T, or t, is the twentieth

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

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 o ...

, 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 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 gives ri ...

𐤕 of the Phoenician and

Paleo-Hebrew The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...

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 in ...

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 Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

Taw ܬ, and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, 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 ...

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 gives r ...

) via the Greek letter τ (

tau Tau (uppercase Τ, lowercase τ, or \boldsymbol\tau; el, ταυ ) is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless dental or alveolar plosive . In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 300. The name in English ...

). 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 postal ...

, a sound it also denotes 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 ...

. 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 wit ...

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

History

'' was the last letter of the Western Semitic and

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, 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 languag ...

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 we ...

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 The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, and ...

: ), 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 A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceless ...

) 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 The dental fricative or interdental fricative is a fricative consonant pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth. There are several types (those used in English being written as ''th''): *Voiced dental fricative - as in the English ...

, 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 mos ...

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 postalv ...

, 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 ''diacriti ...

s: Ť, Ť ť Dot (diacritic), Ṫ ṫ ẗ Cedilla, Ţ ţ Ṭ, Ṭ ṭ Ʈ, Ʈ ʈ Comma (diacritic), Ț ț ƫ Circumflex, Ṱ ṱ Macron below, Ṯ ṯ Ŧ, Ŧ ŧ Ⱦ, Ⱦ ⱦ Ƭ, Ƭ ƭ ᵵ ᶵ *Ꞇ ꞇ : Insular script, Insular T, also used by William Pryce to designate the voiceless dental fricative [θ] *ᫎ : 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 International Phonetic Alphabet#Superscript IPA, superscript IPA letter *𝼉 : Latin small letter t with hook and retroflex hook is a symbol for a voiceless retroflex implosive *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 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 of the Malayalam language.

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

*𐤕 : Phoenician alphabet, Semitic letter

, from which the following symbols originally derive **Τ τ : Greek alphabet, Greek letter Tau *** : Coptic alphabet, Coptic letter Taw, which derives from Greek Tau ***Т т : Cyrillic letter Te (Cyrillic), Te, also derived from Tau *** : Gothic alphabet, Gothic letter tius, which derives from Greek Tau ***𐌕 : Old Italic script, Old Italic T, which derives from Greek Tau, and is the ancestor of modern Latin T **** : Runes, Runic letter Tiwaz rune, teiwaz, which probably derives from old Italic T *ፐ : 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 ተ.

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

*™ : Trademark symbol *₮ : Mongolian tögrög *₸ : Kazakhstani tenge *৳ : Bangladeshi taka

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