JUVENTAS (-ven'-), a Roman god dess, who presided over youth and vigor. She is the same as the Hebe of the Greeks, and was represented as a beau tiful nymph in variegated garments.
JYAR (ji'-), the 8th month of the Jewish year, corresponding, at the earli est, with our April, but it may be as late as May; it has only 29 days.
K, k, the 11th letter and the 8th con sonant of the English alphabet. This letter has before vowels, and before all consonants except n, the same phonetic value in all the alphabets where it ap pears—a guttural momentary sound pro duced by raising the back of the tongue to the back of the palate, as in kill, keen, king. Before n it is not sounded in English, as in knee, knell, knife. From the 16th to the 18th century it was used in English at the end of words after c, apparently to strengthen the hard e, as in alchemick, musick, publick, but this usage is now confined to mono syllables, as check, clock, duck, sick.
Forming part of the original Phoeni cian alphabet, k passed into Greek and the oldest Latin; but c was substituted for it in the latter at an early date, and it only survived in a few common abbreviations (see below). In the early part of the present era, moreover, the sound of k or c (hard) was lost in Italy. It under went palatization—i. e., it was produced by raising the middle instead of the back of the tongue to the palate and c was sounded as ch (tsh). Those modern alphabets, therefore, derived from Italy (i. e., Celtic, Modern Italian, French, and Spanish) have, properly speaking, no k, and the sound and letter are only present in a few foreign importations. In those alphabets, however, derived through the Greek (i. e., Teutonic and Slavonic) k plays an important part. But in Eng lish the letter holds a very ambiguous position. The earliest Anglo-Saxon al phabet, being derived from Roman mis sionaries, was without k, and c was gen erally used to represent its sound, but German influence soon introduced it to northern England, and made it inter changeable with c throughout the coun try, and the two letters were used in differently (cyning, kyning). The Nor
man French of the Conquest brought in many words in which k could have no place, and not only often softened the old c (hard) to ch, or c (sibilant cild, child), but gave c general predominance over k, even when the original sound was retained. In northern England, how ever, it continued to be freely used in words in which in S. dialects k had given way to ch or e (sibilant)—N. rike (kingdom), S. riche; N. croke (cross) , S. crouche; N. Alnwick, S. Greenwich; N. Caister, S. Chester. In Lowland Scotch, likewise, k still retained, as it does to this day, its old importance (kirk and church). K has undergone many other phonetic changes in Indo-European lan guages. In the Grwco-Latin branch it was sometimes labialized, and became p, Latin eguus and Greek hippos=horse, Sanskrit kankan, and Greek pente, e., penpe = five. In English it has been occasionally replaced by Old English bak, Modern English bat, make=mate, maked=made.
As an initial K is used, in orders of knighthood for knight; as K. G., Knight of the Garter; K. T., Knight of the Thistle; K. C. B., Knight Commander of the Bath.
As a symbol K is used: 1. For numerals (Roman) = 250, or with a line above it = 250,000; in Greek. K with a perpendicular stroke below it =20; but when the stroke is written above it, the sum is increased a thou sand fold, and it then equals 20,000.
2. In chemistry, for potassium (being the initial letter of kalium) by which name the metal is also known.