Talk:Eng (letter)

Invented by Benjamin Franklin?

According to David Crystal (in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language), eng has been designed by Alexander Gill the Elder in 1619.

Meanwhile, the page on Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet implies he invented it. I'm not sure which is right, but there seems to be good online evidence that BF did at least use it in his designed alphabet, with its current IPA meaning, so it seems it was not invented for IPA use. --Rschmertz 04:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I've created a "History" section with the information you provided. -- TimNelson (talk) 00:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary notes a mediæval Icelandic ligature as the ultimate origin or inspiration for the letter, though no source is given. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:27, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Which page of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language says Alexander Gill designed the letter eng? I found this facsimile of Gill’s Logonomia Anglica of 1619 printed in 1972 [1]. On page 12 we can see an uppercase G with a descender hook and a lowercase ŋ close to how we know it today. This copy of Logonomia Anglica [2] printed in 1621 and this facsimile printed in 1972? [3] show a capital letter G with a sort of descender hook but a lowercase digraph ng. There are other differences between the first facsimile and the copy or the second facsimile, like the lowercase omega in the first as a ö in the other two, the h with a hook or loop as a ħ int the other two, or several others . --Moyogo/ (talk) 07:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested Moves: Eng (letter) to Eng

Votes

• Oppose Eng should be a DAB page. 132.205.45.110
  • Comment You don't think it would be better to have a dab page at Eng (disambiguation), with Eng being about the letter? I think putting a dab page at Eng would only be appropriate if there were multiple things actually called "eng", not just sometimes abbreviated to "eng". --Ptcamn 03:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
• There;s at least one; see Chang and Eng. Septentrionalis 04:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Not moved, for now. —Nightstallion (?) 12:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

aboriginal languages map

it is used quite a bit in this 1940 aboriginal map --Astrokey44 06:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Merging with "Velar nasal"?

Oppose:

• Not clear that this makes sense. The velar nasal sound is represented by other means also (ng, sometimes nh). What is done with other Latin letters and the names for sounds they represent? --A12n (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose: one is a letter, the other is a sound. FilipeS (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose: The letter eng precedes the IPA, so merging it is kind of like merging k with voiceless velar plosive. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Eng not in Latin alphabet box

Why is the letter eng not included among the list of "Letter N with diacritics" such as one sees on Ɲ and Ñ? Why does the Latin alphabet box in this article not have that list? (Not sure how to edit the box, which is another question.)--A12n (talk) 05:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not a combination of a letter with a diacritic, but a character in its own right. -- Prince Kassad (talk) 12:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The article says "Lowercase eng is derived from n with the addition of a hook to the right leg, ..." which sounds a lot like the how one would describe some of the other "n" variant forms in the abovementioned box. Whether one calls a modification of the letter form a "diacritic" (see for example Hook (diacritic)) or something else seems to be a valid question. But either way, doesn't it seem like ŋ logically belongs in the same category as ɲ, ƞ, etc.? Maybe they (including ŋ)should be called something else rather than "N with diacritics" (which applies unambiguously to ñ, ṅ, etc.)? The eng may have a longer history(?) and seems to have wider use than many other extended Latin characters, but it's still part of the same group and users should be able to easily find it with the others.--A12n (talk) 07:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The eng is a modified n, no question about that. As for the "derived from n with the addition of a hook to the right leg" bit, I don't think that should be taken too literally. It's more a graphic description of the form of the character. Notice the difference between the "trunk" of the ŋ, and the hooks used by Vietnamese, in the Hook (diacritic) page. FilipeS (talk) 17:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"Eng or engma (majuscule: Ŋ, minuscule: ŋ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet" This is a spurious assertion ? Its not in the Latin alphabet and thats why it isnt in the box.Eregli bob (talk) 15:58, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Not only a letter, but also a sound

Eng or engma (majuscule: Ŋ, minuscule: ŋ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a velar nasal (as in English singing) in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

It seems to me that the name eng is also used by phoneticians to denote the sound [ŋ] (and the phoneme /ŋ/, of course).

Cfr ash:

both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash". 62.98.75.91 (talk) 10:19, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Alt code for eng?

Is there an alt code for eng? The Unicode code doesn't help me type it. If anyone knows it, can they include it in the article, please? DBlomgren (talk) 10:30, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Fall from common usage

When did it fall out of common usage? I feel like that would be useful info in the article, but I’m struggling to know where to look to find well sourced information rufioh^talk_sign 01:35, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Accents with n

Ŋŋ Ňň ʼ Nʼn Ņņ Ññ Ńń 173.69.12.44 (talk) 17:46, 17 July 2023 (UTC)