D

D, or d, is the fourth 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 dee (pronounced /ˈd/), plural dees.

D
D d
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic
Language of originLatin language
Phonetic usage
Unicode codepointU+0044, U+0064
Alphabetical position4
Numerical value: 4
History
Development
Time period~-700 to present
Descendants
Sisters
Other
Other letters commonly used withd(x)
Associated numbers4
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.

History

Egyptian hieroglyph
door, fish
Phoenician
daleth
Western Greek
Delta
Etruscan
D
Latin
D
O31
K1
K2
D  D  D  D 

The Semitic letter Dāleth may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are many different Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek and Latin, the letter represented /d/; in the Etruscan alphabet the letter was archaic, but still retained (see letter B). The equivalent Greek letter is Delta, Δ.

The minuscule (lower-case) form of 'd' consists of a lower-story left bowl and a stem ascender. It most likely developed by gradual variations on the majuscule (capital) form 'D', and today now composed as a stem with a full lobe to the right. In handwriting, it was common to start the arc to the left of the vertical stroke, resulting in a serif at the top of the arc. This serif was extended while the rest of the letter was reduced, resulting in an angled stroke and loop. The angled stroke slowly developed into a vertical stroke.

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation summary
Languages in italics are not usually written using the Latin alphabet
Language Dialect(s) Pronunciation (IPA) Environment Notes
Mandarin Chinese Standard /t/ Pinyin romanization
English /d/
French /d/ Sometimes silent word-finally
German /d/, /t/ See German orthography
Portuguese /d/
Spanish /d/
Turkish /d/

English

In English, ⟨d⟩ generally represents the voiced alveolar plosive /d/.

D is the tenth most frequently used letter in the English language.

Other languages

D 
The letter D, standing for "Deutschland" (German for "Germany"), on a boundary stone at the border between Austria and Germany.

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, ⟨d⟩ generally represents the voiced alveolar or voiced dental plosive /d/.

In the Vietnamese alphabet, it represents the sound /z/ in northern dialects or /j/ in southern dialects. (See D with stroke and Dz (digraph).)

In Fijian it represents a prenasalized stop /ⁿd/.

In some languages where voiceless unaspirated stops contrast with voiceless aspirated stops, ⟨d⟩ represents an unaspirated /t/, while ⟨t⟩ represents an aspirated /tʰ/. Examples of such languages include Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic, Navajo and the Pinyin transliteration of Mandarin.

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨d⟩ represents the voiced alveolar plosive /d/.

Other uses

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

  • 𐤃 : Semitic letter Dalet, from which the following symbols originally derive
    • Δ δ : Greek letter Delta, from which the following symbols originally derive
      • Ⲇ ⲇ : Coptic letter Delta
      • Д д : Cyrillic letter De
      • 𐌃 : Old Italic D, the ancestor of modern Latin D
        •  : Runic letter dagaz, which is possibly a descendant of Old Italic D
        • Runic letter thurisaz, another possible descendant of Old Italic D
      • 𐌳 : Gothic letter daaz, which derives from Greek Delta

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

These are the code points for the forms of the letter in various systems

Character information
Preview D d
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D LATIN SMALL LETTER D
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 68 U+0044 100 U+0064
UTF-8 68 44 100 64
Numeric character reference D D d d
EBCDIC family 196 C4 132 84
ASCII 1 68 44 100 64
    1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other

In British Sign Language (BSL), the letter 'd' is indicated by signing with the right hand held with the index and thumb extended and slightly curved, and the tip of the thumb and finger held against the extended index of the left hand.

References

  • D  The dictionary definition of D at Wiktionary
  • D  The dictionary definition of d at Wiktionary

Tags:

D HistoryD Use in writing systemsD Other usesD Related charactersD Other representationsD

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