F

F, or f, is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and many modern alphabets influenced by it, including the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of all other modern western European languages. Its name in English is efTemplate:Efn (pronounced Template:IPAc-en), and the plural is efs.<ref>"F", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); "ef", "eff", "bee" (under "bee eff"), op. cit.</ref>

History

Proto-Sinaitic	Phoenician waw	Western Greek Digamma	Etruscan V or W	Latin F
File:Proto-semiticW-01.svg	File:PhoenicianW-01.svg	File:Greek Digamma 02.svg	File:EtruscanF-01.svg	Latin F

The origin of ⟨F⟩ is the Semitic letter waw, which represented a sound like Template:IPA or Template:IPA. It probably originally 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)): <hiero>T3</hiero>

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 Template:IPA, as in Phoenician. Latin ⟨F⟩, despite being pronounced differently, is ultimately descended from digamma and closely resembles it in form.

After sound changes eliminated Template:IPA from most dialects of Greek (Doric Greek retained it), 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 Template:IPA, as in Greek, and the Etruscans formed the digraph ⟨FH⟩ to represent Template:IPA. (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 Template:IPA, although in Modern Greek it has come to represent Template:IPA.) The Etruscan digraph may have been inspired by the rare use of ⟨ϜΗ⟩ in archaic Greek inscriptions for a dialectal sound like Template:IPAblink, e.g. in the reflexive pronoun ϜΗΕ, which corresponds to Classical ἕ hé.<ref>Compare: Template:Cite book</ref> When the Romans adopted the alphabet, they used ⟨V⟩ (from Greek upsilon) not only for the vowel Template:IPA, but also for the corresponding semivowel Template:IPA, leaving ⟨F⟩ available for Template:IPA. Initially, ⟨FH⟩ was also used for this sound in Latin, but the ⟨H⟩ was soon dropped. 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

English

In the English writing system Template:Angbr is used to represent the sound Template:IPAc-en, the voiceless labiodental fricative. It is often doubled at the end of words. Exceptionally, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative Template:IPAc-en 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, Template:Angbr commonly represents Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA.

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

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses Template:Angbr IPA to represent the voiceless labiodental fricative.

Other uses

• 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 Template:Mvar is conventionally used to denote an arbitrary function. Closely on f with hook (ƒ).
• A bold italic letter Template:Serif is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "loud or strong". It stands for the Italian word forte.<ref name="harvard">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="vtf">Template:Cite web</ref>
• 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 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Related characters

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

• F with diacritics:
  • Ƒ ƒ
  • Ḟ ḟ
  • ᵮ <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • ᶂ<ref name="L204132">Template:Cite web</ref>
  • Ꞙ ꞙ : F with stroke is used in the Anthropos phonetic transcription system<ref name="L211202" /><ref>Template:Cite work</ref> and older Ewe writing<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• ꬵ : Lenis F is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system<ref name="L211202">Template:Cite web</ref>
• ^f: Superscript "f", encoded as Template:Unichar in the Phonetic Extensions Supplement block of Unicode, is used in some forms of the International Phonetic Alphabet.<ref name="L204132" />
• ꜰ : Small capital F was used in the Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise to mark gemination<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• ꟳ : Modifier letter capital F<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> – 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<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• ꟻ : Reversed F was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for Template:Lang (daughter) or Template:Lang (woman)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Ⅎ ⅎ : Claudian letters<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 𐤅: Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive:
  • Ϝ ϝ : Greek letter Digamma, from which F derives:
    • 𐌅 : 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
• Template:Not a typo : degree Fahrenheit
• F : Fluorine, a chemical element uses the symbol F

Other representations

Computing

These are the code points for the forms of the letter in various systems: Template:Charmap

External links

• Template:Commons-inline
• Template:Wiktionary-inline
• Template:Wiktionary-inline