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D (/[invalid input: 'icon']ˈdiː/; named dee)^[1] is the fourth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.

History

Egyptian hieroglyph
door

Phoenician
daleth

Greek
Delta

Etruscan
D

Roman
D

The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented /d/; in the Etruscan alphabet the letter was superfluous but still retained (see letter B). The equivalent Greek letter is Delta, ⟨Δ⟩.^{[citation needed]}

The minuscule (lower-case) form of ⟨d⟩ consists of a loop and a tall vertical stroke. It developed by gradual variations on the majuscule (capital) form. 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.

Usage

In most languages using the Latin alphabet, ⟨d⟩ represents the voiced alveolar plosive /d/, but in the Vietnamese alphabet it represents the sound /z/ (pronounced /j/ in the southern variety). In Fijian it represents a prenasalized stop /nd/.^[2] 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.

Related letters and other similar characters

Đ đ : Latin letter D with stroke
Ɗ ɗ : Latin letter D with hook
Ð ð : Latin letter Eth
Δ δ : Greek letter Delta
Д д : Cyrillic letter De
∂ : the partial derivative symbol, $\partial$

Computing codes

character	D		d
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D		LATIN SMALL LETTER D
character encoding	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	68	0044	100	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 and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Delta	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ^ⓘ

		File:Sign language .svg	File:BSL letter .svg
Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)	Braille dots-145 Unified English Braille

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

References

^ "D" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "dee", op. cit.
^ Lynch, John (1998). Pacific languages: an introduction. University of Hawaii Press. p. 97. ISBN 0824818989.

External links

Media related to D at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of D at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of d at Wiktionary

[1] "D" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "dee", op. cit.

[2] Lynch, John (1998). Pacific languages: an introduction. University of Hawaii Press. p. 97. ISBN 0824818989.

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 {{Refimprove|date=February 2007}}
 {{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=D|lc=d}}
-'''D''' ({{IPAc-en|icon|'|d|iː}}; [[English_alphabet#Letter_names|named]] ''dee'')<ref>"D" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''[[Merriam-Webster]]'s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993); "dee", ''op. cit.''</ref> is the fourth [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]] in the [[basic modern Latin alphabet]].
+'''D''' ({{IPAc-en|icon|'|d|iː}}; [[English_alphabet#Letter_names|named]] ''dee'')<ref>"D" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''[[Merriam-Webster]]'s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993); "dee", ''op. cit.''</ref> is the fourth [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]] and a [[vowel]] in the [[basic modern Latin alphabet]].
 == History ==