F Explained

F
Letter:	F f
Script:	Latin script
Type:	Alphabet
Typedesc:	ic
Language:	Latin language
Unicode:	U+0046 U+0066
Alphanumber:	6
Number:	6, 15
Fam1:	T3
Fam5:	Ϝ ϝ ϛ
Usageperiod:	~−700 to present
Associates:	f(x)
Direction:	Left-to-right

F, or f, is the sixth 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 ef (pronounced), and the plural is efs.^[1]

History

The origin of 'F' is the Semitic letter waw that represented a sound like pronounced as //v// or pronounced as //w//. Graphically it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club. It may have been based on a comparable Egyptian hieroglyph such as that which represented the word mace (transliterated as ḥ(dj)): T3

The Phoenician form of the letter was adopted into Greek as a vowel, upsilon (which resembled its descendant 'Y' but was also the ancestor of the Roman letters 'U', 'V', and 'W'); and, with another form, as a consonant, digamma, which indicated the pronunciation pronounced as //w//, as in Phoenician. Latin 'F,' despite being pronounced differently, is ultimately descended from digamma and closely resembles it in form.

After sound changes eliminated pronounced as //w// from spoken Greek, digamma was used only as a numeral. However, the Greek alphabet also gave rise to other alphabets, and some of these retained letters descended from digamma. In the Etruscan alphabet, 'F' probably represented pronounced as //w//, as in Greek, and the Etruscans formed the digraph 'FH' to represent pronounced as //f//. (At the time these letters were borrowed, there was no Greek letter that represented /f/: the Greek letter phi 'Φ' then represented an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive pronounced as //p^h//, although in Modern Greek it has come to represent pronounced as //f//.) When the Romans adopted the alphabet, they used 'V' (from Greek upsilon) not only for the vowel pronounced as //u//, but also for the corresponding semivowel pronounced as //w//, leaving 'F' available for pronounced as //f//. And so out of the various vav variants in the Mediterranean world, the letter F entered the Roman alphabet attached to a sound which the Greeks did not have. The Roman alphabet forms the basis of the alphabet used today for English and many other languages.

The lowercase 'f' is not related to the visually similar long s, 'ſ' (or medial s). The use of the long s largely died out by the beginning of the 19th century, mostly to prevent confusion with 'f' when using a short mid-bar.

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of (f) by language! Orthography! Phonemes

(Pinyin)	pronounced as /link/
English	pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/
French	pronounced as /link/, silent
German	pronounced as /link/
	pronounced as /link/
Spanish	pronounced as /link/
Turkish	pronounced as /link/

English

In the English writing system (f) is used to represent the sound, the voiceless labiodental fricative. It is often doubled at the end of words. Exceptionally, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative in the common word "of" and its derivatives.

F is the eleventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after G, Y, P, B, V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 2.23% in words.

Other languages

In the writing systems of other languages, (f) commonly represents pronounced as //f//, pronounced as /[ɸ]/ or pronounced as //v//.

• In French orthography, (f) is used to represent pronounced as //f//. It may also be silent at the end of words.
• In Spanish orthography, (f) is used to represent pronounced as //f//.
• In Esperanto orthography, (f) is used to represent pronounced as //f//.
• In the Hepburn romanization of Japanese, (f) is used to represent pronounced as /[ɸ]/. This sound is usually considered to be an allophone of pronounced as //h//, which is pronounced in different ways depending upon its context; Japanese pronounced as //h// is pronounced as pronounced as /[ɸ]/ before pronounced as //u//.
• In Welsh orthography, (f) represents pronounced as //v// while (ff) represents pronounced as //f//.
• In Slavic languages, (f) is used primarily in words of foreign (Hellenic, Romance, or Germanic) origin.
• In spoken Icelandic, (f) in the middle of a word is often voiced to pronounced as /[v]/ (e.g., Að sofa – to sleep).

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses (IPA|f) to represent the voiceless labiodental fricative.

Other uses

See main article: article and F (disambiguation).

• In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, F is a number that corresponds to the number 15 in decimal (base 10) counting.
• The italic letter is conventionally used to denote an arbitrary function. Closely on f with hook (ƒ).
• A bold italic letter is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "loud or strong". It stands for the Italian word forte.^{[2] [3]}
• In countries such as the United States, the letter "F" is defined as a failure in terms of academic evaluation. Other countries that use this system include Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the Netherlands.
• The letter F has become an Internet meme, where it is used to pay respects. This use is derived from the 2014 video game , where in a quick-time event, protagonist Jack Mitchell must pay his respects to his friend Will Irons who fell in combat in a previous mission, represented by the player pressing F when playing the PC version. People on the Internet use the letter F sometimes in a genuine way to express respect, sadness, or condolences towards other Internet personalities, Internet memes, or other players on certain events.^[4]

Related characters

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

• F with diacritics:
  • Ƒ ƒ
  • Ḟ ḟ
  • ᵮ ^[5]
  • ᶂ^[6]
  • Ꞙ ꞙ : F with stroke is used in the Anthropos phonetic transcription system^[7] and older Ewe writing^[8]
• ꬵ : Lenis F is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system^[9]
• ^f: Superscript "f", encoded as in the Phonetic Extensions Supplement block of Unicode, is used in some forms of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
• ꜰ : Small capital F was used in the Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise to mark gemination^[10]
• ꟳ : Modifier letter capital F^[11] – Used to mark tone for the Chatino orthography in Oaxaca, Mexico; Used as a generic transcription for a falling tone; used in para-IPA notation.
• Ꝼ ꝼ : Insular F is used in Norse and Old English contexts^[12]
• ꟻ : Reversed F was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for Latin: filia (daughter) or Latin: femina (woman)^[13]
• Ⅎ ⅎ : Claudian letters^[14]
• : Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive:
  • Ϝ ϝ : Greek letter Digamma, from which F derives:
    • : Old Italic V/F (originally used for V, in languages such as Etruscan and Oscan), which derives from Greek Digamma, and is the ancestor of modern Latin F
    • Y y : Latin letter Y, sharing its roots with F
    • V v : Latin letter V, also sharing its roots with F
      • U u : Latin letter U, which is descended from V
      • W w : Latin letter W, also descended from V

Ligatures and abbreviations

• ₣ : French franc, Latin capital letter F with stroke
• : degree Fahrenheit
• F : Fluorine, a chemical element uses the symbol F

Other representations

Computing

Other

Notes and References

1. "F", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); "ef", "eff", "bee" (under "bee eff"), op. cit.
2. Book: Randel, Don Michael . Don Michael Randel . Harvard University Press Reference Library . Cambridge, MA . 2003 . The Harvard Dictionary of Music . 4th .
3. Web site: Forte . Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary . 19 March 2012 . 20 October 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141020105236/http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/textf/Forte.html . dead .
4. News: Press F to pay respects . Know Your Meme . 20 December 2014 . 15 March 2020 .
5. Web site: L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS . 2003-09-30 . Peter . Constable .
6. Web site: L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS . 2004-04-19 . Peter . Constable .
7. de . Martin . Heepe . Lautzeichen und ihre Anwendung in verschiedenen Sprachgebieten . Berlin . Reichsdruckerei . 1928 .
8. Web site: Latin Extended-D .
9. Web site: L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS . 2011-06-02 . Michael . Everson . Alois. Dicklberger . Karl . Pentzlin . Eveline . Wandl-Vogt .
10. Web site: L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS . 2006-01-30 . Michael . Everson . Peter . Baker . António . Emiliano . Florian . Grammel . Odd Einar . Haugen . Diana . Luft . Susana . Pedro . Gerd . Schumacher . Andreas . Stötzner .
11. Web site: L2/20-251: Unicode request for modifier Latin capital letters. 2020-09-25. Kirk. Miller. Craig. Cornelius.
12. Web site: L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS . 2006-08-06 . Michael . Everson .
13. Web site: L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS . 2006-08-01 . David J. . Perry .
14. Web site: L2/05-193R2: Proposal to add Claudian Latin letters to the UCS . 2005-08-12 . Michael . Everson .