N, or n, is the fourteenth 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 en (pronounced /ˈɛn/), plural ens.[1]
One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like the English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet. It is speculated by many[who?] that Semitic speakers working in Egypt adapted hieroglyphics to create the first alphabet, and that they used the same snake symbol to represent N, because their word for "snake" may have begun with that sound. However, the name for the letter in the Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic alphabets is nun, which means "fish" in some of these languages. The sound value of the letter was /n/—as in Greek, Etruscan, Latin, and modern languages.
In English, ⟨n⟩ usually represents a voiced alveolar nasal /n/, but can represent other nasal consonants due to assimilation. For example, before a velar plosive (as in ink or jungle), ⟨n⟩ represents a voiced velar nasal /ŋ/.
⟨n⟩ is generally silent when it is preceded by an ⟨m⟩ at the end of words, as in hymn; however, it is pronounced in this combination when occurring word medially, as in hymnal.
On the other hand, other consonants are often silent when they precede an ⟨n⟩ at the beginning of an English word. Examples include gnome, knife, mnemonic, and pneumonia.
⟨n⟩ is the sixth-most common letter and the second-most commonly used consonant in the English language (after ⟨t⟩).[2]