Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/478

* I The ninth letter in the alphabets of Western Europe. Its form in the Phoeni- cian and early Greek alphabets, from which it is derived, somewhat resembled a narrow upright Z. (See Alphabet.) After various modilications this was straightened into its present shape. The Grwk designation, iolu, of the letter is an adaptation of its Phu'nician name yod, 'a hand.' The dot over our small i did not come into use until the fourteenth century. Phonetic Character. The 'short i' in Eng- lish is described as a high-front or palatal vowel, made by the blade of the tongue appro.ximating the forward part of the palate or roof of the mouth— the sound heard in it. When approxi- mated so far as to make a partial contact or closure, this passes over into a .semi-vocalie or consonantal y, as in you (i«), although in Eng- lish the y is often not written, e.g. minion, million; other variations may be noticed in charily, bird. The corresponding _ 'long i,' common in EOropean languages, is found in machine, police, pique. This is sometimes known as the "long e' .sotind in receive, helicve, scat. The sound cnnimonly called 'long i' in English, uide, ice, and the name of the letter itself (i pronounced eye), is really a diphthong, like aisle, made by premature opening of the lengthened vowel under stress-accent. This phonetic change from the older character of the sound was going on during the Middle Period of transition into the Modern English, so that it is now a phonetic rule that Anglo-Saxon or Old English I regularly calls for a diphthongal long i in modem English, e.g. OE. icfrf, iHf/ = Mod. Eng. icirfc. riii7c. Historically the linguistic char- acter of 1 is fairly stable, Indo-Germ. "uidheva, Skt. vidhdva, 'widow,' Lat. vidua, OChurch Slav, vidora, AS. tcidewe, Eng. widow; or Gk. oivos (for fotms), 'wine,' Lat. iNnnjii, A.S. irfji, Eng. nine. For the connection of 1 and J, sec J, .4s a Symbol. — I in the Roman notation stands for 1 : in chemistry I =: iodine ; in logic I is the symbol of the jiartinl affirmative proposition. lABArOU IN'SULA (Lat., translation of Gk. 'Ia,3a<iiou v//ao(, labadiou nesos) . According to Ptolemy (vii. 2), a large island in the Indian Ocean, southeast of the Golden Chersonese and southwest of the Isles of Satyrs ; said to be very fertile and to contain much gold. The island meant was probably the modern .Java, though Humboldt and others regard it as Sumatra. The name, according to Ptolemy, signified Island of Barley. The capital was namedArgyrc ('Ap}vp'i), lACCHtrS, i-akTvus (Lat., from Gk, 'la^vf, lalcehos). A title used of Bacchus in the Eleu- sinian Mysteries, in wlijch he was regarded as the son or husband of IX'uieter, or the son of Per- sephone. He was thus distinguished fromiDionysus, the son of Zeus and Scinde, but was sometimes called his son, and at times identified with him. lACHIMO, i-ak'i-mA, In Shakespeare's Cym- belinc, a Konian libertine who on a wager con- ceals himself in Imogen's room and carries away apparent evidence of her unchastity, lAGO, *-ii'gd. A Spanish and Portuguese fonn of the name James, now occurring only in the combination Santiago (.Saint James). lAOO. In Shakespeare's Of/ieHo, a calculating and malignant character, the ancient of Othello, whom he secretly hates while retaining his con- fidence. In revenge for imagined wrongs he skill- fully concocts evidence which convinces Othello of the unfaithfulness of his wife, Desdemona. Othello in jealousy murders Desdemona, and stabs lago when the plot comes to light. lAL'YStrS (Lat., from Gk. 'Ulvaoc). An ancient city on the island of Rhodes, possibly a Phoenician" .settlement, certainly an important plice in the Mycenaean period. It was later col- onized by Dorians from Argos, and formed with Lindus and Camirus the Rhodian tripolis. Even in the Homeric poems it is famed for its w'calth. In D.c. -108 it united in the foundation of the city of Rhodes (q.v.). Some remains are still trace- able near the modern village Iali.so. A necropolis at lalysus has yielded many Mycentean vases and other ornaments, lAM'BIC VEBSE (Lat, iambicus, Gk, ia/i. (iiKi^, inmhiUos, from ia/ifioc, iambos, iambus, from IdTTTciv, iaptein, to assail with words), A term applied in classic prosody to verses consist- ing of the foot or metre called iambus, made up of two syllables, of which the first is short, and the second long (w — ), Archilochus (q.v.) is the reputed inventor of iambic verse. The term is also applied by analogy to English verse wherein stressed and unstressed syllables corre- spond to a long syllable followed by a short sylla- ble in Latin or Greek verse. The English lan- guage runs more easily and naturally in this metre than in any other. The Bt&R t St £ve | had drflnk | his fllL See Metre; Veksui cation.