F

This article is about the letter of the alphabet. For other uses, see F (disambiguation). Not to be confused with the long s, ſ.

F
F f

Usage
Writing system | Latin script
Type | Alphabetic
Language of origin | Latin language

Sound values

[f]

[ɸ~h]

[v]

[ʍ~xʷ]

/ɛf/

In Unicode | U+0046 U+0066
Alphabetical position | 6
History

Development

Ϝ ϝ ϛ

𐌅

F f

Time period | c. 700 BCE to present

Descendants

Ḟ

₣

℉

ꟻ

ꬵ

𝆑

Sisters

U

V

W

Y

Ʊ

Ϝ

У

Ў

Ұ

Υ

ו, וּ, וֹ, ﻭ, ۋ, ܘ

ࠅ

𐎆

𐌖

Վ վ

Ո ո

Ւ ւ

և

Transliterations

U

V

W

Y

Other
Associated graphs | f(x)
Associated numbers | 6, 15
Writing direction | Left-to-right

ISO basic
Latin alphabet

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz

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 ef[a] (pronounced /ˈɛf/ ⓘ), and the plural is efs.[1]

History

Proto-Sinaitic

Phoenician
waw

Western Greek
Digamma

Etruscan
V or W

Latin
F

| | | |

The origin of ⟨F⟩ is the Semitic letter waw, which represented a sound like /v/ or /w/. 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)):

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 /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 /w/ 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 /w/, as in Greek, and the Etruscans formed the digraph ⟨FH⟩ to represent /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 /ph/, although in Modern Greek it has come to represent /f/.) The Etruscan digraph may have been inspired by the rare use of ⟨ϜΗ⟩ in archaic Greek inscriptions for a dialectal sound like [ʍ], e.g. in the reflexive pronoun ϜΗΕ, which corresponds to Classical ἕ hé (see Ancient Greek phonology § Semivowels).[2]

When the Romans adopted the alphabet, they used ⟨V⟩ (from Greek upsilon) not only for the vowel /u/, but also for the corresponding semivowel /w/, leaving ⟨F⟩ available for /f/. 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

Pronunciation of ⟨f⟩ by language

Orthography | Phonemes
Catalan | /f/
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) | /f/
English | /f/, /v/
French | /f/, silent
German | /f/
Portuguese | /f/
Spanish | /f/
Turkish | /f/

English

In the English writing system ⟨f⟩ is used to represent the sound /f/, the voiceless labiodental fricative. It is often doubled at the end of words. Exceptionally, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ 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 /f/, [ɸ] or /v/.

In French orthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent /f/. It may also be silent at the end of words.

In Spanish orthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent /f/.

In Esperanto orthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent /f/.

In the Hepburn romanization of Japanese, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent [ɸ]. This sound is usually considered to be an allophone of /h/, which is pronounced in different ways depending upon its context; Japanese /h/ is pronounced as [ɸ] before /u/.

In Welsh orthography, ⟨f⟩ represents /v/ while ⟨ff⟩ represents /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 [v] (e.g., Að sofa – to sleep).

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨f⟩ to represent the voiceless labiodental fricative.

Other uses

Main article: 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 f is conventionally used to denote an arbitrary function. Closely on f with hook (ƒ).

A bold italic letter f is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "loud or strong". It stands for the Italian word forte.[3][4]

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.[5]

Related characters

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

F with diacritics:

Ƒ ƒ

Ḟ ḟ

ᵮ [6]

ᶂ[7]

Ꞙ ꞙ : F with stroke is used in the Anthropos phonetic transcription system[8][9] and older Ewe writing[10]

ꬵ : Lenis F is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system[8]

f: Superscript "f", encoded as U+1DA0 ᶠ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL F in the Phonetic Extensions Supplement block of Unicode, is used in some forms of the International Phonetic Alphabet.[7]

ꜰ : Small capital F was used in the Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise to mark gemination[11]

ꟳ : Modifier letter capital F[12] – 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[13]

ꟻ : Reversed F was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for filia (daughter) or femina (woman)[14]

Ⅎ ⅎ : Claudian letters[15]

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

℉ : 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:

Character information

Preview | F | f | Ｆ | ｆ
Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F | LATIN SMALL LETTER F | FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F | FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER F
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex
Unicode | 70 | U+0046 | 102 | U+0066 | 65318 | U+FF26 | 65350 | U+FF46
UTF-8 | 70 | 46 | 102 | 66 | 239 188 166 | EF BC A6 | 239 189 134 | EF BD 86
Numeric character reference | &#70; | &#x46; | &#102; | &#x66; | &#65318; | &#xFF26; | &#65350; | &#xFF46;
EBCDIC family | 198 | C6 | 134 | 86 | | | |
ASCII[b] | 70 | 46 | 102 | 66 | | | |

Other

NATO phonetic | Morse code

Foxtrot

▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ⓘ

Signal flag

Flag semaphore

American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)

British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)

Braille dots-124
Unified English Braille

Notes

^ Spelled eff when used as a verb.

^ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

References

^ "F", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); "ef", "eff", "bee" (under "bee eff"), op. cit.

^ Compare: Bartoněk, Antonín (1961). Development of the consonantal system in ancient Greek dialects. p. 142.

^ Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Reference Library.

^ "Forte". Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Archived from the original on 20 October 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2012.

^ "Press F to pay respects". Know Your Meme. 20 December 2014. Retrieved 15 March 2020.

^ Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF).

^ a b Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).

^ a b Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF).

^ Heepe, Martin (1928). Lautzeichen und ihre Anwendung in verschiedenen Sprachgebieten (in German). Berlin: Reichsdruckerei.

^ "Latin Extended-D" (PDF).

^ Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-30). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF).

^ Miller, Kirk; Cornelius, Craig (2020-09-25). "L2/20-251: Unicode request for modifier Latin capital letters" (PDF).

^ Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS" (PDF).

^ Perry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF).

^ Everson, Michael (2005-08-12). "L2/05-193R2: Proposal to add Claudian Latin letters to the UCS" (PDF).

External links

Media related to F at Wikimedia Commons

The dictionary definition of F at Wiktionary

The dictionary definition of f at Wiktionary

Latin script

History

Spread

Romanization

Roman numerals

Ligatures

Alphabets (list)

Classical Latin alphabet

ISO basic Latin alphabet

Phonetic alphabets

International Phonetic Alphabet

X-SAMPA

Spelling alphabet

Letters (list)

Letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet

Aa | Bb | Cc | Dd | Ee | Ff | Gg | Hh | Ii | Jj | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Qq | Rr | Ss | Tt | Uu | Vv | Ww | Xx | Yy | Zz

Additional Latin letters

Æ æ | Ɑ ɑ | Ʌ ʌ | Ꞵ ꞵ | Ð ð | Ɛ ɛ | Ə ə | Ǝ ə | Ɣ ɣ | Ƣ ƣ | Ɩ ɩ | Ɥ ɥ | Ꟛ ꟛ | Ŋ ŋ | Œ œ | Ɔ ɔ | Ɤ ɤ | Kʼ ĸ | Ʀ ʀ | ẞ ß | Ʃ ʃ | Ɯ ɯ | Ʊ ʊ | Ꞷ ꞷ | Ʋ ʋ | Ƿ ƿ
Ȝ ȝ | ϴ θ | Ʒ ʒ | Ƹ ƹ | Þ þ | Ȣ ȣ | Ꭓ ꭓ | Ɂ ʔ ɂ | ꟎ ʕ ꟏ | ǀ | ǁ | ǂ | ǃ | ʘ | ʻ | ʼ | Ꞌ ꞌ | 3 | Ꜫ ꜫ | Ꜭ ꜭ | 7 | | | | |

Letter F with diacritics

Ḟḟ | F́f́ | Ƒƒ | Ꞙꞙ | ᵮ | ᶂ | ꟻ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Multigraphs

Digraphs

Ch

Dz

Dž

Gh

IJ

Lj

Ll

Ly

Nh

Nj

Ny

Sh

Sz

Th

Trigraphs

dzs

eau

Tetragraphs

ough

Keyboard layouts (list)

QWERTY

QWERTZ

AZERTY

Dvorak

Colemak

BÉPO

Neo

Historical standards

ISO/IEC 646

Western Latin character sets

Current standards

Unicode

DIN 91379: Unicode subset for Europe

Lists

Precomposed Latin characters in Unicode

Letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering

List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks

Diacritics

Palaeography

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