T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is derived from the Semitic Taw 𐤕 of the Phoenician and Paleo-Hebrew script (

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Taw ת/𐡕/

, Syriac Taw ܬ, and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

Tāʼ Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Tāw , Hebrew Tav , Aramaic Taw , Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ (22nd in abjadi order, 3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it is also ...

) via the Greek letter τ ( tau). In English, it is most commonly used to represent the

voiceless alveolar plosive The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and posta ...

, a sound it also denotes in the

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

. It is the most commonly used

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 w ...

and the second most commonly used letter in English-language texts.

History

'' Taw'' was the last letter of the Western Semitic and

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

s. The sound value of Semitic ''Taw'',

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

Tαυ (''Tau''), Old Italic and Latin T has remained fairly constant, representing 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, usually denotes the

(

and X-SAMPA: ), as in ''tart'', ''tee'', or ''ties'', often with aspiration at the beginnings of words or before stressed vowels. The digraph often corresponds to the sound (a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant) word-medially when followed by a vowel, as in ''nation'', ''ratio'', ''negotiation,'' and ''Croatia''. The letter corresponds to the affricate in some words as a result of

yod-coalescence The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters. H-cluster reductions The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...

(for example, in words ending in "-ture", such as ''future''). A common digraph is , which usually represents a dental fricative, but occasionally represents (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 An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

of other languages, is often used for , the

voiceless dental plosive The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postal ...

, or similar sounds.

Other systems

In the

, denotes the

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

*T with

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s: Ť ť Ṫ ṫ ẗ Ţ ţ Ṭ ṭ Ʈ ʈ Ț ț ƫ Ṱ ṱ Ṯ ṯ Ŧ ŧ Ⱦ ⱦ Ƭ ƭ ᵵ

ᶵ The palatal hook () is a type of hook diacritic formerly used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent palatalized consonants. It is a small, leftwards-facing hook joined to the bottom-right side of a letter, and is distinguished from ...

*Ꞇ ꞇ : Insular T, also used by William Pryce to designate the voiceless dental fricative �ref name=Insular> *ᫎ : Combining small insular t was used in the Ormulum * : Turned small t is used in the

(IPA) *𐞯 : Modifier letter small t with retroflex hook is a superscript IPA letter *𝼉 : Latin small letter t with hook and retroflex hook is a symbol for a

voiceless retroflex implosive A voiceless retroflex implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no official symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, but or may be used, or the old convention (). Featur ...

*𝼍 : Latin small turned t with curl is a click letter * Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to T: ** ** ** ** *ₜ : Subscript small t was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902 * ȶ : T with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics *Ʇ ʇ : Turned capital T and turned small t were used in transcriptions of the

Dakota language Dakota (''Dakhótiyapi, Dakȟótiyapi''), also referred to as Dakhota, is a Siouan language spoken by the Dakota people of the Sioux tribes. Dakota is closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Lakota language. It is critically endang ...

in publications of the American Board of Ethnology in the late 19th century *𝼪 : Small t with mid-height left hook was used by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the early 20th century for

romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...

of the

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

language.

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

*𐤕 : Semitic letter Taw, from which the following symbols originally derive **Τ τ : Greek letter Tau *** : Coptic letter Taw, which derives from Greek Tau ***Т т :

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

letter Te, also derived from Tau *** :

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

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 *ፐ : One of the 26 consonantal letters of Ge'ez script. The Ge'ez

abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel no ...

developed under the influence of Christian scripture by adding obligatory vocalic diacritics to the consonantal letters. Pesa ፐ is based on Tawe ተ.

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

*™ :

Trademark symbol The trademark symbol is a symbol to indicate that the preceding mark is a trademark, specifically an unregistered trademark. It complements the registered trademark symbol which is reserved for trademarks registered with an appropriate g ...

History

Use in writing systems

English

Other languages

Other systems

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

Computing codes

Other representations

Explanatory notes

References

External links