IJ

This article covers the letter IJ. For other meanings of IJ, see IJ (disambiguation) .

IJ or ij is a directed graph , in the written language of the Netherlands for a diphthong (pronounced [ ɛɪ ]), rare even for a simple vowel ( [⁠ ə ⁠] or exceptionally [⁠ i ⁠] stands). In texts, this digraph is shown as a ligature and is therefore written in full at the beginning of a sentence or at the beginning of a word of proper names. In the Netherlands, but not in neighboring Flanders , it is quite common practice to regard the IJ as the 27th or 25th (instead of the Y , see below) letter of the Dutch alphabet, and thus a special status similar to the ß in the German alphabet. However, the Nederlandse Taalunie , the international official organization for the Dutch language, does not recognize the IJ as a separate letter, but only as a ligature.

Comparison of (1) ij (single letter), (2) ij (ligature), (3) y with Trema and (4) y in the Garamond font . The italics make it clear on the one hand that it is a ligature and on the other hand it illustrates why ij could be misinterpreted as ÿ in the French-speaking world .

Origin and use

IJ ligature in the De Lijn public transport company logo

This symbol probably had its origin in a double I , the second I was later extended to make it easier to read . At that time i was written without a period, i.e. ı , and therefore the combination ıı was similar to u in the handwriting. It then developed into an independent character that is always capitalized at the beginning of the word (example: IJsselmeer ). This is also made clear by the fact that only one box is provided for the IJ in Dutch crossword puzzles , just like in the popular guessing game Lingo . Many Dutch typewriters also have their own key for the ij (lower case only). These facts also support the reasoning of those who regard the IJ as a separate letter. In dictionaries and in the official word list ( het Groene Boekje ) - but not in encyclopedias and telephone books - ij is sorted between ii and ik .

If the word or sentence accent is marked with an acute accent , there is always an accent above both parts of the digraph and not just one above the complete digraph: "in míj́n huis" (in my house). Since it is difficult to enter the accent above the j in word processing programs , it is mostly omitted there: "in míjn huis".

Exceptions

In Dutch there are also words (like bijectie ) in which i and j appear next to each other, but do not form a ligature because they are part of different syllables .

Equality with the Y

IJ as a ligature

A handwritten form of the IJ :
Wij zijn voor Oranje (Olé)

List of participants for a course by the artist group de Stijl in 1922. In the typewritten heading, the group is called Styl.

In the 18th and 19th centuries , printers began to use their own letters for the IJ . These looked like a Y with a trema, Ÿ . This resulted in the false equation of the IJ with the Y , which in Dutch occurs almost exclusively in foreign words. This is supported by the fact that the Y in Afrikaans, derived from Dutch, takes the place of the IJ , and by proper names such as B. that of Rembrandt's wife , Saskia van Uylenburgh . In Dutch phone books that will IJ equated with Y . This way you can get similar names such as B. Find Bruijn and Bruyn easily, even if the exact spelling is unknown. You can't hear a difference. Only Bruin (also with the same pronunciation) is not found like this.

Many Dutch people believe that their alphabet ends with X, IJ, Z because they learned in school to pronounce the letter Y as IJ in the list of X, Y, Z.

IJ in data processing

Word processing programs often have an automatic correction function for words that are (mostly accidentally) typed with two capital letters. You therefore almost always change IJ to Ij .

The ASCII and ISO 8859-1 character sets do not contain the IJ as a single character , but it is present in Unicode , ISO 6937 and the Cork coding . The ligature has the HTML code: IJfor IJ and ijfor ij . The use of these characters is not recommended: the use of two letters is preferred.

In TeX and LaTeX there is no standard command for the IJ . The babel package defines the commands \IJfor the capital IJ and \ijthe small ij , regardless of the language option selected.

Web links

Commons : Digraph IJ  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

proof

1. ↑ Nederlandse Taalunie : Klemtoonteken (algemeen) on taaladvies.net , accessed on April 17, 2018.
2. ^ IJ: plaats in alfabet in the language guide of the Genootschap Onze Taal ("Society Our Language"), The Hague 2011/2018.
3. ^ Johan W. van Wingen: ANNEX 2. Rules for the use of the IJ in public records. In: Character sets. Letters, Tokens and Codes. UAZone.org, April 14, 1999, accessed October 12, 2012 . 
4. ↑ Kent Spielmann: Unicode two and three Latin letter combinations. In: NRSI: Computers & Writing Systems. SIL International, August 31, 2005, accessed October 12, 2012 .