Iota

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Iota /ˈtə/ (uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; Greek: ιώτα) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh.[1] Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and Je (Ј, ј), and iotated letters (e.g. Yu (Ю, ю)).

In the system of Greek numerals, iota has a value of 10.[2]

Iota represents the sound [i]. In early forms of ancient Greek, it occurred in both long [iː] and short [i] versions, but this distinction was lost in Koine Greek.[3]

Iota participated as the second element in falling diphthongs, with both long and short vowels as the first element. Where the first element was long, the iota was lost in pronunciation at an early date, and was written in polytonic orthography as iota subscript, in other words as a very small ι under the main vowel. Examples include ᾼ ᾳ ῌ ῃ ῼ ῳ. The former diphthongs became digraphs for simple vowels in Koine Greek.[3]

The word is used in a common English phrase, "not one iota", meaning "not the slightest amount", in reference to a phrase in the New Testament (Matthew 5:18): "until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, (King James Version: '[not] one jot or one tittle') will pass from the Law until all is accomplished". (Mt 5:18)[4] This refers to iota, the smallest letter, or possibly Yodh, י, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

The word 'jot' (or iot) derives from iota.[5]

The German, Portuguese, and Spanish name for the letter J (Jot / jota) is derived from iota.

Symbol[edit]

  • In some programming languages (e.g., A+, APL, C++[6], Go[7]), iota (either as the lowercase symbol or the identifier iota) is used to represent and generate an array of consecutive integers. For example, in APL ⍳4 gives 1 2 3 4.
  • The lowercase iota symbol is sometimes used to write the imaginary unit, but more often Roman i or j is used.
  • In mathematics, the inclusion map of one space into another is sometimes denoted by the lowercase iota.
  • In logic, the lowercase iota denotes the definite descriptor.
  • The lowercase iota symbol has Unicode code point U+03B9 and the uppercase U+0399.

Character encodings[edit]

Character Ι ι
Unicode name GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA MODIFIER LETTER SMALL IOTA TURNED GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 921 U+0399 953 U+03B9 7589 U+1DA5 8489 U+2129
UTF-8 206 153 CE 99 206 185 CE B9 225 182 165 E1 B6 A5 226 132 169 E2 84 A9
Numeric character reference Ι Ι ι ι ᶥ ᶥ ℩ ℩
Named character reference Ι ι
DOS Greek 136 88 160 A0
DOS Greek-2 173 AD 227 E3
Windows 1253 201 C9 233 E9
TeX \iota
Character ͺ ͅ
Unicode name GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI COMBINING GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI GREEK PROSGEGRAMMENI
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 890 U+037A 837 U+0345 8126 U+1FBE
UTF-8 205 186 CD BA 205 133 CD 85 225 190 190 E1 BE BE
Numeric character reference ͺ ͺ ͅ ͅ ι ι
  • Coptic Iaude
Character
Unicode name COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER IAUDE COPTIC SMALL LETTER IAUDE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 11410 U+2C92 11411 U+2C93
UTF-8 226 178 146 E2 B2 92 226 178 147 E2 B2 93
Numeric character reference Ⲓ Ⲓ ⲓ ⲓ
  • Latin Iota
Character Ɩ ɩ
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER IOTA LATIN SMALL LETTER IOTA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 406 U+0196 617 U+0269
UTF-8 198 150 C6 96 201 169 C9 A9
Numeric character reference Ɩ Ɩ ɩ ɩ
  • Cyrillic Iota
Character
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IOTA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IOTA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 42566 U+A646 42567 U+A647
UTF-8 234 153 134 EA 99 86 234 153 135 EA 99 87
Numeric character reference Ꙇ Ꙇ ꙇ ꙇ
  • Technical Iota
Character
Unicode name APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL IOTA APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL IOTA UNDERBAR
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 9075 U+2373 9080 U+2378
UTF-8 226 141 179 E2 8D B3 226 141 184 E2 8D B8
Numeric character reference ⍳ ⍳ ⍸ ⍸
  • Mathematical Iota
Character 𝚰 𝛊 𝛪 𝜄 𝜤 𝜾
Unicode name MATHEMATICAL BOLD
CAPITAL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL BOLD
SMALL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL ITALIC
CAPITAL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL ITALIC
SMALL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC
CAPITAL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC
SMALL IOTA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 120496 U+1D6B0 120522 U+1D6CA 120554 U+1D6EA 120580 U+1D704 120612 U+1D724 120638 U+1D73E
UTF-8 240 157 154 176 F0 9D 9A B0 240 157 155 138 F0 9D 9B 8A 240 157 155 170 F0 9D 9B AA 240 157 156 132 F0 9D 9C 84 240 157 156 164 F0 9D 9C A4 240 157 156 190 F0 9D 9C BE
UTF-16 55349 57008 D835 DEB0 55349 57034 D835 DECA 55349 57066 D835 DEEA 55349 57092 D835 DF04 55349 57124 D835 DF24 55349 57150 D835 DF3E
Numeric character reference 𝚰 𝚰 𝛊 𝛊 𝛪 𝛪 𝜄 𝜄 𝜤 𝜤 𝜾 𝜾
Character 𝝞 𝝸 𝞘 𝞲
Unicode name MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD CAPITAL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD SMALL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL IOTA
MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF
BOLD ITALIC SMALL IOTA
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 120670 U+1D75E 120696 U+1D778 120728 U+1D798 120754 U+1D7B2
UTF-8 240 157 157 158 F0 9D 9D 9E 240 157 157 184 F0 9D 9D B8 240 157 158 152 F0 9D 9E 98 240 157 158 178 F0 9D 9E B2
UTF-16 55349 57182 D835 DF5E 55349 57208 D835 DF78 55349 57240 D835 DF98 55349 57266 D835 DFB2
Numeric character reference 𝝞 𝝞 𝝸 𝝸 𝞘 𝞘 𝞲 𝞲

These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Victor Parker, A History of Greece, 1300 to 30 BC, (John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 67.
  2. ^ "Greek numbers". History.mcs.st-and.ac.uk. Retrieved 2014-05-04.
  3. ^ a b see Koine Greek phonology
  4. ^ Ammer, Christine (1997). The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. p. 445.
  5. ^ "Jot | Define Jot at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved 2014-05-04.
  6. ^ Parent, Sean (2019-01-04). "#iotashaming". sean-parent.stlab.cc. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  7. ^ "The Go Programming Language Specification". The Go Authors. November 18, 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-08.