D

D or d is the fourth letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is dee (pronounced /ˈdiː/), plural dees.[1]

This article is about the letter of the alphabet. For other uses, see D (disambiguation).

D
D d
(See below)
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic
Language of origin	Latin language
Phonetic usage	[d] [t] [ɗ] [z~j] [ⁿd] [ɖ]
Unicode value	U+0044, U+0064
Alphabetical position	4 Numerical value: 4
History
Development	Δ δ 𐌃 D d
Time period	~-700 to present
Descendants	• Ď  • Dž  • Dz  • Đ  • Ð  • Ƌ  • Ꭰ  • ₫  • ∂
Sisters	Д ד د ܕ Դ դ Ꭰ Ꮫ ደ
Variations	(See below)
Other
Other letters commonly used with	d(x)
Associated numbers	4

History

Egyptian hieroglyph  door, fish	Phoenician daleth	Greek Delta	Etruscan  D	Roman D

The Semitic letter Dāleth may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are many different 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.

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.

Use in writing systems

The letter D, standing for "Deutschland" (German for "Germany"), on a boundary stone at the border between Austria and Germany.

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, and in the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨d⟩ generally represents the voiced alveolar or voiced dental plosive /d/. However, in the Vietnamese alphabet, it represents the sound /z/ in northern dialects or /j/ in southern dialects. (See D with stroke and Dz (digraph).) 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.

Other uses

• The Roman numeral D represents the number 500.[3]
• D is the grade below C but above E in the school grading system.
• In Cantonese: Because the lack of Unicode CJK support in the early computer system, most of Hong Kongers used the capitalized D to represent 啲 (lit. a little).

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

• Ɖ ɖ : African D
• Ð ð : Latin letter Eth
• D with diacritics: Đ đ Ꟈ ꟈ[4] Ɗ ɗ Ḋ ḋ Ḍ ḍ Ḑ ḑ Ḓ ḓ Ď ď Ḏ ḏ ᵭ[5] ᶁ[6] ᶑ[6]
• IPA-specific symbols related to D: ɖ
• Ꝺ ꝺ : Insular D is used in various phonetic contexts[7]
• ᴅ ᴰ ᵈ : Small capital D and various modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.[8]
• ȡ : D with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics[9]
• Ƌ ƌ : D with topbar

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

• 𐤃 : Semitic letter Dalet, from which the following symbols originally derive
  • Δ δ : Greek letter Delta, from which the following symbols originally derive
    • Ⲇ ⲇ : Coptic letter Delta
    • Д д : Cyrillic letter De
    • 𐌃 : Old Italic D, the ancestor of modern Latin D
      • ᛞ : Runic letter dagaz, which is possibly a descendant of Old Italic D
      • ᚦ Runic letter thurisaz, another possible descendant of Old Italic D
    • 𐌳 : Gothic letter daaz, which derives from Greek Delta

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

• ₫ : Đồng sign
• ∂ : the partial derivative symbol, ${\displaystyle \partial }$

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	D		d
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D		  LATIN SMALL LETTER D
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	68	U+0044	100	U+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 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Delta	▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL 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 the index and thumb extended and slightly curved, and the tip of the thumb and finger held against the extended index of the left hand.

References

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 0-8248-1898-9.
3. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015. roman numerals.
4. Everson, Michael; Lilley, Chris (2019-05-26). "L2/19-179: Proposal for the addition of four Latin characters for Gaulish" (PDF).
5. Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF).
6. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
7. Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS" (PDF).
8. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
9. Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael (2001-09-20). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).

External links

• The dictionary definition of D at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of d at Wiktionary