Words That Begin with the Letter J

The letter ‘J’ is a very important letter in the English language.  Not only is the letter ‘J’ the tenth letter of the English alphabet, but the letter ‘J’ can be considered a first cousin to the letter ‘I’ in the alphabet.  Originally, ‘I’ stood for both the common sounds of ‘I’ and today’s ‘J’, such as the ‘I’ from the word “tribe”.  Interestingly enough, the word “jest” originally began being written as “iest” because of this close relationship between the two letters. Seriously, no joking about that.

Jump Into J

• Originally, the letter ‘J’ was a swash symbol, or a typographical symbol, that appeared at the end of various Roman numerals.
• The letter J was fist used in the alphabet for the sound “yeh” like in the word “yet.” It was changed in the early 1600s to the “jeh” sound like in the word “jelly”.
• There are over 260 baby names in multiple nations across the globe that begin with the letter ‘J’.
• Italian grammarian Gian Giorgio Trissino lived between 1478-1550 A.D. and is typically awarded the honor of being the father of the letter ‘J’.
• The letter ‘J’ can have multiple sounds in different languages, such as the “heh” sound in Spanish like with the word “jugar”.

Words that begin with J

Words that begin with the letter ‘J’ do not appear at all on the list of the 100 most commonly used English words.  These 100 words make up over 1/3 of all printed material in the English language, including books, magazines, newspapers and other printed materials.  In fact, ‘J’ words only appeared on the list of 1000 most commonly used English words a total of 5 times in all.  That means that ‘J’ words only make up 0.005% of the most commonly used words in the entire English language.  That adds up to less than even 1% of all words in the top 1000 most commonly used words.

1. just (#120)
2. job (#567)
3. jumped (#613)
4. joined (#715)
5. Japanese (#870)

Despite having multiple uses and hundreds of words containing the letter ‘J’, these statistics may make the letter ‘J’ one of the most under-appreciated letters in the entire English alphabet.

Grammar Words That Begin With J

Unfortunately, no grammar concepts begin with J.  However, lots of important adjectives and adverbs do, so lets take a quick look at some of those!

• Adjectives (words used to describe nouns): joyful, jealous, jumpy, jovial, juicy, jaunty, jittery, juvenile and jerky

• Adverbs (words used to describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs): jauntily, joyfully, joylessly, justly, judgmentally, jokingly, joyously, jeeringly and jerkily

Joyful J Resources

Just because judgmental individuals unjustly jeer at the letter ‘J’, here are jovial and juicy resources for you to jump to the joking letter ‘J’:

• Letter J Alphabet Activities - Enchanted Learning offers many different printable worksheets that are designed to help teach the Letter J. The worksheets focus on pronunciation, writing lower and upper case J's, identifying J words, and writing J words. The worksheets are tailored towards preschool, kindergarten and primary school students.
• The Letter J - EdHelper has many resources that are designed to help teach the letter J to students between the ages of kindergarten through fourth grade. Printable worksheets include lesson plans for teachers, lists of words beginning with J that are tailored to each specific grade level (K-4), and coloring worksheets to help young students learn how to write the letter J.
• Unusual J Words - The Phrontistery provides a list of unusual J words. There are some extremely unique words on this list, and this could prove an invaluable resource for Scrabble or Scattergories players who want to make the most of their pool of ‘J’ words to choose from.
• J Activities for Pre-Schoolers - DLTK's Grow Together offers a series of activities designed to help pre-school students master their J's and learn many J words. Printable activities include crafts, games and puzzles to develop a strong vocabulary of ‘J’ words.