although in most fonts the two composing characters are not connected, but sometimes slightly kerned together. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1026x555, 59 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1026x555, 59 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ... Digraph has several meanings: directed graph, or digraph Digraph (orthography) Digraph (computing) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

In the Dutch language, it is sometimes considered be to be a single letter: together with the Y the 25th letter of the Dutch alphabet. It usually represents the diphthong [ɛɪ]. Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 22 million people, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

In standard Dutch, and most of the Dutch dialects, there are two possible spellings for the diphthong [eɪ] or [ɛɪ]: ij and ei. 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.^[1] The long name is because of the form extending below the baseline, not because of its sound, as both sounds are pronounced identically (at least in standard pronunciation). A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variant, or variety, of a language spoken in a certain geographical area. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

The IJ is different from the letter "Y". In Dutch Y only occurs in loanwords or in (variantly spelled) old Dutch. ‛Y’ is called ‛Griekse IJ’ (‛Greek Y’), ‛I-grec’ (the latter from French, but with the stress on grec) or ‛Ypsilon’. However, in Afrikaans, a South African language derived from Dutch, the Y replaces the IJ. Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia. ...

History

IJ probably developed out of ii, representing a long [i:] sound (which it still does in some occasions). In the middle ages, 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). Afrikaans is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia with smaller numbers of speakers in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia. ...

Another theory is that it may have arisen from lowercase y being split into two strokes in handwriting. At some time in the 15th or 16th century, this 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. Today ij in most cases represents the diphthong [eɪ] or [ɛɪ], except in the suffix -lijk, where it is usually pronounced as a schwa. In one special case, the Dutch word bijzonder, the (old) sound [i:] is correct standard pronouncation, although [eɪ] is also allowed. In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ...

Status

Whether IJ constitutes one or two letters, is a matter of discussion.

In the Netherlands, IJ is often thought to be one letter.

• When a word starting with IJ is capitalised, the entire digraph is capitalised: IJsselmeer, IJmuiden.
• The Winkler Prins encyclopedia states that ij is the 25th letter of the Dutch alphabet, together with the Y.^[2]
• The smaller Van Dale Handwoordenboek Hedendaags Nederlands dictionary states that ij is a letter sign, consisting of two i’s, with the second prolonged.^[3]
• The ligature IJ is in HTML and in Unicode, although the use of it is discouraged.
• In Dutch primary schools IJ is taught as a single letter. On "het Leesplankje van Hoogeveen", the letter first appears in G-IJ-S, a common Dutch proper name. Other common digraphs, however were also included together, eg. T-EU-N.

In Flanders, IJ is usually thought to be two letters. In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a browser. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Primary or elementary education consists of the first years of formal, structured education that occurs during childhood. ... A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1. ...

• Other letter combinations, such as ou, au, eu, ui, are not considered one letter either. Even ligatures, such are the French œ, are usually considered to constitute two letters. The sound [eɪ] or [ɛɪ] can be written as ij or ei, both of which have two letters.
• The alphabet has 26 letters, the 25th of which is Y, which is different from IJ.
• The authoritative Dutch dictionary Van Dale Groot Woordenboek van de Nederlandse Taal states that ij is letter combination, consisting of the signs i and j, used to represent the diphthong [ɛɪ] in certain words.^[4]
• In Flemish primary schools IJ is taught to consist of two letters.
• Also the Taalunie, the only official body regulating the Dutch language in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, considers ij to be a combination of the two letters i and j. However, it does prescribe that both letters be capitalised together.

Primary or elementary education consists of the first years of formal, structured education that occurs during childhood. ...

Usage

Capitalisation

When a word starting with IJ is capitalised, the entire digraph is capitalised: IJsselmeer, IJmuiden.^[5]

In Flanders, this rule is not followed as strictly, resulting sometimes in spellings like Ijzer. Although this is not standard usage, one can sometimes even find this type of capitalisation on official road signs in Flanders.

Sometimes the double capital causes problems with automatic spelling checkers.

Sorting

Dictionaries have invariably been sorting ij as an i followed by a j since 1850, i.e. between ih and ik. Encyclopedias, like Winkler Prins, follow this ordering as well. This is the preferred sorting by the Taalunie.^[6]

On the other hand, telephone directories in the Netherlands (but not those in Belgium) sort ij and y together, as if they are the same. This is because many surnames have nonstandard spellings: Bruijn may also be spelled Bruyn, and thanks to this sorting they can be found next to each other. This also helps with Frisian names (such as Fryslân) which contain a y but are often spelled with an ij and pronounced as [i:]. Of course this sorting is not perfect, as the name Bruin would still not be sorted along with the other variants. But of course in dictionary order Bruyn would be orphaned instead.

Abbreviations

When words or (first) names are shortened to their initials, a Dutch word or name starting with IJ is abbreviated to IJ. For example, IJsbrand Eises Ypma is shortened to IJ. E. Ypma.^[7]

Wide inter-letter spacing

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 kept together.

F
r
a
n
k
r
ij
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

Radio alphabet

In the Dutch radio alphabet, the codeword IJmuiden represents the IJ. This is clearly different from the codeword Ypsilon, which is used to represent the Y. A different kind of phonetic alphabet is the International Phonetic Alphabet. ...

Word games

In most crossword puzzles, and in Lingo, IJ is considered one letter, filling one square, but the IJ and the Y are considered distinct. In other word games, rules may vary. Crossword Puzzle was the second to last album made by The Partridge Family, and was not one of the most popular albums. ... Lingo is an American television game show that GSN produced along with other companies. ...

Until March 1998, the Dutch version of Scrabble had two tiles IJ, with face value 4, in addition to the single tile Y with face value 8. The recent Dutch version has abolished the IJ; the word rij formerly was two letters, but now it's three. The Flemish version never had IJ tiles. The Dutch version is now in line with the Flemish one.^[8] Scrabble is a popular word game and board game in which 2-4 players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a 15×15 game board. ...

In word games which make distinction between vowels and consonants, IJ is considered a vowel if it is considered one letter. (Whether Y is a vowel or a consonant, is another matter of discussion, as Y can both represent a vowel or a (half-)consonant sound in loanwords.)

Technical details

Print and handwriting

In print ÿ (lowercase y with diaeresis) and ij look very different, but in the handwriting of most Dutch speakers ÿ and ij are identical. Fortunately, since the y occurs only in loanwords, the ÿ is extremely rare (if not altogether non-existent) in Dutch. Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... Ä ä Ö ö Ãœ ü The umlaut mark (or simply umlaut) and the trema or diaeresis mark (or simply diaeresis) are two diacritics consisting of a pair of dots placed over a letter. ... Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. ...

The long ij extends below the baseline and is therefore written with a long stroke; even in handwritings which do not join letters, it is often written as a single sign.

Encoding

The Dutch ij is not in ASCII or in any of the ISO 8859 character encodings, 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 the uppercase character IJ (U+0132) and lowercase character ij (U+0133).^[9] These characters are considered compatibility decomposable characters. They are included for compatibility and round-trip convertibility with legacy encodings. Their use is discouraged.^[10] So even with Unicode available, it is recommended to encode ij as a two separate letters.^[7][11] There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... ISO 8859, more formally ISO/IEC 8859, is a joint ISO and IEC standard for 8-bit character encodings for use by computers. ... A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given set with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the storage of text in computers and the transmission of text through telecommunication networks. ...

HTML contains the codes IJ (IJ) and ij (ij). In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a browser. ...

Sometimes the double capital causes problems with automatic spelling checkers.

Keyboards

While Dutch typewriters usually have a separate key for lowercase ‛ij’, Belgian typewriters do not. In the Netherlands, a QWERTY computer keyboard lay-out is common. The standard US lay-out (sometimes in 'International Mode') is widely used although a specific Dutch variant (KBD143) is available. In Belgium a specific Belgian variant of AZERTY keyboard lay-out (KBD120) is widely used. None of these keyboards feature a key for ‛ij’ or ‛IJ’. The QWERTY Layout QWERTY, (pronounced ) is the most common modern-day keyboard layout on English language computer and typewriter keyboards. ... The QWERTY Layout QWERTY is the modern-day layout of letters on most English language computer and typewriter keyboards. ...

Exception

If the ‛i’ and the ‛j’ belong to different syllables, such as in the word the word minijurk (minidress, syllables mi-ni-jurk) and the mathematical term bijectie (syllables bi-jec-tie), they are not considered 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. A bijective function. ...

In other languages the combination ij can exist, but in foreign words (from Dutch point of view) the ij should not be considered one letter. In the Netherlands, ij in foreign words is sometimes confused with the letter y. In several Dutch shops, byoux of byous are for sale according to the signs, instead of bijoux (jewels). There's also an anecdote of a letter sent from the Netherlands to Dyon in France rather than Dijon. The letter was sent by the postal services to Lyon in France and Nyon in Switzerland after that, and finally returned to sender as undeliverable.

References

1. ^ Taalunie. Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal (het Groene Boekje). 2005.
2. ^ Grote Winkler Prins Encyclopedie. 9th edition. 1993.
3. ^ Van Dale. Handwoordenboek Hedendaags Nederlands. 2005. On-line version
4. ^ Van Dale. Groot Woordenboek van de Nederlandse Taal. XIVth edition. 2005.
5. ^ Taalunie. Taaladvies Ijsland / IJsland
6. ^ Taalunie. Taaladvies IJ - alfabetiseren
7. ^ ^a b European rules for the use of the IJ in public records
8. ^ Dutch Scrabble
9. ^ Unicode code charts. Range 0100–017F: Latin Extended-A
10. ^ Unicode. The Unicode standard, Version 4.0. 2003. Chapter 3, p. 71–72.
11. ^ SIL international. Unicode two and three Latin letter combinations

External links

• Andreas K. Horlings. De lange IJ bestaat niet
• Michael Everson. Repetoirs of letters used to write the indigenous languages of Europe: Dutch
• R. Harmsen. The Dutch "letter" IJ