I (grapheme)

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For a note on how AWE organizes its group of articles on vowels, basically by aspects of sound and of writing, see category:vowels.

I i


The written letter i (upper case I) represents a vowel. (You may also want to see I (phoneme) for an account of some of the uses of I and i in the IPA.) The monophthong sounds it represents are varied, but most are central vowels such as /ə/, /ɜ/ and /ɛ/. It appears diphthongally, sometimes in different combinations with other vowels. Thanks in large part to the historical phenomenon of the Great English Vowel Shift of the late fifteenth century, English is not a language with predictable ways of writing down sounds, particularly vowel sounds. This page attempts to group some of the ways in which the letter 'I' is used. It was in the past more or less interchangeable with the letter -y-; see more at -i- or -y-.

The effect of the Great English Vowel Shift on this group of sounds was far-reaching, not least in the name of the letter I itself: it used to follow the usual European pattern and be known by as 'EE', the sound still represented in the IPA by the symbol /i:/; whereas in English it is now known as the diphthong 'EYE', /aɪ/. The remarks that follow are based on current (2011) RP usage - but see Transcribing English vowels for an account of some of the problems.

  • As a grapheme (single letter or monographic), I may represent, as a short vowel:
    • /ɪ/, as in 'in', 'think', 'bit' and 'his'
      • (this may be marked by two consonants, either two different ones, as in 'sing'), 'think' 'kick', or the same one doubled, as in 'binned', 'fitted' and 'chilled;
    • in such words as 'sir', 'first', 'girl' and 'virtue', i represents the /Éœ/ phoneme;
    • in unstressed positions, it can represent shwa, as in some speakers' realizations of 'ridiculous' and 'spirit';
  • as a long vowel, the written letter I may represent
    • /iː/, as in 'machine', 'bikini' and 'police';
  • As a diphthongal vowel- often mis-called a 'long vowel' -
    • I represents /aɪ/ as in the pronoun I - this is usually seen with some other mark of length, such as the magic '-e-', as in 'mine' and 'white'; or '-gh-', as in 'right' and 'night'; or '-s-', as in 'island'. (This pronunciation is of course the sound of its name in English, I.)
  • In combinations, '-i-' can be used: