d

<em>d</em>History of the letter d. The letter may have started as a depiction of a door in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing (1). The earliest form of the sign in Semitic writing is unknown. About 1000 bce in Byblos and other Phoenician and Canaanite centers, the sign was given a linear form (2), the source of all later forms. In Semitic languages the sign was called daleth, meaning “door.” The Greeks changed the name to delta, but they retained the Phoenician form of the sign (3). In an Italian colony of Greeks from Khalkis (now Chalcis), the letter was made with a slight curve (4). This shape led to the rounded form found in Latin writing (5). From Latin the capital letter came unchanged into English. In Greek handwriting the triangle of the capital letter was given a projection upward. During Roman times the triangle was gradually rounded (6).

d, letter that has retained the fourth place in the alphabet from the earliest point at which it appears in history. It corresponds to Semitic daleth and Greek delta (Δ). The form is thought to derive from an early pictograph, possibly Egyptian, indicating the folding door of a tent. The rounded form D occurs in the Chalcidian alphabet, whence the Latin alphabet may have acquired it by way of the Etruscans. The letter has retained the rounded form that it had in the Latin alphabet until the present day.

Click Here to see full-size table First five letters in the Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Russian Cyrillic alphabets. In Latin cursive forms of the 5th and 6th century, the right-hand rounded line of the majuscule letter was carried far above the level of its junction with the stroke. From these forms and from the uncial arose the Carolingian and our own minuscule d.

The sound consistently represented by the letter in Semitic, Greek, Latin and the modern languages of Europe is the voiced dental stop. In English this sound, as well as the unvoiced sound represented by t, has become alveolar, that is to say, is pronounced by the pressure of the tongue upon the gums rather than upon the teeth.

The etymological value of d in words of native English origin is generally the same as that of German t (th), Sanskrit dh, Greek θ, Latin f (initial) or d or b (medial), all being derived from dh in the parent Indo-European speech (e.g., English do, German thun, Sanskrit dadhāmi). In some other instances d is derived from Indo-European t when the d originally resulting from the t has been subsequently altered by the change familiarly known as Verner’s law. The occurrence of this change depended on the place of the Indo-European accent (so, for example, the prior d in hundred, Sanskrit śatám, Latin centum).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.

Citation Information

Article Title: d

Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Date Published: 18 April 2022

URL: https://www.britannica.comhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/D-letter

Access Date: November 22, 2024