T

T
T t
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and logographic
Language of originLatin language
Sound values
In UnicodeU+0054, U+0074
Alphabetical position20
History
Development
Time periodc. 700 BCE to present
Descendants
Sisters
Other
Associated graphst(x), th, tzsch
Writing directionLeft-to-right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

T (minuscule: t) is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is tee (pronounced /ˈtiː/ ⓘ), plural tees.

It is derived from the Semitic Taw 𐤕 of the Phoenician and Paleo-Hebrew script (Aramaic and Hebrew Taw ת/𐡕/, Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ) via the Greek letter τ (tau). In English, it is most commonly used to represent the voiceless alveolar plosive, a sound it also denotes in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second-most commonly used letter in English-language texts.

History

Phoenician
Taw		 Western Greek
Tau		 Etruscan
T		 Latin
T

Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets. The sound value of Semitic Taw, the Greek alphabet Tαυ (Tau), Old Italic and Latin T has remained fairly constant, representing [t] in each of these, and it has also kept its original basic shape in most of these alphabets.

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨t⟩ by language
Orthography Phonemes
Catalan /t/
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) /tʰ/
English /t/, silent
French /t/, silent
German /t/
Icelandic /tʰ/
Indonesian /t/
Portuguese /t/
[t͡ʃ], allophone of /t/ before /i/, /ĩ/ and /j/ in some Brazilian dialects
Spanish /t/
Turkish /t/

English

In English, ⟨t⟩ usually denotes the voiceless alveolar plosive (International Phonetic Alphabet: /t/), as in tart, tee, or ties, often with aspiration at the beginnings of words or before stressed vowels. The letter ⟨t⟩ corresponds to the affricate /t͡ʃ/ in some words as a result of yod-coalescence (for example, in words ending in -"ture", such as future).

A common digraph is ⟨th⟩, which usually represents a dental fricative, but occasionally represents /t/ (as in Thomas and thyme). The digraph ⟨ti⟩ often corresponds to the sound /ʃ/ (a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant) word-medially when followed by a vowel, as in nation, ratio, negotiation, and Croatia.

In a few words of modern French origin, the letter T is silent at the end of a word; these include croquet and debut. and it's also silent in native words and some words of Old French origin; these include thistle and castle.

Other languages

In the orthographies of other languages, ⟨t⟩ is often used for /t/, the voiceless dental plosive /t̪/, or similar sounds.

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨t⟩ denotes the voiceless alveolar plosive.

Other uses

A curly T pictured in the coat of arms of the former Teisko municipality, which was consolidated to Tampere.

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

  • 𐤕 : Semitic letter Taw, from which the following symbols originally derive:
    • Τ τ : Greek letter Tau
      • Ⲧ ⲧ : Coptic letter Taw, which derives from Greek Tau
      • Т т : Cyrillic letter Te, also derived from Tau
      • 𐍄 : Gothic letter tius, which derives from Greek Tau
      • 𐌕 : Old Italic T, which derives from Greek Tau, and is the ancestor of modern Latin T
        • ᛏ : Runic letter teiwaz, which probably derives from old Italic T
  • ፐ : One of the 26 consonantal letters of the Ge'ez script. The Ge'ez abugida developed under the influence of Christian scripture by adding obligatory vocalic diacritics to the consonantal letters. Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ.

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

Unicode:

Codepoints 005416 (8410) and x007416 (11610) were used for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other

Notes

  1. ↑ Unicode treats representation of letters of the Latin alphabet written in insular script as a typeface choice that needs no separate coding. U+A786 Ꞇ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER INSULAR T and U+A787 ꞇ LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR T are provided for use by phonetics specialists.

References

  1. ↑ "T", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "tee", op. cit.
  2. ↑ Lewand, Robert. "Relative Frequencies of Letters in General English Plain text". Cryptographical Mathematics. Central College. Archived from the original on July 8, 2008. Retrieved June 25, 2008.
  3. ↑ Constable, Peter (September 30, 2003). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  4. ↑ Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  5. 1 2 Everson, Michael (August 6, 2006). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on August 19, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  6. ↑ Everson, Michael; West, Andrew (October 5, 2020). "L2/20-268: Revised proposal to add ten characters for Middle English to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  7. ↑ Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (November 8, 2020). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 30, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  8. ↑ Miller, Kirk (July 11, 2020). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 8, 2022. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  9. 1 2 Anderson, Deborah (December 7, 2020). "L2/21-021: Reference doc numbers for L2/20-266R "Consolidated code chart of proposed phonetic characters" and IPA etc. code point and name changes" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 8, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  10. ↑ Miller, Kirk; Sands, Bonny (July 10, 2020). "L2/20-115R: Unicode request for additional phonetic click letters" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 8, 2022. Retrieved October 13, 2022.
  11. ↑ Everson, Michael; et al. (March 20, 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on February 19, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  12. ↑ Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (January 27, 2009). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  13. ↑ Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael (September 20, 2001). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  14. ↑ Everson, Michael; Jacquerye, Denis; Lilley, Chris (July 26, 2012). "L2/12-270: Proposal for the addition of ten Latin characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  15. ↑ Miller, Kirk; Rees, Neil (July 16, 2021). "L2/21-156: Unicode request for legacy Malayalam" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on September 7, 2021. Retrieved October 13, 2022.