Long I

Long I is a special version of the letter I used in ancient and early medieval times. It looks different from the regular I we use today and was part of the Latin script, which is the writing system many languages use.

People wrote Long I as ⟨ꟾ⟩, and it had its own name in Latin: i longum or littera i longa. This special letter helped ancient and early medieval writers express sounds and ideas in their documents and books.

Long I is not the same as the regular capital I, the letter J, or a similar-looking letter called palochka used in some other writing systems. It is a unique part of history that shows how writing has changed over time.

History

In early Roman Empire times, a special form of the letter i was used to show a longer sound. It appeared in about 4% of writings in the first century, then more often in the second century, but stopped being used by the fourth century. This change happened because the way people said words changed over time.

Sometimes this special i was used like another mark called an apex, which could show a long sound on any vowel. For example, the word for “sons” was once written as ⟨fIliI⟩ but is now written as fīliī. Later, in the writings of the later Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages, this special i began to simply show the regular i sound at the start of words.

In Unicode

The special letter "i" called "i longa" is part of a special writing system called Unicode. Its code is U+A7FE, and it looks like this: ⟨ꟾ⟩. It was suggested to be added to Unicode in a proposal made in 2006.

Examples

Here are some examples of the long i letter from old writings. In a Roman inscription from around AD 100, you can see long i used in words like órnámentIs. Another inscription from around AD 45 shows long i in the word claudIo. From around AD 69, there is a rare example where long i appears with an apex in the word dÍs mánibus.

In handwritten letters from around AD 50 during Claudius' time, long i appears in phrases like rebus iis · iúdicibus. Samples from the 6th century in New Roman cursive show long i in words such as quantum s(upra)s(cripto) emptori interfuerit. From around AD 700 in Merovingian script, long i is seen in phrases like et inponunt in umeros hominum.

In a book called Codex Vigilanus from the late 10th century written in Visigothic script, the first line has three examples of long i: in exordio igitur hui[u]s.