The colon alphabetic letter is used in a number of languages and phonetic transcription systems, generally for

vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...

or tone. It resembles but differs from the colon punctuation mark, . In some fonts, the two dots are placed a bit closer together than those of the punctuation colon so that the two characters are visually distinct. In

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

it has been assigned the code , which behaves like a letter rather than a punctuation mark in electronic texts. In practice, however, an

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

colon is frequently used for the letter. In

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, the letter colon can be used to emulate the punctuation colon in file names, where the punctuation colon is a

reserved character A filename or file name is a name used to uniquely identify a computer file in a directory structure. Different file systems impose different restrictions on filename lengths. A filename may (depending on the file system) include: * name &ndas ...

that cannot be used.

Alphabetic letter

Several of the Native American languages of North America use the colon to indicate vowel length. Zuni is one. Other languages include

Hupa Hupa (Yurok language term: Huep'oola' / Huep'oolaa = "Hupa people") are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in northwestern California. Their endonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinook-wa, meaning "Peopl ...

of California, Oʼodham of Arizona,

Sayula Popoluca Sayula Popoluca, also called Sayultec, is a Mixe language spoken by around 5,000 indigenous people in and around the town of Sayula de Alemán in the southern part of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. Almost all published research on the language ha ...

of Mexico and Mohawk of Ontario. Still others use a half colon (just the top dot of the colon, or a middot, ). Both conventions derive from Americanist phonetic notation (below). The colon is used as a grammatical tone letter in Budu in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

, in Sabaot in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

, in some Grebo in

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

, and in several languages of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

: Erima,

Gizra Gizrra, or Toga, is a Papuan language of New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capit ...

Go꞉bosi Gobasi, also known as Gebusi, Gobosi or Nomad, is a Trans–New Guinea language of New Guinea, spoken in the plains east of the Strickland River The Strickland River is a major river in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. It is the long ...

Gwahatike Gwahatike (also called Dahating or Gwatike) is a language generally classified in the Warup branch of the Finisterre family of Finisterre–Huon languages. As of 2003, it was spoken by 1570 people in Papua New Guinea. It is spoken in several villa ...

, Kaluli, Kamula, Kasua, Kuni-Boazi and Zimakani.

Phonetic symbol

Americanist phonetic notation Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American an ...

, a colon may be used to indicate vowel length. This convention is somewhat less common than the half-colon. In the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

, a special triangular colon-like letter is used to indicate that the preceding

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

or vowel is long. Its form is that of two triangles pointing toward each other rather than the two dots of Americanist notation. It is available in Unicode as . If the upper triangle is used without the lower one (), it designates a half-long vowel or consonant. The

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...

uses .

References

Latin-script letters {{Writingsystem-stub