N
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the letter N. For the Flash game, see N (game).
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The letter N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is en /ɛn/.
Semitic Nûn was probably the picture of a snake; the sound value of the letter was /n/ - as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin and all modern languages. Greek name: Nυ, Ny.
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History of the form
The most common snake hieroglyphic was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English 'J', because the Egyptian word for snake was "djet". It is speculated that Semitic people working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for 'snake' may have begun with that sound.
| Egyptian hieroglyph for 'J' | Proto-Semitic N | Phoenician N | Etruscan N | Greek Nu | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Usage
N serves as a dental or alveolar nasal in virtually all languages that use the Latin alphabet. A common digraph with N is NG, which produces a velar nasal in a variety of languages, usually final in English. In languages like Italian and French, GN represents a palatal nasal (/ɲ/). In English, n is silent when it is preceded by an m, in words like hymn (although it is pronounced in words such as damnation). Aspirated forms NH and NGH are sometimes seen in other languages.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the lowercase [n] represents the alveolar nasal sound. A small capital [ɴ] represents the uvular nasal.
N is the second-most commonly used consonant in the English language (after T).
Codes for computing
| NATO phonetic | Morse code | ||
| November | |||
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| Signal flag | Semaphore | ASL Manual | Braille |
In Unicode the capital N is codepoint U+004E and the lowercase n is U+006E.
The ASCII code for capital N is 78 and for lowercase n is 110; or in binary 01001110 and 01101110, correspondingly.
The EBCDIC code for capital N is 213 and for lowercase a is 149.
The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "N" and "n" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for N
- In astronomy,
- N stands for a reddish class of stars, M carbon stars.
- N stands for the planet Neptune; for example, S/2002 N 4 is the fourth satellite of Neptune sighted in 2002.
- N stands for a July 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g. C/1825 N1, Comet Pons) or asteroid (e.g. (5387) 1980 NB).
- In biochemistry, N is the symbol for asparagine
- In calendars, N is often an abbreviation for the month November
- In chemistry,
- N is the symbol for Nitrogen.
- N can denote a measure of purity, referring to the number of nines after the comma. So a substance of purity 3N is 0.999 pure, while a substance of purity 6N is 0.999999 pure.
- n can be used to denote number of moles.
- N can be used to denote Normality, a measure of concentration
- In computer science and set theory, n is frequently used as a generic counting number
- in chess, N is a notation symbol for the knight piece, as the letter K is used for the king.
- In driving a motor vehicle, N designates the neutral gear of a transmission
- In electronics, N stands for a type of RF connector
- In finance, N is the U.S. ticker symbol for Inco Limited
- In Japanese, N is a romanization of the kana ん and ン.
- In international licence plate codes, N stands for Norway
- In mathematics
- n can denote "number of" in algebraic equations.
- blackboard bold
represents the set of all natural numbers. - In the 1995 Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (a printed predecessor to the OEIS) sequences were numbered by lexicographic order prefixed by the letter N. Some older mathematical papers use these N numbers.
- In the metric system,
- N is the symbol for the newton, the SI derived unit for force (physics)
- n, nano, is the SI prefix meaning 10-9
- In Microsoft Windows, Ctrl-N, and Mac OS, Command-N, creates a new document, a new window or a new folder.
- In particle physics,
- In physics,
- n is the recommended symbol for: refractive index (optics), principal quantum number (atomic and nuclear physics), order of reflexion, electron number density (solid state physics), amount of substance (chemical physics)
- N is the recommended symbol for: number of molecules (molecular physics), number of turns (electricity and magnetism), neutron number (atomic and nuclear physics), quantum number of total angular momentum (molecular spectroscopy)
- As the first letter of a postal code,
- In Canada, N stands for Western Ontario.
- In the United Kingdom, N stands for North London.
- In radio communication, N is one of the ITU prefixes allocated to the United States. Call signs beginning with N are generally used by U.S. Navy radio stations, as well as civilian aircraft.
- In route numbering, N may be used as a prefix,
- In the Republic of Ireland, standing for a National Primary Route or National Secondary Route.
- In South Africa, standing for a national road.
- In statistics, n is the size of a sample.
- In video games, N is the abbreviation for Nintendo. N is also the name of a Macromedia Flash game.
- In weather forecasting and geography, N stands for north, one of the 4 cardinal directions.
- When displayed on the back of a vehicle in British Columbia, N means a novice driver.
See also
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