A few years ago, it seems like most of the people that sat around us in church had a name that began with the letter “J.” There were a couple Johns, Jims, Jimmy, James, etc. We used to joke that if your name didn’t begin with a J you couldn’t sit in “our” section.
Well, it’s lucky we were living in modern times. If we’d been going to church before 1524, the letter J would not even have existed — 1524 — that’s when the letter J was “invented.”
Out alphabet wasn’t always the way it is now. Letters have been removed and some have been added over the years. The most recent addition, and the last letter added to our alphabet was the letter “J” in 1524. It turns out that the letters I and J started out as the same character. The letter J began as a swash — a typographical embellishment for the letter I which already existed. When lower case letters were introduced to the Roman numbering system, J was commonly used to denote the conclusion of a series of ones — like “Henry vijj” for Henry the Eighth. Both I and J were used interchangeably to express the sound of both the vowel and the consonant. Then in 1524, Gian Giorgio Trissino, an Italian grammarian argued for poor letter J’s autonomy. Until Trissino stood up, both I and J were used interchangeably by scribes to express the sound of both the vowel and the consonant. Trissino’s stand made him known as the father of the letter J.
By now this discussion has probably got you wondering about Jesus and all those other “J” names in the Bible. If the J didn’t come along until the 16th century, how did all those J names — Joseph, James, Jonah, Joshua, Job, Jehovah, etc. — get in the Bible? None of the people that lived in biblical times spoke English. The names are all anglicized versions of names that started out, for the most part, as Hebrew names. For example, Joshua and Isaiah are derived from the Hebrew name Yeshua.
So where would we be without the letter J — this blog, “What Would Jimmy Do?” would have to be what would someone else do… even though J is the baby of the English alphabet, I’m glad it finally got the recognition it deserves.
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