I or i is the ninth letter and the third vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is i (pronounced ), plural ies.
Name
In English, the name of the letter is the "long I" sound, pronounced . In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables.
History
In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative (/ʕ/) in Egyptian, but was reassigned to /j/ (as in English "yes") by Semites because their word for "arm" began with that sound. This letter could also be used to represent ...