I1
the ninth letter, and the third vowel, of the English alphabet, has two principal sounds: the long sound, as in pīne, fīne, īce; and the short sound, as in pĭn, fĭn, gĭft. It has also three other sounds, one like that of ē in tĕrm, as in ĭrksome, dĭrk, thĭrst; another like that of e in mēte, seem; and another, in many words in which it precedes another vowel, like that of consonant y, as in būnion, trunnion, mīllion. It enters into several digraphs, as in fāil, fīeld, sēize, fēign, vāin, friend; and with o in oil, join, coin, it helps to form a proper diphthong. No genuine English word ends with i, although its use as a termination in words introduced from foreign languages is not very rare, as in alkali, banditti, &c., in most of which it has the short sound, like that of y in the same circumstances. See Principles of Pronunciation, §§ 15–18, 48, 49.—The dot which we place over the small, or lower case, i, dates only from the fourteenth century. I and J were formerly regarded as the same character, and in many English dictionaries, words containing these letters were, till quite recently, classed together.—I, formerly prefixed to some English words, as in ibuilt, is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon prefix ge: and more generally this was written y.—In our old authors, I was often used for ay, which is pronounced nearly like it.