Hi,
Can anybody name a relatively well known Italian musical term (i.e. Allegro, Cantabile...etc. ) which has a 'J' in it? It may seem a strange question (!) but it is simply because I have written a word puzzle for grade 3 theory students and , for the sake of completeness, I need I word with 'J' in it. The only one I've thought of is Giojoso (which apparently means the same as giocoso), but it is unusual and I don't want anything too bizarre. MANY THANKS!

There's jocando, but that may be too rare for you.

You may have to use that term. The letter "J" is not part of the standard Italian alphabet, and rarely appears. Remember that Classical Latin had no "J". I looked at about 10 sites, and found only the word you have. The site below was the most extensive.


http://www.austinsymphony.com/music/index.asp

Try one of these:

http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/001artmusic/glossaries/Glossaries.html

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Remember that Classical Latin had no "J".

Er, how can I put this?

pianissimo It did have J .

I guess I am remembering wrong.

What do you mean that pianissimo had 'j' in it?!
Also, what does Jocando mean (can't find it- and computer won't let me access some of the sites?). Thankyou! Also, is giojoso very rare? (As opposed to giocoso). Don't know why there are two different spellings and I've never come across the version with a J in practise (only in theory). Thanks, rac

quote:

Originally posted by rac:
What do you mean that pianissimo had 'j' in it?!

The post was to very quietly(pianissimo ) and tactfully say that the statement that classical Latin did not have a J was incorrect Classical Latin did have a J.

Jocando apparently (apparently=at a guess) means 'light-heartedly' and I could only find one reference to it, in a piece from 1981

Fred, I think you are confusing Classical Latin with Medieval Latin. The Latin I learned in high school didn't have a J in its alphabet.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Fred, I think you are confusing Classical Latin with Medieval Latin. The Latin I learned in high school didn't have a J in its alphabet.

Don't think so How long have you got?

Quite late on it became more common to spell with i for j, the two being somewhat interchangeable. This process was taken advantage of by modern school teachers of Latin and my own school allowed e.g 'iam' and 'iaceo' for 'jam' and 'jaceo', though it would not have done so in more strict times.That made the Latin a bit easier, more standard for teaching and simpler (but not much!).Classically the pronunciation of j and i were often subtly different and, strangely,my school still insisted on pure, true, distinction in pronunciation even in cases where i was allowed in writing. This was notable at the beginning of words.

J is a consonant which, although originally represented by the same character as i, was distinguished from it by the ancients themselves. For example, among others, the grammarians Priscianus (living 500 B.C.) and Flav. Sosipater Charisius (died A.D. 375),hence over a long period of Latin grammar, distinguished it.Its pronunciation was like that of the German J or English Y at the beginning of syllables, so we find jus ('law'), injuria ('injury, hurt'),ejectus ('ejected')in classical texts. In fact we find many writers using double J in the middle of some words. Cicero (died 43 BC) was one. According to the statements of the grammarians, where j occurs as the 'medial' between two vowels it is to be pronounced double. So Cicero wrote majjus,ejjus and so on, rather than majus and ejus, to show the very emphatic sound.He was the greatest Roman orator of all (and strictly educated, as you may judge from that ).

The closest relation exists between j and i and they are often interchanged, so you'll find jam('now') and etiam('and furthermore') in classical texts and both Pompejus and Pompeius as the family name of the general we call Pompey. There is no obvious rule in some cases. The word 'etiam' could have been 'etjam' but never seems to have been yet 'ejus'('of his') and 'eius' both occur: my school allowed 'eius' as our regular spelling. Incidentally, a famous place is strictly and classically Pompeji not Pompeii, destroyed by Vesuvius (note never 'Vesuvjus'. Vesuvius was also called Vesbius,Vesvius, Vesevus and Vesaevus.According to Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary, the second element of the name is from Greek. That may explain the 'ae' and why it was never Latinised as Vesuvjus).

That the old 'public schools' of England were taught by true classicists who used J explains the schoolboy joke of writing a cod verse in Latin containing the line of genuine Latin words "adsum jam forte "[ had some jam for tea] ).

Interestingly, in inscriptions on tombs etc the capital, upper case, form of j was written I .This may have been only because a capital J is a lot harder to carve than a capital I and the penalties for a mistake in cost and time, never mind for the poor mason, were heavy So Juppiter (Jupiter) was Iuppiter in inscriptions whatever it was in written text (Juppiter or Jupiter, as it happens)

Lewis and Short, the Latin Dictionary, lists words like jaceo ( 'lie', hence adjacent) and jocosus ('jocose, humorous') under J. And we are all familiar with the two-faced god Janus whose name was, of course, so written classically and who gives us January.You'll search in vain for such spellings as 'iam' for 'jam' in the listings.Only a very few words beginning I and having the second letter a vowel are shown: all are direct writing of Greek words into Latin or are from Greek place names (e.g Ionius 'from Ionia'). Jesus, Joseph and the historian, Josephus, are written Iesus, Ioseph and Iosephus respectively.


[Source for most of the above: Lewis and Short and their entry for J ]

Maybe I had a bad Latin teacher and text. But I checked and Caesar used an I instead of J for a place name in, I think, the second chapter of his commentaries on the Gallic Wars.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Maybe I had a bad Latin teacher and text. But I checked and Caesar used an I instead of J for a place name in, I think, the second chapter of his commentaries on the Gallic Wars.

Caesar himself would have written J .In "Gallic Wars" he wrote 'Jura' for the mountain range (in Bellum Gallicum 1,2 according to Lewis and Short. Wonder if that is your example?It's a place name that we write with a J. Bet the Germans pronounce it as in Latin , as though English 'Y' was for 'J' ) .You have a 'modernised' text where they printed i for j wherever there was the option [see above].

Caesar's own name, Julius, was sometimes written 'Iulius' by classical poets, but that's a bit of a cheat. They wrote 'Iulius' and had it as four syllables instead of three

Thanks for the info about Jocando. Sorry that I completely misssed the point (before) about your pianissimo statement, and took things a bit literally! Was trying hard to imagine someone spelling 'pianissimo' with a 'J' in it somewhere. Er.. whoops, bit obvious really! Thanks again, Bye Rac

Obviously, Fred, you are right. None of it sounds familiar to me, however. I always assumed that the Latin I read was what was written. I don't recall being told it had been "modernized", but it was a few years ago that I took it. ()

Out of curiosity I googled "Latin letter j". In addition to making the obvious conclusion that "j" was out of fad with the Romans while DG was studying the language, I discovered that it is to be pronounced more like an "L".

I said it was a long time aggo when I studied it.

quote:

Originally posted by coldfuse:
Out of curiosity I googled "Latin letter j". In addition to making the obvious conclusion that "j" was out of fad with the Romans while DG was studying the language, I discovered that it is to be pronounced more like an "L".

Like an L? Only if they mean like Spanish letter elle, double L,which in some areas, I believe, is pronounced much like our Y. The subtle difference in pronunciation between the two spellings of the same word as jam and iam is that the first sounds like 'yam' and the second more like 'ee-am'.It's easy to see (or hear) how the I version could eventually be accepted, and taught nowadays in some places, as the simpler alternative to the J version. Both are like Y, in a way.The classical poets who wrote Iulius for Julius [Caesar] were on to this subtlety. They made it Iulius because a cultivated reader of their time would say what sounded like 'EE-oo-li-us' making four syllables, whereas Julius would be as YOO-li-us, only three. Iulius sometimes suited their metre better than Julius He would write his name as Julius.

Can't work out whether DG was studying well before 500 BC before the J was so clearly distinguished or a goodly bit after the classical period when I was a common alternative.He can't be as old as pre 500BC...can he ? Either way he won't remember, of course

News traveled slowly in Ancient Macedonia, and my instructor, Aristotle, kept sucking up to that red-haired kid whose dad was king. (I've forgotten his name now.)