J, the Sütterlin letter j

History

The letter J is the 10th letter of the German alphabet. Phonetically, it represents a palatal approximant /j/, corresponding to the consonant sound of English 'yes' or German 'Jahr'.

Sütterlin lowercase j features an upright middle stroke descending into a round loop below the baseline, with a dot above. Unlike older Kurrent, Sütterlin introduced a clear graphical distinction for capital J by extending its stem down into the lower zone as a true descender loop.

The letter j is common in calendar dates ('Januar', 'Juni', 'Juli'), given names ('Johann', 'Josef', 'Jakob'), and temporal markers ('Jahr', 'jetzt'). Recognizing its descender loop distinguishes it from middle-zone vowels in cursive script.

J shares its origin with i: the Etruscans used one sign both for the vowel i and for the semivowel j,^[1] and the Romans kept that use unchanged.^[2] In late antiquity the semivowel became a voiced affricate, dzh, in most varieties of Latin,^[3] yet the sounds were still written with the same sign until early modern times.^[4]