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PM&M Resources Vocabulary Page

Consonants and Vowels

Some people are confused when confronted with the results of an older German grammar rule which allows the letter "I" to be replaced by the letter "J". Examples would be "Jmperial", "Jnhalt" or some place names like the often quoted "Jlmenau".

In the older form of writing, there was often no distinction between a capital "I" and a capital "J", but it was easy to tell which letter was meant: if it was followed by a vowel, it was a consonant ("J"), and if it was followed by a consonant, it was a vowel ("I"). This, of course, explains why something written "Jlmenau" actually refers to Ilmenau.

This substitution of letters was very common in German writing until shortly after the Second World War, when it was abandoned, at least in much of West Germany. In the former areas of East Germany, however, it continued to be used for some time, and various examples show that it was still in use around 1980.

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