M, or m, is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is em (pronounced /ˈɛm/), plural ems.[1]
The letter M is derived from the PhoenicianMem, via the GreekMu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a "Proto-Sinaitic" (Bronze Age) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing. The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value /n/, from the Egyptian word for "water", nt; the adoption as the Semitic letter for /m/ was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", *mā(y)-.[2]
The Roman numeral M represents the number 1000, though it was not used in Roman times. There is, however, scant evidence that the letter was later introduced in the early centuries A.D. by the Romans.[3]
Unit prefix M (mega), meaning one million times, and m (milli) meaning one-thousandth.[4][5]
ꟽ : Inverted M was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for mulier (woman)[11]
ꟿ : Archaic M was used in ancient Roman texts to abbreviate the personal name 'Manius' (A regular capital M was used for the more common personal name 'Marcus')[11]
^See F. Simons, "Proto-Sinaitic — Progenitor of the Alphabet" Rosetta 9 (2011): Figure Two: "Representative selection of proto-Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs", (p. 38) Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39), Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See also: Goldwasser (2010), following Albright (1966), "Schematic Table of Proto-Sinaitic Characters" (fig. 1 2016-07-03 at the Wayback Machine).
^ abcde"What does M stand for?". The Free Dictionary. from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
^ abcd"M definition and meaning". Collins English Dictionary. from the original on 27 February 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
^Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
^Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
^Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
^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). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
^Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
^ abPerry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
External links
Media related to M at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of M at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of m at Wiktionary
April 10, 2024
this, article, about, letter, roman, alphabet, letter, cyrillic, script, cyrillic, letter, greek, script, letter, other, uses, disambiguation, technical, reasons, redirects, here, programming, language, sharp, confused, with, this, article, needs, additional, . This article is about the letter of the Roman alphabet For the letter of the Cyrillic script M m see Em Cyrillic For the letter of the Greek script M m see Mu letter For other uses see M disambiguation For technical reasons M redirects here For the programming language see M Sharp Not to be confused with ញ ᛖ ℳ ෆ or ʍ This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources M news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2016 Learn how and when to remove this template message M or m is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet used in the modern English alphabet the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide Its name in English is em pronounced ˈ ɛ m plural ems 1 MM mUsageWriting systemLatin scriptTypeAlphabetic and LogographicLanguage of originLatin languagePhonetic usage m ɱ n n ɛ m Unicode codepointU 004D U 006DAlphabetical position13Numerical value 1000HistoryDevelopmentM m𐌌M mTime period 700 to presentDescendants ᴟ ꬺ ꟽ ɯ ɰ ꟿ ᛗSistersMӍמםمܡמ ﬦ Ⰿࠌ𐌼OtherOther letters commonly used withm x Associated numbers1000Writing directionLeft to RightThis article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters Contents 1 History 2 Use in writing systems 2 1 English 2 2 Other languages 2 3 Other systems 3 Other uses 4 Related characters 4 1 Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet 4 2 Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets 4 3 Ligatures and abbreviations 5 Other representations 5 1 Computing 5 2 Other 6 References 7 External linksHistoryEgyptian hieroglyph n PhoenicianMem Western GreekMu EtruscanM LatinM nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem via the Greek Mu M m Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a Proto Sinaitic Bronze Age adoption of the water ideogram in Egyptian writing The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value n from the Egyptian word for water nt the adoption as the Semitic letter for m was presumably also on acrophonic grounds from the Semitic word for water ma y 2 Use in writing systemsEnglish In English m represents the voiced bilabial nasal m The Oxford English Dictionary first edition says that m is sometimes a vowel in words like spasm and in the suffix ism In modern terminology this is described as a syllabic consonant IPA m M is the fourteenth most frequently used letter in the English language Other languages The letter m represents the voiced bilabial nasal m in the orthography of Latin as well as in those of many modern languages In Washo lower case m represents a voiced bilabial nasal m while upper case M represents a voiceless bilabial nasal m Other systems In the International Phonetic Alphabet m represents the voiced bilabial nasal m Other usesMain article M disambiguation nbsp Styled letter M in the coat of arms of MiehikkalaThe Roman numeral M represents the number 1000 though it was not used in Roman times There is however scant evidence that the letter was later introduced in the early centuries A D by the Romans 3 Unit prefix M mega meaning one million times and m milli meaning one thousandth 4 5 m is the standard abbreviation for metre or meter in the International System of Units SI 4 However m is also used as an abbreviation for mile 5 M is used as the unit abbreviation for molarity 4 With money amounts m or M can mean one million For example 5m is five million dollars 4 5 M often represents male or masculine especially in conjunction with F for female or feminine 4 5 M James Bond is a fictional character in Ian Fleming s James Bond book and film series In typography an em dash is a punctuation symbol whose width is equal to that of a capital letter M Related charactersDescendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet M with diacritics Ḿ ḿ Ṁ ṁ Ṃ ṃ M m ᵯ 6 IPA specific symbols related to M ɱ ɰ Ɱ Capital M with hook Uralic Phonetic Alphabet specific symbols related to M 7 U 1D0D ᴍ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL M U 1D1F ᴟ LATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS TURNED M U 1D39 ᴹ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL M U 1D50 ᵐ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL M U 1D5A ᵚ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TURNED M Some symbols related to M were used by the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902 8 U 2098 ₘ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER M U A7FA ꟺ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL TURNED M The Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses U AB3A ꬺ LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH CROSSED TAIL 9 Other variations used for phonetic transcription 10 ᶆ ᶬ ᶭ Ɯ ɯ Turned M ꟽ Inverted M was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for mulier woman 11 ꟿ Archaic M was used in ancient Roman texts to abbreviate the personal name Manius A regular capital M was used for the more common personal name Marcus 11 ℳ currency symbol for MarkAncestors and siblings in other alphabets 𐤌 Semitic letter Mem from which the following symbols originally derive M m Greek letter Mu from which M derives Ⲙ ⲙ Coptic letter Me which derives from Greek Mu M m Cyrillic letter Em also derived from Mu 𐌌 Old Italic M which derives from Greek Mu and is the ancestor of modern Latin M ᛗ Runic letter Mannaz which derives from old Italic M 𐌼 Gothic letter manna which derives from Greek MuLigatures and abbreviations Mill currency Trademark symbol Service mark symbolOther representationsComputing Character information Preview M m Ｍ ｍUnicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M LATIN SMALL LETTER M FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER MEncodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hexUnicode 77 U 004D 109 U 006D 65325 U FF2D 65357 U FF4DUTF 8 77 4D 109 6D 239 188 173 EF BC AD 239 189 141 EF BD 8DNumeric character reference amp 77 wbr amp x4D wbr amp 109 wbr amp x6D wbr amp 65325 wbr amp xFF2D wbr amp 65357 wbr amp xFF4D wbr EBCDIC family 212 D4 148 94ASCII 1 77 4D 109 6D1 Also for encodings based on ASCII including the DOS Windows ISO 8859 and Macintosh families of encodings Other NATO phonetic Morse codeMike nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Signal flag Flag semaphore American manual alphabet ASL fingerspelling British manual alphabet BSL fingerspelling Braille dots 134 Unified English BrailleReferences M Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition 1989 Merriam Webster s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged 1993 em op cit See F Simons Proto Sinaitic Progenitor of the Alphabet Rosetta 9 2011 Figure Two Representative selection of proto Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs p 38 Figure Three Chart of all early proto Canaanite letters with comparison to proto Sinaitic signs p 39 Figure Four Representative selection of later proto Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto Canaanite and proto Sinaitic signs p 40 See also Goldwasser 2010 following Albright 1966 Schematic Table of Proto Sinaitic Characters fig 1 Archived 2016 07 03 at the Wayback Machine Gordon Arthur E 1983 Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy University of California Press pp 45 ISBN 9780520038981 Retrieved 3 October 2015 roman numerals a b c d e What does M stand for The Free Dictionary Archived from the original on 25 November 2020 Retrieved 9 February 2021 a b c d M definition and meaning Collins English Dictionary Archived from the original on 27 February 2021 Retrieved 9 February 2021 Constable Peter 2003 09 30 L2 03 174R2 Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS PDF Archived PDF from the original on 2017 10 11 Retrieved 2018 03 24 Everson Michael et al 2002 03 20 L2 02 141 Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS PDF Archived PDF from the original on 2018 02 19 Retrieved 2018 03 24 Ruppel Klaas Aalto Tero Everson Michael 2009 01 27 L2 09 028 Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet PDF Archived PDF from the original on 2017 10 11 Retrieved 2018 03 24 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 Archived PDF from the original on 2017 10 11 Retrieved 2018 03 24 Constable Peter 2004 04 19 L2 04 132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS PDF Archived PDF from the original on 2017 10 11 Retrieved 2018 03 24 a b Perry David J 2006 08 01 L2 06 269 Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS PDF Archived PDF from the original on 2019 06 14 Retrieved 2018 03 24 External links nbsp Media related to M at Wikimedia Commons nbsp The dictionary definition of M at Wiktionary nbsp The dictionary definition of m at Wiktionary Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title M amp oldid 1217628417, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
