T
T t
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and Logographic
Language of originLatin language
Phonetic usage[t]
[ʈ]
[]
[]
[d]
[ð]
[]
[t͡ʃ]
[ɾ]
[ʔ]
/t/
Unicode codepointU+0054, U+0074
Alphabetical position20
History
Development
Time period~-700 to present
Descendants  Th (digraph)
 
 
 
  Ŧ
  Ť
  Ţ
 
Sisters𐍄
Т
Ҭ
Ћ
Ҵ
ת
ت
ܬ

ة

𐎚
𐎙


Տ տ
Ց ց




Other
Other letters commonly used witht(x), th, tzsch
Writing directionLeft-to-Right

T, or t, is the 20th letter in 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 /ˈt/), plural tees.[1] 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.[2]

History

Phoenician
Taw
Etruscan
T
Greek
Tau

Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets. The sound value of Semitic Taw, 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

English

In English, t usually denotes the voiceless alveolar plosive (International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA: /t/), as in tart, tee, or ties, often with aspiration at the beginnings of words or before stressed vowels.

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.

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.)

In a few words of modern French origin, the letter T is silent at the end of a word; these include croquet and debut.

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.

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
        •  : Runic letter teiwaz, which probably derives from old Italic T
  •  : One of the 26 consonantal letters of 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 .

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewTt
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T LATIN SMALL LETTER T
Encodingsdecimalhexdechex
Unicode84U+0054116U+0074
UTF-8845411674
Numeric character referenceTTtt
EBCDIC family227E3163A3
ASCII 1845411674
1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

Explanatory 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 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER INSULAR T and U+A787 LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR T are provided for use by phonetics specialists.[5]

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 2008-07-08. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  3. Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF).
  4. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
  5. 1 2 Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS" (PDF).
  6. Everson, Michael; West, Andrew (2020-10-05). "L2/20-268: Revised proposal to add ten characters for Middle English to the UCS" (PDF).
  7. Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
  8. Miller, Kirk (2020-07-11). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks" (PDF).
  9. 1 2 Anderson, Deborah (2020-12-07). "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).
  10. Miller, Kirk; Sands, Bonny (2020-07-10). "L2/20-115R: Unicode request for additional phonetic click letters" (PDF).
  11. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
  12. Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF).
  13. Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael (2001-09-20). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
  14. Everson, Michael; Jacquerye, Denis; Lilley, Chris (2012-07-26). "L2/12-270: Proposal for the addition of ten Latin characters to the UCS" (PDF).
  15. Miller, Kirk; Rees, Neil (2021-07-16). "L2/21-156: Unicode request for legacy Malayalam" (PDF).
  • Media related to T at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of T at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of t at Wiktionary
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