| S | |
| Letter: | S s |
| Variations: | ſ |
| Script: | Latin script |
| Type: | Alphabet |
| Typedesc: | ic and logographic |
| Language: | Latin language |
| Unicode: | U+0053, U+0073 |
| Alphanumber: | 19 |
| Fam1: | |
| Fam6: | Σ σ ς |
| Fam7: | ς |
| Usageperiod: | ~−700 to present |
| Associates: | s(x), sh, sz |
| Direction: | Left-to-right |
S, or s, is the nineteenth 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 ess (pronounced), plural esses.[1]
Ancient Greek did not have a pronounced as //ʃ// "sh" phoneme, so the derived Greek letter Sigma (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Σ) came to represent the voiceless alveolar sibilant pronounced as //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. Within Greek, the name of sigma was influenced by its association with the Greek word Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: σίζω (earlier), "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 pronounced as //s// of Greek sigma was maintained, while san represented a separate phoneme, most likely pronounced as //ʃ// "sh" (transliterated as ś). The early Latin alphabet adopted sigma, but not san, as Old Latin did not have a pronounced as //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, and appears with four to eight strokes in the earliest runic inscriptions, but is occasionally reduced to three strokes from the later 5th century, and appears regularly with three strokes in Younger Futhark.
The (sh) digraph for English pronounced as //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.
See main article: 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.
| (Pinyin) | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|
| English | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, silent | |
| French | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, silent | |
| German | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | |
| Portuguese | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | |
| Spanish | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Turkish | pronounced as /link/ |
In English, (s) represents a voiceless alveolar sibilant pronounced as //s//. It also commonly represents a voiced alveolar sibilant pronounced as //z//, as in 'rose' and 'bands'. Due to yod-coalescence, it may also represent a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative pronounced as //ʃ//, as in 'sugar', or a voiced palato-alveolar fricative pronounced as //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]
In German, (s) represents:
When doubled ((ss)), it represents a voiceless alveolar sibilant pronounced as //s//, as in 'müssen'.
In the digraph (sch), it represents a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative pronounced as //ʃ//, as in 'schon'.
In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, (s) represents the voiceless alveolar or voiceless dental sibilant pronounced as //s//.
In many Romance languages, it also represents the voiced alveolar or voiced dental sibilant pronounced as //z//, as in Portuguese mesa (table).
In Portuguese, it may represent the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative pronounced as //ʃ// in most dialects when syllable-final, and pronounced as /[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 pronounced as //θ//.
In Hungarian, it represents pronounced as //ʃ//.
In Turkmen, it represents pronounced as //θ//.
In several Western Romance languages, like Spanish and French, the final (s) is the usual mark of plural nouns.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, (s) represents the voiceless alveolar sibilant pronounced as //s//.
See main article: article and S (disambiguation).
Gothic letter sigil