From I to J to Y
By Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
And ‘Y’ not, I like playing with language!
The thing is these letters are related, and not just because they are in the English alphabet. Here is Wikipedia on the subject.
Letter ‘I’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I
In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative (/ʕ/) in Egyptian, but was reassigned to /j/ (as in English “yes”) by Semites, because their word for “arm” began with that sound.
Letter ‘J’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J
Originally, ‘I’ and ‘J’ were different shapes for the same letter,
Letter ‘Y’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y
Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh if including W) vowel letter of the English alphabet.
In the English writing system, it mostly represents a vowel and seldom a consonant, and in other orthographies it may represent a vowel or a consonant. Its name in English is wye[2] (pronounced /ˈwaɪ/), plural wyes.
‘Wye’ sounding like ‘why?’, a question, leading to plural ‘wyes’ or ‘whys’ sounding like ‘wise’. Asking questions (and taking on board the answers) leads to becoming wise.
As a side note the Wye is also a river in the UK, there is a photo that I took a few years ago from Symonds Yat at the bottom of this post.
The article goes on:
In Modern English, Y can represent the same vowel sounds as the letter I. The use of the letter Y to represent a vowel is more restricted in Modern English than it was in Middle and early Modern English. It occurs mainly in the following three environments: for upsilon in Greek loan-words (system: Greek σύστημα), at the end of a word (rye, city; compare cities, where S is final), and in place of I before the ending -ing (dy-ing, justify-ing).
So consider this, try replacing the ‘Y’ with the ‘J’ and ‘I’ in front of the word ‘in’
I in – this is saying ‘I am inside’ something. Typically this would be darker than being outside something.
J in or jin – a jin, but normally spelled ‘jinn’ or even ‘djin’ is a spirit or genie. One might consider this as something unseen so in the dark such as inside Aladdin’s Lamp.
Y in or yin – yin is yīn 陰 meaning “dark side” in Chinese.
The article continues:
Confusion in writing with the letter thorn
When printing was introduced to Great Britain, Caxton and other English printers used Y in place of Þ (thorn: Modern English th), which did not exist in continental typefaces. From this convention comes the spelling of the as ye in the mock archaism Ye Olde Shoppe. But, in spite of the spelling, pronunciation was the same as for modern the (stressed /ðiː/, unstressed /ðə/). Pronouncing the article ye as yee (/jiː/) is purely a modern spelling pronunciation.
Note ‘Y’ and ‘Th’, ‘Ye’ and ‘The’.
But is there more to it than that? For example, try the letters in front of the word ‘am’.
I am
J am
Y am
Or from I am to Jam to Yam.
‘I am’ is to exist, ‘jam’ is a sweet, soft food made by cooking fruit with sugar to preserve it, and a ‘yam’ is a potato-like root from a tropical climbing plant that can be eaten. In fact the word yam derives from verbs meaning ‘to eat’ according to Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable)
We can see the links, that for our bodies to exist we need food, and jams and yams are food.
How about the name of Jesus? These are all used in languages to mean Jesus.
Iesus – I note an anagram is ‘issue’
Jesus – I note an anagram is ‘se jus’ which is in essence ‘himself juice’ from the French
Yesus – I note an anagram is ‘yes us’
So as regard Jesus Christ, we can have Jesus as the ‘issue’ from His Father, the Son.
He came to the Jews, which sounds rather like ‘juice’!!
Or perhaps He was ‘squeezed out and juiced’ as he poured Himself out for people!
And finally Jesus is the head of the body of Christ, His church, ‘yes, us’!!!
And of course as the bible says if we are in Christ then as he is recorded as saying “For where two or three gather together in my name, there am I with them.”
Some final thoughts.
The ‘I’ is like the ego, the beginning of a soul, a human being. It represents in its simplest picture form a standing person, something a child might draw, a stick figure.
It also represents the number ‘1’, the starting point of numbers.
It also sounds like ‘eye’, the eye being the lamp of the soul which reveals a person’s character.
‘I’ also sounds like ‘aye’ as in ‘yes’, which leads us to the ‘y’ again and Yesus.
The ‘J’ is like a hook or anchor, Jesus is the fisher of men and the anchor in the storms of life.
The ‘Y’ is the lifting up of arms in prayer and thanks such as Moses who lifted up his arms in the fight against the Amekalites as recorded in Exodus.
The victory was won because Moses arms were kept raised by Aaron his brother and someone called Hur.
The ‘Y’ is also like a glass that can be filled with the Holy Spirit when we give thanks in all circumstances, what has been called counting our blessings even if they seem few and far between.
This is what leads to victory in life, the giving of thanks to both God and people.
So there you have it, some links between I, J and Y. This is language for you and it’s all there, the truth hidden away to be revealed.
It’s all in the letters and words.
And in the beginning was the Word…
P.S. Here are photos of an ‘I’ a ‘J’ and the ‘Y’!
If language is your thing, you might like to read this, a page on my site. I may turn it into a post one day.
In Dutch the last three letters of the alphabet are X - IJ - Z. For a capital IJ the I is written shorter, and placed on top of the curve of the J. We also use the I, the J, the Y in our language. Dutch typewriters, in much older days, had the "ij" on the keyboard. However, in dictionaries there was a small number of words starting with Y at the end, and words starting with an IJ were placed under the letter I. I remember as a child thinking this was rather dishonest.
As you can see my name has the letter IJ in it. I have to be careful when writing that on official forms in the US - making it into two letters, I and J. Otherwise my name will be written with a U (at the end).
Interesting analysis! Eye have always been a "whys" one, and as a musician, AYE like to JAM!
Going now to read about "m"!