M, or m, is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of several western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is em (pronounced ), plural ems.

History

The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem via the Greek Mu (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, from the Egyptian word for "water", nt; the adoption as the Semitic letter for was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", *mā(y)-.

Use in writing systems

English

In English, ⟨m⟩ represents the voiced bilabial nasal. The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that ⟨m⟩ is sometimes a vowel, such as in words like spasm and in the suffix -ism. In modern terminology, this is described as a syllabic consonant (IPA: ). M is the fourteenth most frequently used letter in the English language.

Other languages

The letter ⟨m⟩ represents the voiced bilabial nasal in the orthography of Latin as well as in those of many modern languages. In Washo, lower-case ⟨m⟩ represents a voiced bilabial nasal, while upper-case ⟨M⟩ represents a voiceless bilabial nasal.

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨m⟩ represents the voiced bilabial nasal.

Other uses

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

Ligatures and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

Other