Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/497

 JACAMAE 479 JTIIE 10th letter of most European alpha- bets, is a spurious counterpart of the let- ter I. It is also called the consonant of that vowel, fulfilling that function of the original letter when it precedes another vowel. This, however, is the case only where it sounds like y in yet ; for in some European languages it is either a superfetation of other legitimate letters, or the representative of sounds which have nothing in common with that of its pro- totype, I. It is in German miscalled Jot (pro- nounced yot), in Spanish jota (pronounced 'hota), from lora. The following are the sounds with which it is uttered in various lan- guages: 1. As consonant I in Italian, German, Danish, and other Teutonic languages, in Lu- satian, Polish, Magyar, &c., where the Czechs use g, and the Spaniards and English y, before vowels ; for instance : Ital. ajuto or aiuto, aid ; Ger. Joeh, yoke, ja, yes ; Lusat. and Pol. jeden (Czechic geden), one ; Magyar jeg, ice, &c. 2. The French and Portuguese J, a lingui-dental sibilant, the weak and sonorous counterpart of ch (Eng. sh), like the sound of and z in the English words pleasure, grazier, and rendered by the combination zh in English. This sound is also written with g before e and i in Portu- guese and French. It exists in Russian, Po- lish, and other Slavic languages, in Persian, Turkish, &c., but not in Sanskrit, Greek, Lat- in, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopian, Irish, German, and many other languages. 3. The English sound of J represents the preceding intimate- ly combined with that of d, equivalent to dzh; it is written dj in French and dieh in German transcriptions of oriental names. This com- pound sound is also written in English with g before e, i, and y, in Italian with g before e and i. It exists in many eastern languages, and in Polish, but is unknown in the ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Ethiopic, and Irish,- as well as in German, French, and most other Eu- ropean languages. 4. In Spanish it is sounded like the German ch, as in joven, young, and is equivalent to g before e and i, and to x in some cases, so that Mexico is also written Me- jieo and Megico. The use of the tailed or elon- gated J was introduced by Dutch printers, and was long called / hollandau by French print- ers. It bears the same relation to I that the new W does to V. (See I.) .1 MMUI, a large wading bird of the stork family, found in South America and Africa, of the genus mycteria (Linn.). The bill is about a foot and a half long, and strong, resembling that of the stork except that it is bent a little upward at the point. It is a large bird, mea- suring between 5 and 6 ft. in length ; the wings are long and ample, with the second and third quills longest ; tail moderate and broad ; tarsi much longer than the middle toe, and covered 444 VOL. ix. 31 with reticulated scales ; the toes are long, uni- ted at their bases, with most of the hind toe resting on the ground. Only two species are described by Gray, of which the best known is the American jabiru (M. Americana, Linn.) ; in this the bill is black, the head and about two thirds of the neck bare and blackish, and the lower part of the neck bright red ; there are a few white feathers on the hind head, and the rest of the plumage is white. It inhabits Bra- zil and Guiana, frequenting swamps, seeking for fish and reptiles; it rises slowly to a great height, supporting itself for a very long time. The nest is made on lofty trees, and the eggs are generally two ; the young are fed with fish ; the flesh of the young is tender and tolerably Jabiru (Mycteria Scnegalonsis). good eating. The African species (M. Senega- lensis, Shaw) is an equally large bird, generally white, with head, neck, and scapulars black ; it has two pendent wattles at the base of the bill. JABLONSKI, Paul Ernst, a German orientalist, born in Berlin in 1693, died in Frankfort-on- the-Oder, Sept. 13, 1757. He was prof essor of theology at the university of Frankfort, and head minister of the Calvinistic church in that city. He published at least 50 different works on oriental philology, history, divinity, and antiquities, the most important of which is his Pantheon ^Egyptiorum, sive de Dili eorum Commentarius, cum Prolegomenii de Seligione et Theologia ^Egyptiorum (3 vols., l750-'52). JACAMAK, a diurnal fissirostral bird of the kingfisher family, and subfamily galbulina, comprising the two genera galbula (Mohr.) and jaeameropi (Cuv.) The plumage is brilliant, green predominating, and the habitat is tropi- cal South America and some of the West In- dian islands. In the genus gallula the bill is