D-comma (majuscule: D̦, minuscule: d̦) is a letter that was part of the

Romanian alphabet The Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Romanian language. It is a modification of the classical Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used b ...

to represent the sound or if it was derived from a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''d'' (e.g. , pronounced came from Latin , day). It was the equivalent of the

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

letters З and Ѕ. This letter was first introduced by

Petru Maior Petru Maior (; 1761 in Marosvásárhely ''(now Târgu Mureș, Romania)'' – 14 February 1821 in Budapest) was a Romanian writer who is considered one of the most influential personalities of the Age of Enlightenment in Transylvania (the ''Tran ...

in his 1819 book : "". In 1844, Ioan Eliade introduced ''d̦'' again, in his magazine , as a substitute for '' з''. On 23 October 1858, the of

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...

issued a decree in which, among other rules, ''d̦'' was for the third time adopted instead of Cyrillic '' з''. However, the rule would not be fully adopted until later. Taking the matter in his hands, internal affairs minister

Ion Ghica Ion Ghica (; 12 August 1816 – 7 May 1897) was a Romanian statesman, mathematician, diplomat and politician, who was Prime Minister of Romania five times. He was a full member of the Romanian Academy and its president many times (1876–1882, ...

stated on 8 February 1860 that whoever in his order ignored the new transitional alphabet would be fired. In

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...

, the transitional alphabet and the letter ''d̦'' was adopted much later. In his grammar, published in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

in 1865,

Vasile Alecsandri Vasile Alecsandri (; 21 July 182122 August 1890) was a Romanian patriot, poet, dramatist, politician and diplomat. He was one of the key figures during the 1848 revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia. He fought for the unification of the Romani ...

adopted this sign instead of '' з'', viewing the comma below '' d'' as a small '' s'' (''d̦'' was often pronounced , . This was also the case with ș—''ss'' and ț—''ts'').Vîrtosu, p. 245. This letter was abandoned in 1904 and is no longer in use. Ḑ ḑ is part of the Livonian alphabet but is written with a cedilla.

Computer encoding

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 ...

does not include

precomposed character A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacri ...

s for D̦ d̦—they must be represented with a

combining diacritic In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents). Unicode als ...

, which may not align properly in some

fonts In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mode ...

. Nevertheless, the sequence of base character + combining diacritic is given a unique name. Otherwise, the D-cedilla (Ḑ ḑ) is somewhat to be a substitute as part of the Unicode standards because the typographic point of view of D-cedilla is very similar that has a comma.

Notes

References

* Negruzzi, Constantin, , in vol. "", , Bucharest, 1969. * Vîrtosu, Emil, , Bucharest, 1968. {{Romanian language Latin letters with diacritics Romanian language 1819 introductions

Computer encoding

See also

Notes

References