The Russian letter "й" is called "и краткое" (it is pronounced [i kratkaye]). We represent its sound as [j], that is, a shorter sound than "и" similar to the sound of "y" in "oyster" or "boy".
The letter Ж is only pronounced /ʒ/ in Russian loanwords. It is usually pronounced /d͡ʒ/.
The letter J developed from I in Latin and was initially pronounced as Y. So for example, Classical Latin iugum/jugum 'yoke' (pronounced something like yoogoom). This was then adopted by most Germanic languages and is still used in the same way in German, for example Jahr 'year' (pronounce yar).
Germanic and Eastern-European languages
The great majority of Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, use ⟨j⟩ for the palatal approximant /j/, which is usually represented by the letter ⟨y⟩ in English.
It's true that the letter J is pronounced like a Y (IPA /j/) in most other Germanic languages.
How did J get its sound? Both I and J were used interchangeably by scribes to express the sound of both the vowel and the consonant. It wasn't until 1524 when Gian Giorgio Trissino, an Italian Renaissance grammarian known as the father of the letter J, made a clear distinction between the two sounds.
J in German is pronounced as “yott” (rhyming with “thought”). The German J is pronounced as an English Y. This can be observed in words like ja, Jammer, and Jahr.
So Swedish 'gäst' sounds like the first syllable in 'yesterday'. Before a, o, å, u it is pronounced hard as in English 'go'. j is always pronounced like y, as in 'yes'. k is pronounced somewhat, though not exactly, like sh, as in 'ship' before e, i, y, ä, ö.
In the original languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) which provide us with the names Jesus, Joseph, Justinian, etc., the sound which we write as J was pronounced as the English letter Y. (Just to make things confusing for English speakers, the phonetic symbol for this sound is [j].)
Je (Ј ј; italics: Ј ј) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, taken over from the Latin letter J. It commonly represents the palatal approximant /j/, like the pronunciation of ⟨y⟩ in "yes".
- the succeeding vowels are pronounced with the distinct initial Y-sound (ye, yo, yu, ya). - the soft sign is not pronounced; - the preceding consonant is soft; - the succeeding vowels -е, -ё, -и, -ю, -я are pronounced with the distinct initial Y-sound (ye, yo, yi, yu, ya).
So Zh is simply the Chinese J but with the tongue curled back in a higher position against the hard palate. Ch is the Chinese Q but with the tongue curled back in a higher position against the hard palate.
The 'j sound' /ʤ/ is voiced (the vocal cords vibrate during its production), and is the counterpart to the unvoiced 'ch sound' /ʧ/.
The letter J in English has always been pronounced the same way since it was introduced. It replaced the Old English letters cg which had the same sound: In English, ⟨j⟩ most commonly represents the affricate /dʒ/. In Old English the phoneme /dʒ/ was represented orthographically with ⟨cg⟩ and ⟨cȝ⟩.
J in Dutch is pronounced with an English y sound, as in year. V in Dutch sometimes makes an f sound, depending on the placement and regional dialect. W in Dutch w is a cross between an English w and v sound.
Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.
Finally, Juventus is a special case. In Italian, the letter J is only used in words borrowed from foreign langauges. Otherwise, the J sound (as in jam) is always represented by the letter G (Genova) or by the combination “GI” (Giuseppe).
J is pronounced as English y. Ki, kj and tj are pronounced as the h in English huge (with more friction) or the ch in German ich, e.g. kirke 'church'. O especially when long is u-like.
It is mainly pronounced as the English “y” in the word “you” both at the beginning and end of syllables. Anna: Yes, when j is not the initial or final letter of a word, it often occurs after the letters “h,” “s,” and “t.” But no matter what, j is always pronounced the same.
In the Indo-European languages that I speak and/or understand: English, Latin, French, Italian and now Swedish, the letter “j” is the predominant pronunciation among the Germanic branches. Only English ( and the Romance language, French) have a “duzh” or “zh” sound. The rest have a “y” sound.
/j/ was pronounced as [j] in most cases, but as the affricate [dʒ] after /n/ or when geminated (fortition). The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ was pronounced as the stop [ɡ] after /n/ or when doubled. In late Old English, [ɣ] was devoiced to /x/ at the ends of words.
J in English is a hard soft "G," J in German/Nordic languages are pronounced as the English "Y," in Spanish it's pronounced as English "H," and French it's a "zh" sound.