J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, is variously pronounced according to the language in which it is used. In English it is always equivalent to g soft in such words as George. In German it is equivalent to our y. In French it has the sound of the French g soft. Amongst the Romans such words as Juno, &c., were written Iuno, &c. The substitution of J for I as a consonant at the beginning of words is of modern date. Yet the letter itself existed before the Roman republic came to an end. The separation of J from I, however desirable, is not yet universally adopted in dictionaries and similar works.