From en.wikipedia.org:
[Nineteenth letter of the Latin alphabet] {{hatnote group| [the nineteenth
letter of the alphabet] [Ess] }} [date=July 2024] [S#", "ſ", and "S#arp]
[small=yes] [small=yes] {{Infobox grapheme | name = S | letter = S s |
variations = ſ | script = Latin script | type = Alphabet | typedesc = ic and
logographic | language = Latin language | phonemes = [[s]] | unicode = U+0053,
U+0073 | alphanumber = 19 | number = | fam1 =
<hiero>Aa32</hiero><hiero>M40</hiero> | fam2 = class=skin-invert-image | fam3
= class=skin-invert-image | fam4 = class=skin-invert-image | fam5 =
class=skin-invert-image | fam6 = Σ σ ς | fam7 = ς | fam8 = 𐌔 | usageperiod =
[circa] 700 BCE to present | children = [ſ] | sisters = [Ѕ ѕ] | equivalents =
| associates = s(x), sh, sz | direction = Left-to-right | image =
Latin_letter_S.svg | imageclass = skin-invert-image }} [s]
S, or S, is the nineteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English
alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and other latin
alphabets worldwide. Its name in English is _ess_[Spelled 'es'- in compound
words] (pronounced [']), plural _esses_.[1]
** History
[Shin (letter)] {| class="wikitable" ! Proto-Sinaitic<br />Shin !
Phoenician<br />Shin ! Western Greek<br />Sigma ! Etruscan<br />S ! Latin<br
/>S |--- align=center | class=skin-invert-image | class=skin-invert-image |
class=skin-invert-image | class=skin-invert-image | class=skin-invert-image |}
Northwest Semitic šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative [/ʃ/] (as
in '[sh]ip'). It originated most likely as a pictogram of a tooth ([sem]) and
represented the phoneme [/ʃ/] via the acrophonic principle.[2]
Ancient Greek did not have a [/ʃ/] "sh" phoneme, so the derived Greek letter
Sigma ([grc]) came to represent the voiceless alveolar sibilant [/s/]. While
the letter shape Σ continues Phoenician _šîn_, its name _sigma_ is taken from
the letter _Samekh_, while the shape and position of _samekh_ but name of
_šîn_ is continued in the _xi_.[date=June 2017] Within Greek, the name of
_sigma_ was influenced by its association with the Greek word [grc] (earlier
[grc]), "to hiss". The original name of the letter "Sigma" may have been
_san_, but due to the early history of the Greek epichoric alphabets, "san"
came to be identified as a separate letter, Ϻ.[3] Herodotus reported that
"san" was the name given by the Dorians to the same letter called "Sigma" by
the Ionians.[4]
The Western Greek alphabet used in Cumae was adopted by the Etruscans and
Latins in the 7th century BC, and over the following centuries, it developed
into a range of Old Italic alphabets, including the Etruscan alphabet and the
early Latin alphabet. In Etruscan, the value [/s/] of Greek sigma (𐌔) was
maintained, while san (𐌑) represented a separate phoneme, most likely [/ʃ/]
"sh" (transliterated as _ś_). The early Latin alphabet adopted sigma, but not
san, as Old Latin did not have a [/ʃ/] "sh" phoneme.
The shape of Latin S arises from Greek Σ by dropping one out of the four
strokes of that letter. The (angular) S-shape composed of three strokes
existed as a variant of the four-stroke letter Σ already in the epigraphy of
Western Greek alphabets, and the three and four strokes variants existed
alongside one another in the classical Etruscan alphabet. In other Italic
alphabets (Venetic, Lepontic), the letter could be represented as a
zig-zagging line of any number between three and six strokes. The Italic
letter was also adopted into Elder Futhark, as _Sowilō_ ([Runr]), and appears
with four to eight strokes in the earliest runic inscriptions, but is
occasionally reduced to three strokes ([Runr]) from the later 5th century, and
appears regularly with three strokes in Younger Futhark.
The [sh] digraph for English [/ʃ/] arose in Middle English (alongside [sch]),
replacing the Old English [sc] digraph. Similarly, Old High German [sc] was
replaced by [sch] in Early Modern High German orthography.
*** Long s
[Long s]
The minuscule form ſ, called the long _s_, developed in the early medieval
period, within the Visigothic and Carolingian hands, with predecessors in the
half-uncial and cursive scripts of Late Antiquity. It remained standard in
western writing throughout the medieval period and was adopted in early
printing with movable types. It existed alongside minuscule "round" or
"short" _s_, which were at the time only used at the end of words.
In most Western orthographies, the ſ gradually fell out of use during the
second half of the 18th century, although it remained in occasional use into
the 19th century. In Spain, the change was mainly accomplished between 1760
and 1766. In France, the change occurred between 1782 and 1793. Printers in
the United States stopped using the long _s_ between 1795 and 1810. In
English orthography, the London printer John Bell (1745–1831) pioneered the
change. His edition of Shakespeare, in 1785, was advertised with the claim
that he "ventured to depart from the common mode by rejecting the long 'ſ' in
favor of the round one, as being less liable to error....."[5] _The Times_ of
London made the switch from the long to the short _s_ with its issue of 10
September 1803. _Encyclopædia Britannica_'s 5th edition, completed in 1817,
was the last edition to use the long _s_.
In German orthography, long _s_ was retained in Fraktur (Schwabacher) type as
well as in standard cursive (Sütterlin) well into the 20th century, until
official use of that typeface was abolished in 1941.[6] The ligature of _ſs_
(or _ſz_) was retained; however, it gave rise to the Eszett [ß] in
contemporary German orthography.
** Use in writing systems
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible" |+ Pronunciation of [s] by language !
Orthography ! Phonemes |- ! [Standard Chinese] (Pinyin) | [s] |- ! English |
[s], [z], _silent_ |- ! French | [s], [z], _silent_ |- ! German | [z], [s],
[ʃ] |- ! Portuguese | [s], [z] |- ! Spanish | [s] |- ! Turkish | [s] |}
*** English
In English, [s] represents a voiceless alveolar sibilant [/s/]. It also
commonly represents a voiced alveolar sibilant [/z/], as in 'rose' and
'bands'. Due to yod-coalescence, it may also represent a voiceless
palato-alveolar fricative [/ʃ/], as in 'sugar', or a voiced palato-alveolar
fricative [/ʒ/], as in 'measure'.
Final [s] is the usual mark for plural nouns. It is the regular ending of
English third person present tense verbs.
In some words of French origin, [s] is silent, as in 'isle' or 'debris'.
The letter [s] is the seventh most common letter in English and the third-most
common consonant after [t] and [n].[7] It is the most common letter for the
first letter of a word in the English language.[8][9]
*** German
In German, [s] represents:
- A voiced alveolar sibilant [/z/] before vowels (except after obstruent s), as in 'sich'.
- A voiceless alveolar sibilant [/s/] before consonants or when final, as in 'ist' and 'das'.
- A voiceless palato-alveolar fricative [/ʃ/] before [p, t] at the beginning of a word or syllable, as in 'spät' and 'Stadt'.
When doubled ([ss]), it represents a voiceless alveolar sibilant [/s/], as in
'müssen'.
In the trigraph [sch], it represents a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative
[/ʃ/], as in 'schon'.
*** Other languages
In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, [s] represents the voiceless
alveolar or voiceless dental sibilant [/s/].
In many Romance languages, it also represents the voiced alveolar or voiced
dental sibilant [/z/], as in Portuguese _mesa_ (table).
In Portuguese, it may represent the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative [/ʃ/]
in most dialects when syllable-final, and [[ʒ ]] in European Portuguese
_Islão_ (Islam) or, in many sociolects of Brazilian Portuguese, _esdrúxulo_
(proparoxytone).
In some Andalusian dialects of Spanish, it merged with Peninsular Spanish [c]
and [z] and is now pronounced [/θ/].
In Hungarian, it represents [/ʃ/].
In Turkmen, it represents [/θ/].
In several Western Romance languages, like Spanish and French, the final [s]
is the usual mark of plural nouns.
*** Other systems
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, [s] represents the voiceless alveolar
sibilant [/s/].
** Other uses
[S (disambiguation)]
- Used in a chemical formula to represent sulfur . For example, [S] is sulfur dioxide .
- Used in the preferred IUPAC name for a chemical to indicate a specific enantiomer . For example, "(S)-2-(4-Chloro-2-methylphenoxy)propanoic acid" is one of the enantiomers of mecoprop .
** Related characters
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*** Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
- ſ : Latin letter long s , an obsolete variant of s
- ẜ ẝ : Various forms of long s were used for medieval scribal abbreviation s. [10]
- ẞ ß : German Eszett or "sharp S", derived from a ligature of long s followed by either s or z
- S with diacritic s: Ś ś Ṡ ṡ ẛ Ṩ ṩ Ṥ ṥ Ṣ ṣ S̩ s̩ Ꞩ ꞩ Ꟊ ꟊ [11] [12] Ŝ ŝ Ṧ ṧ Š š Ş ş Ș ș S̈ s̈ ᶊ Ȿ ȿ ᵴ [13] ᶳ [14]
- [ₛ] : Subscript small s was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902. [15]
- [ˢ] : Modifier letter small s is used for phonetic transcription.
- ꜱ : Small capital S was used in the Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise to mark gemination . <ref name="auto"/>
- Ʂ ʂ : S with hook, used for writing Mandarin Chinese using the early draft version of pinyin romanization during the mid-1950s [16]
- Ƨ ƨ : Latin letter reversed S (used in Zhuang transliteration)
- 𝼩 : Latin small letter s with mid-height left hook was used by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the early 20th century for romanization of the Malayalam language. [17]
- IPA -specific symbols related to S: [ʃ] [ɧ] [date=October 2015] [ʂ]
- Para-IPA version of the IPA fricative ɕ: [18] 𝼞 𐞺
- Ꞅ ꞅ : Insular S
- Ꟗ ꟗ : Used in Middle Scots [19]
- Ꟙ ꟙ : Latin letter Sigmoid S was used in medieval palaeography [20]
*** Derived signs, symbols, and abbreviations
- $ : Dollar sign
- ₷ : Spesmilo
- § : Section sign
- [℠] : Service mark symbol
- ∫ : Integral symbol , short for summation (derived from long s)
*** Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
- 𐤔 : Semitic letter Shin , from which the following symbols originally derive:
- archaic Greek Sigma could be written with different numbers of angles and strokes. Besides the classical form with four strokes ( [Sigma normal] ), a three-stroke form resembling an angular Latin S ( [Sigma Z-shaped] ) was commonly found, and was particularly characteristic of some mainland Greek varieties, including the Attic and several "red" alphabets.
- Σ: classical Greek letter Sigma
- Ϲ ϲ: Greek lunate sigma
- [Copt] : Coptic letter sima
- С с : Cyrillic letter Es , derived from a form of sigma
- 𐌔 : Old Italic letter S, includes the variants also found in the archaic Greek letter
- S: Latin letter S
- [Runr] : Runic letter sowilo , which is derived from Old Italic S
- [Goth] : Gothic letter sigil
- Ս : Armenian letter Se
** Other representations
*** Computing <span class="anchor" id="Computing codes"> </span>
{{charmap | 0053 | 0073 | FF33 | FF53 | name1 = Latin Capital Letter S | name2
= Latin Small Letter S | name3 = FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S | name4 =
FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER S | map2 = ASCII[Also for encodings based on
ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of
encodings.] | map2char1 = 53 | map2char2 = 73 }}
*** Other representations
{{Letter other reps |NATO=Sierra |Morse=··· |Character=S |Braille=⠎
|fingerspelling=S }} [clear]
** See also
- Cool S
- Ⓢ in Enclosed Alphanumerics
** Notes
[Notelist]
** References
[Reflist]
** External links
- [S]
- [S]
- [s]
- [short=x]
[S]
Category:ISO basic Latin letters