6 ms·

So you should interpret xvij as 17, not 16. It's part of the number, not something appended. The original off-by-one error?

gumby 2y ago
A fun thought, but really Iust a reading error from someone ho didn’t know that i and j used to be variant forms of the same letter.
asveikau 2y ago
No, it's because the letter J came about in the 4th century AD to cover the consonant version of I in Latin. J and I are thus equivalent. There is a similar history between U and V. The original latin alphabet just had V. U covers the case where V is a vowel. That is why in old carvings and statues they sometimes write U as V.
- tiffanyh 2y ago
  > J and I are thus equivalent. Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? > U covers the case where V is a vowel Why is “quit” not “qvit”? Because isn’t a “u” following a “q” always a non-vowel (constant)? https://www.ck12.org/spelling/u-a-vowel-that-can-act-as-a-consonant/lesson/u-As-a-Vowel-or-Consonant/#:~:text=While%20the%20letter%20is,as%20in%20quit%20or%20mosquito https://www.ck12.org/spelling/u-a-vowel-that-can-act-as-a-co....
  - bitwize 2y ago
    > Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? In Latin, June would indeed have been IVNIVS.
  - asveikau 2y ago
    I'm talking about historical use of these letters in Latin. But if you've seen middle and early modern English text that hasn't been sanitized for modern readers, you will see a lot of stuff. You'll see W written as uu. You'll see lots of Vs and Us trading places, in places we no longer put them. And eg. I kind of suspect the UK pronunciation of lieutenant, where u is /f/, has roots in it being /v/.
    - romanhn 2y ago
      Interestingly, the OED disagrees with this (quite reasonably sounding) origin theory of lieutenant: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2015/02/lieutenant.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2015/02/lieutenant.html
      - asveikau 2y ago
        I read it as supporting my theory. It says that in French of the time as heard by English people at the time, the phonetic value of that u was ambiguously heard as f or v. My position is v and u were phonetically ambiguous or sometimes heard as the same in Latin and romance languages. Maybe also in older forms of English.
  - falcor84 2y ago
    >Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? I'm not certain about the etymology, but many languages do use an "i" sound for the names of June and July. I wouldn't be surprised if it started with an "i", then people switched to writing it with a "j" while still using the same sound, and then later people began pronouncing it differently.
  - saghm 2y ago
    To add to the sibling comment mentioning that "v" as the vowel "u" was a thing in Latin historically, it does get used this way sometimes in "fancy" signs in English even today (I've seen it mostly on buildings that have Greco-Roman architecture styles, which is fitting). From a quick google, I found this [1] picture of the word "county" spelled with a "V". [1]: https://content.9news.com/photo/2016/08/26/citycounty2_denver_1472256719776_5845053_ver1.0.jpg https://content.9news.com/photo/2016/08/26/citycounty2_denve...
    - madcaptenor 2y ago
      The main entrance to MIT has carved over it MASSACHVSETTS INSTITVTE OF TECHNOLOGY
      - gorlilla 2y ago
        My initial instinct was that a v is easier to engrave than a u because straight lines. That falls short once you notice all of the other curvy letters.
        dhosek 2y ago
        In majuscule forms (i.e., all upper case) V was the normal shape for u/v while in minuscule forms (i.e., all lower case), u was the normal shape. This is why you’ll see V in engravings rather than U. Albrecht Dürer‘s Of the Just Shaping of Letters which shows only upper-case forms provides a V shape but not a U shape. His textura, at the end of the book, has a single letter in the upper-case, but both ü and v in the lowercase with a distinct base character beneath the umlaut for ü.
      - baking 2y ago
        https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massachvsetts_Institvte_of.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massachvsetts_Instit...
  - kergonath 2y ago
    > Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? Because it’s not Latin? Things change quite a lot as centuries pass. But it could have been different, like in German, in which Juni (=June) is pronounced /iuni/.
    - dhosek 2y ago
      J is one of those letters that gets treated wildly different depending on the language. Compare Germanic and Slavic languages where j = /y/, French and Portuguese where j = /zh/, Spanish where j = /h/ (but with a bit more edge than English /h/, kind of halfway between /h/ and /kh/).
      - asveikau 2y ago
        The International Phonetic Alphabet is helpful, though it may add confusion to talk about this with people unfamiliar with IPA. What you describe as y is /j/ in IPA. What you describe as zh is /ʒ/. Spanish j is usually /x/. Some languages transcribe /x/ as kh or ch. There are accents of Spanish that pronounce it as /h/ or something slightly different however.
  - prerok 2y ago
    There is no j in Latin of ancient times. Both letters v and j were additions in the renaissence era.
  - prerok 2y ago
    In roman times June was Iunius (pronounced You-nee-ew-s, or something like that, I am not a native English speaker). The change in the pronunciation is just centuries' worth of language evolution.

gumby 2y ago

A fun thought, but really Iust a reading error from someone ho didn’t know that i and j used to be variant forms of the same letter.

asveikau 2y ago

No, it's because the letter J came about in the 4th century AD to cover the consonant version of I in Latin. J and I are thus equivalent. There is a similar history between U and V. The original latin alphabet just had V. U covers the case where V is a vowel. That is why in old carvings and statues they sometimes write U as V.

tiffanyh 2y ago
> J and I are thus equivalent. Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? > U covers the case where V is a vowel Why is “quit” not “qvit”? Because isn’t a “u” following a “q” always a non-vowel (constant)? https://www.ck12.org/spelling/u-a-vowel-that-can-act-as-a-consonant/lesson/u-As-a-Vowel-or-Consonant/#:~:text=While%20the%20letter%20is,as%20in%20quit%20or%20mosquito https://www.ck12.org/spelling/u-a-vowel-that-can-act-as-a-co....
- bitwize 2y ago
  > Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? In Latin, June would indeed have been IVNIVS.
- asveikau 2y ago
  I'm talking about historical use of these letters in Latin. But if you've seen middle and early modern English text that hasn't been sanitized for modern readers, you will see a lot of stuff. You'll see W written as uu. You'll see lots of Vs and Us trading places, in places we no longer put them. And eg. I kind of suspect the UK pronunciation of lieutenant, where u is /f/, has roots in it being /v/.
  - romanhn 2y ago
    Interestingly, the OED disagrees with this (quite reasonably sounding) origin theory of lieutenant: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2015/02/lieutenant.html https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2015/02/lieutenant.html
    - asveikau 2y ago
      I read it as supporting my theory. It says that in French of the time as heard by English people at the time, the phonetic value of that u was ambiguously heard as f or v. My position is v and u were phonetically ambiguous or sometimes heard as the same in Latin and romance languages. Maybe also in older forms of English.
- falcor84 2y ago
  >Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? I'm not certain about the etymology, but many languages do use an "i" sound for the names of June and July. I wouldn't be surprised if it started with an "i", then people switched to writing it with a "j" while still using the same sound, and then later people began pronouncing it differently.
- saghm 2y ago
  To add to the sibling comment mentioning that "v" as the vowel "u" was a thing in Latin historically, it does get used this way sometimes in "fancy" signs in English even today (I've seen it mostly on buildings that have Greco-Roman architecture styles, which is fitting). From a quick google, I found this [1] picture of the word "county" spelled with a "V". [1]: https://content.9news.com/photo/2016/08/26/citycounty2_denver_1472256719776_5845053_ver1.0.jpg https://content.9news.com/photo/2016/08/26/citycounty2_denve...
  - madcaptenor 2y ago
    The main entrance to MIT has carved over it MASSACHVSETTS INSTITVTE OF TECHNOLOGY
    - gorlilla 2y ago
      My initial instinct was that a v is easier to engrave than a u because straight lines. That falls short once you notice all of the other curvy letters.
      - dhosek 2y ago
        In majuscule forms (i.e., all upper case) V was the normal shape for u/v while in minuscule forms (i.e., all lower case), u was the normal shape. This is why you’ll see V in engravings rather than U. Albrecht Dürer‘s Of the Just Shaping of Letters which shows only upper-case forms provides a V shape but not a U shape. His textura, at the end of the book, has a single letter in the upper-case, but both ü and v in the lowercase with a distinct base character beneath the umlaut for ü.
    - baking 2y ago
      https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massachvsetts_Institvte_of.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massachvsetts_Instit...
- kergonath 2y ago
  > Why isn’t “june” then “iune”? Because it’s not Latin? Things change quite a lot as centuries pass. But it could have been different, like in German, in which Juni (=June) is pronounced /iuni/.
  - dhosek 2y ago
    J is one of those letters that gets treated wildly different depending on the language. Compare Germanic and Slavic languages where j = /y/, French and Portuguese where j = /zh/, Spanish where j = /h/ (but with a bit more edge than English /h/, kind of halfway between /h/ and /kh/).
    - asveikau 2y ago
      The International Phonetic Alphabet is helpful, though it may add confusion to talk about this with people unfamiliar with IPA. What you describe as y is /j/ in IPA. What you describe as zh is /ʒ/. Spanish j is usually /x/. Some languages transcribe /x/ as kh or ch. There are accents of Spanish that pronounce it as /h/ or something slightly different however.
- prerok 2y ago
  There is no j in Latin of ancient times. Both letters v and j were additions in the renaissence era.
- prerok 2y ago
  In roman times June was Iunius (pronounced You-nee-ew-s, or something like that, I am not a native English speaker). The change in the pronunciation is just centuries' worth of language evolution.