J with Accent: ĵ Is the Azure Sound and ǰ Is the Jam Sound
Every j with accent in Unicode is ĵ, Ĵ or ǰ, and each mark fixes the sound. Esperanto ĵ, the j with circumflex, is the z of azure. The j with caron, ǰ, is the j of jam in Americanist phonetics, Armenian transliteration and Wakhi. Its capital J̌ is two characters: J plus a combining caron.
How do you type ĵ on a keyboard or phone?
On a Mac, ĵ is Fn/Globe+E, then search "latin small letter j with circumflex", then ĵ; on Windows it is Win+., then Symbols, then ĵ. Each row below gives the documented method for one device or app; the vendor help pages they come from are linked under the table.
| Device or app | Keys |
|---|---|
| Mac | Fn/Globe+E, then search "latin small letter j with circumflex", then ĵ How to type accents on a Mac |
| Windows | Win+., then Symbols, then ĵ How to type accents on Windows |
| Microsoft Word | 0135, then Alt+X How to type accents in Word |
| Google Docs | Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters, then search "latin small letter j with circumflex" How to type accents in Google Docs |
Sources:Mac (Apple) (opens in a new tab)Windows (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Microsoft Word (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Google Docs (Google) (opens in a new tab)
- ĵ j with circumflex · used in 1 language
- Ĵ capital j with circumflex · used in 1 language
- ǰ j with caron
What is the Unicode code for ĵ?
ĵ is U+0135, LATIN SMALL LETTER J WITH CIRCUMFLEX, added in Unicode 1.1 in 1993. In UTF-8 it is stored as the bytes C4 B5, and the table gives every escape a developer needs.
| Code point | U+0135 |
|---|---|
| Name | LATIN SMALL LETTER J WITH CIRCUMFLEX |
| Added in | Unicode 1.1 (1993) |
| UTF-8 bytes | C4 B5 |
| HTML | ĵ ĵ ĵ |
| CSS | \0135 |
| JavaScript | \u0135 |
| Python | \u0135 |
| URL | %C4%B5 |
If a page shows ĵ instead of ĵ, its UTF-8 bytes are being read as Windows-1252. Serve the page as UTF-8 (<meta charset="utf-8">) to fix it.
Which sound does each j with accent stand for, ĵ or ǰ?
Start with the plain j, since it is the reason the marks exist. The Fundamento de Esperanto (opens in a new tab) gives Esperanto j as the y of yoke and ĵ as the z of azure. An English reader sees jam in the same letter. A mark on j tells the reader to drop both habits, and the circumflex and the caron point to different sounds.
Wiktionary records the readings in its entries for ĵ (opens in a new tab), ǰ (opens in a new tab) and the Armenian letter ջ (opens in a new tab). The last column is the closest English sound, where one exists.
| Letter | Who writes it | Sound | Nearest English sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| j | Esperanto | /j/ | y of yoke |
| ĵ | Esperanto, as the letter ĵo | /ʒ/, or /ʃ/ before a voiceless consonant | z of azure |
| ĵ | French phonetic notation | the affricate of English j | j of jam |
| ǰ | North American Phonetic Alphabet | [d͡ʒ] | j of jam |
| ǰ | Wakhi, Shughni and Lushootseed alphabets | /d͡ʒ/ | j of jam |
| ǰ | Armenian, for ջ | [d͡ʒ] in Eastern, [t͡ʃʰ] in Western Armenian | j of jam, or ch of church |
| ǰ | Uralic Phonetic Alphabet | [ʝ] | none; a y said with friction |
Read the rows as a rule of thumb for any j with accent. A circumflex j is the hushed azure sound, and a caron j is the jam sound with a d in front. The French row and the Uralic row are the exceptions, so a phonetic text needs its alphabet named.
Both marks take the place of the dot. NamesList.txt (opens in a new tab) breaks ĵ into j plus U+0302 and ǰ into j plus U+030C, and neither letter is drawn with a dot. The i with accent page explains that rule for i, which shares it with j.
When does an English j word take ĵ in Esperanto?
Not by its English sound. Jazz and jungle open with the same j in English, and Wiktionary traces both Esperanto words to English. Yet one is ĵazo (opens in a new tab) and the other ĝangalo (opens in a new tab). Others came through French: ĵurnalo (opens in a new tab), a newspaper, from journal, and ĵaŭdo (opens in a new tab), Thursday, from jeudi.
| English word | Esperanto | Letter used | Where Wiktionary traces it |
|---|---|---|---|
| jazz | ĵazo | ĵ | English jazz |
| newspaper, journal | ĵurnalo | ĵ | French journal |
| jealous | ĵaluza | ĵ | Latin zelosus, from Greek ζῆλος |
| just, recently | ĵus | ĵ | French justement and English just |
| Thursday | ĵaŭdo | ĵ | French jeudi |
| joy | ĝojo | ĝ | Italian gioia, French joie, English joy |
| jungle | ĝangalo | ĝ | English jungle |
| jubilee | jubileo | j | Latin iūbilaeus, through French, German and others |
| January | januaro | j | German Januar, Latin Iānuārius |
The plain j rows are said with a y, as the Fundamento's rule for j requires. A Latin root does not settle it either: januaro goes back to Iānuārius, and ĵaŭdo to Iovis diēs, yet they took different letters. Wiktionary's entries for ĵaluza (opens in a new tab), ĵus (opens in a new tab), ĝojo (opens in a new tab), jubileo (opens in a new tab) and januaro (opens in a new tab) give the details.
The table shows no English pattern to follow, so look the word up before the mark goes on. The g with accent page covers ĝ, the letter for the jam sound.
Why can't you strip the caron from an Armenian ǰ?
Because in the scheme that writes it, a bare j is another Armenian letter. Wiktionary romanizes Armenian with the Hübschmann-Meillet-Benveniste system of the Revue des Études Arméniennes, its transliteration page (opens in a new tab) says. That system gives ǰ to ջ and plain j to ձ (opens in a new tab).
| Armenian letter | Written in the scheme | Eastern Armenian | Western Armenian | A word with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ջ | ǰ | [d͡ʒ] | [t͡ʃʰ] | ջուր, ǰur, water |
| ձ | j | [d͡z] | [t͡sʰ] | ձուկ, juk, fish |
Strip the caron from ǰur and you get jur, which the same scheme reads back as ձուր, not as the word for water. An accent-folding search does exactly this. The words come from Wiktionary's entries for ջուր (opens in a new tab) and ձուկ (opens in a new tab).
Wiktionary adds that ձ is sometimes written dz instead. So a plain j in an Armenian name does not tell you the letter until you know which scheme spelled it. In Western Armenian, ǰ is said close to the ch of church, not the j of jam.
Is the unit vector ĵ in physics the same character as the Esperanto letter?
On the screen, yes; in the file, usually not. OpenStax University Physics (opens in a new tab) names the unit vector on the y axis j hat, next to i hat for the x axis. We read that page's HTML on 2026-10-10. Each j hat there is MathML: a j under a separate ^ sign, and the page holds no U+0135. The equation software draws the hat; it does not pick a letter from Latin Extended-A.
Unicode's report on mathematics (opens in a new tab) says where the dot goes. Plain j carries the Soft_Dotted property, listed in PropList.txt (opens in a new tab), so a renderer removes its dot when a combining mark sits above it. One hat stretched over a sum such as i + j breaks that, so Unicode also encodes U+1D6A5, MATHEMATICAL ITALIC DOTLESS J. The report maps it to TeX's \jmath.
| Where you write j hat | What to enter | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| LaTeX | \hat{\jmath} | an italic dotless j with a hat |
| A web page with MathML | <mover accent="true"><mi>j</mi><mo>^</mo></mover> | the markup OpenStax uses |
| Word, outside the equation editor | 0135, then Alt+X | the letter ĵ, U+0135 |
| Chat, a spreadsheet, plain text | ĵ from the tiles above | the letter ĵ |
A j with accent from the tiles is fine for a quick note. ĵ breaks into j plus the same combining circumflex a math renderer would put on top. A search for ĵ will not find a MathML j hat, though, and a search for j hat will not find the letter.
How to type j with accent, step by step
Step 1: Word: 0135 or 01f0, then Alt+X
Type 0135 where the letter goes and press Alt+X to get ĵ. 0134 gives Ĵ and 01f0 gives ǰ. For the capital J̌, type J, then 030c, and press Alt+X once more, and Word turns the code into a combining caron on the J.
Step 2: Mac: search the Character Viewer by the letter's name
Press Fn/Globe+E and type latin small letter j with circumflex, or latin small letter j with caron. Double-click the letter to insert it.
Step 3: Windows: Win+. and the Symbols tab
Press Win+. and switch to Symbols. Find ĵ or ǰ among the Latin letters and click it.
Step 4: Google Docs: Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters
Open the Insert menu, point to Symbols, choose Special characters and search j with circumflex or j with caron. Click the result.
Step 5: Match the mark to the sound
Use ĵ for the azure sound of Esperanto. Use ǰ for the jam sound in an Americanist, Wakhi or Armenian text. For a physics j hat, use your equation tool rather than either letter.
What are all the j letters with accents?
Every j with an accent mark on AccentPad, lowercase then capitals. Tap one to copy it:
Which languages use ĵ or ǰ?
Between them, ĵ and ǰ are part of the standard alphabet of 1 language in the Unicode CLDR. Each letter's languages:
- ĵ
- 1 language: Esperanto
No CLDR alphabet lists ǰ.
Which letters are related to j with accent?
These letter pages share an accent mark or a language with ĵ Ĵ ǰ, the most shared languages first.
Every letter with the same mark, on one page, for ǰ and ĵ: Caron, Circumflex.
ĵ Ĵ ǰ have no Alt code: Windows cannot type them that way.
Need a letter other than ĵ?
Frequently asked questions about j with accent
How do you type the capital of ǰ?
As two characters: J, then U+030C, the combining caron. Unicode has no single J̌. In Word, type J and 030c, then press Alt+X to merge them. We checked in Node.js v26 on 2026-10-10: uppercasing ǰ returns those two code points, and NFC keeps them apart. Lowercasing J̌ gives ǰ back, except under Lithuanian rules, which add a dot above: j, U+0307, U+030C.
Can the j of Dutch ij carry an accent?
Yes, for emphasis. Team Taaladvies of the Flemish government writes a stress mark on the first two letters of a stressed vowel, so ij takes one on each letter. It adds that the mark on the j is usually dropped for technical reasons, as in íjskoud. Unicode has no j with acute; j́ is j plus U+0301 and stays two code points after NFC.
Is ĵ said like the j in jam?
No. The Fundamento de Esperanto gives ĵ as the z of azure, and Wiktionary writes it /ʒ/, or /ʃ/ before a voiceless consonant. Esperanto spells the jam sound with ĝ, as in ĝojo, joy. The letter itself is called ĵo, said /ˈʒo/, and it comes right after plain j in the alphabet.
Does ǰ mean one sound in every phonetic alphabet?
No. Wiktionary gives it two readings. In the North American Phonetic Alphabet, ǰ is the affricate [d͡ʒ], with ǯ and ǧ listed as synonyms. In the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet it is a fricative j, [ʝ], a y said with friction. Find out which alphabet a word list follows before you read its ǰ aloud.
Where do ĵ and ǰ sit in Unicode?
ĵ is U+0135 and Ĵ is U+0134, in the Latin Extended-A block. ǰ is U+01F0, in Latin Extended-B, with no capital beside it. All three date from Unicode 1.1. HTML names the circumflex pair, ĵ and Ĵ. ǰ has no name, so write ǰ or ǰ.