Iota

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Iota

Iota (uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; Yota) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
. In the system of Greek numerals

Greek numerals

Greek numerals are a numeral system using letters of the Greek alphabet. They are also known by the names Milesian numerals, Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals....
it has a value of 10. It was derived from the Phoenician letter

Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC. It was used for the writing of Phoenician language, a Northern Semitic languages language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia....
Yodh (). Letters that arose from Iota include the Roman I

I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i ....
and J

J or j is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing a voiced postalveolar fricative , and is equivalent to the voiced postalveolar fricative, , or the voiced retroflex fricative, ....
and the Cyrillic ?

or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and Lower case forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet, but has the capital form majuscule , based on a horizontally flipped majuscule E....
(?, ?), Yi

Yi (Cyrillic)

Yi is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, used in the Ukrainian language and Rusyn language languages. It represents the iotated vowel sound . In Rusyn language, it can also represent a palatalized sound....
(?, ?), Je

Je (Cyrillic)

eading=Cyrillic letter Je|Image=...
(?, ?), and iotified

Iotation

Iotation is a form of palatalization which occurs in Slavic languages. In most of them, iotated consonants are called soft consonants and the process of iotation is called softening....
letters (e.g.

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Encyclopedia

Iota (uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; Yota) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
. In the system of Greek numerals

Greek numerals

Phoenician alphabet

). Letters that arose from Iota include the Roman I

I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i ....
and J

Yi (Cyrillic)

Je (Cyrillic)

eading=Cyrillic letter Je|Image=...
(?, ?), and iotified

Iotation

Yu (Cyrillic)

Yu is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing either the combination or after a Palatalization consonant.Apart from the form I-O, in early Old Church Slavonic manuscripts the letter appears also in a mirrored form O-I ....
(?, ?)).

Iota represents . In ancient Greek it occurred in both long and short versions, but this distinction has been lost in Modern Greek.

Iota participated as the second element in falling diphthongs, with both long and short vowels as the first element. Where the first element was long, the iota was lost in pronunciation at an early date, and was written in polytonic orthography as iota subscript
Iota subscript

Iota subscript in Greek language polytonic orthography is a way of writing the letter iota as a small vertical stroke beneath a vowel. It was used in the so-called "long diphthongs" in Ancient Greek phonology, that is, diphthongs of which the first part is a long vowel: and ....
in other words as a very small ? under the main vowel, for instance

Common English phrase

The word is used in a common English phrase, 'not one iota of difference', to signify a meaningless distinction (lit. "not even a small difference"). The phrase derives from the introduction to the Antithesis of the Law in the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a synoptic gospel. It narrates an account of the New Testament view on Jesus' life and Ministry of Jesus of Jesus of Nazareth....
(a jot or a tittle
Tittle

A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot on a lowercase i or j. The tittle is an integral part of the glyph of i and j, but dot s can appear over other letters in various languages....
), and became common in the theological

Theology

Theology is the study of the existence or attributes of a deity or gods, or more generally the study of religion or spirituality. It is sometimes contrasted with religious studies: theology is understood as the study of religion from an internal perspective , and religious studies as the study of religion from an external perspective....
debate which caused the convening of the First Council of Nicaea

First Council of Nicaea

The First Council of Nicea was convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperors Constantine I in 325 CE. The Council was historically significant as the first effort to attain consensus decision-making in the church through an legislature representing all of Christendom....
, regarding the nature of the Holy Trinity

Trinity

In Christianity doctrine, the Trinity is the unity of God the Father, God the Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in monotheism. The doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, or in the Greek hypostasis , but one being....
. The argument centered on which of two alternative Greek words, differing only in a single 'iota' letter, should be used in describing Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , also known as Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity and is revered by most Christian churches as the Son of God and the Incarnation ....
' relationship to the Holy Trinity. One word, 'homoousios', would mean that Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father, and the other 'homoiousios', would mean that Jesus was of similar substance. This distinction separated the Arians

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius , a Christian priest, who was first ruled a heresy at the First Council of Nicea, later exonerated and then pronounced a heretic again after his death....
, who believed the latter, from the main body of Christianity, and led to their ultimate condemnation as heretics.

Symbol

The Iota symbol is used to generate a vector of consecutive integers in the APL programming language
APL programming language

APL is an array programming language based on a notation invented in 1957 by Kenneth E. Iverson while at Harvard University. It originated as an attempt to provide consistent notation for the teaching and analysis of topics related to the application of computers....
.
The lowercase Iota symbol is sometimes used to write the imaginary unit
Imaginary unit

In mathematics, physics, and engineering, the imaginary unit is denoted by or the Latin or the Greek iota . It allows the real number system, to be extended to the complex number system, Its precise definition is dependent upon the particular method of extension....
but more often Roman i
I

I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i ....
or j
J

J or j is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing a voiced postalveolar fricative , and is equivalent to the voiced postalveolar fricative, , or the voiced retroflex fricative, ....
are used.
In logic
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
, the lowercase iota denotes the definite descriptor
Definite description

A definite description is a denotation phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is proper if X applies to a unique individual or object....
.