In a writing system , a letter is a grapheme that generally corresponds to a phoneme —the smallest functional unit of speech—though there is rarely total one-to-one correspondence between the two. An alphabet is a writing system that uses letters.
27-657: T , or t , is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet , used in the modern English alphabet , the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is tee (pronounced / ˈ t iː / ), plural tees . It is derived from the Semitic Taw 𐤕 of the Phoenician and Paleo-Hebrew script ( Aramaic and Hebrew Taw ת/𐡕/ [REDACTED] , Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ ) via
54-411: A multigraph . Multigraphs include digraphs of two letters (e.g. English ch , sh , th ), and trigraphs of three letters (e.g. English tch ). The same letterform may be used in different alphabets while representing different phonemic categories. The Latin H , Greek eta ⟨Η⟩ , and Cyrillic en ⟨Н⟩ are homoglyphs , but represent different phonemes. Conversely,
81-513: A lowercase form (also called minuscule ). Upper- and lowercase letters represent the same sound, but serve different functions in writing. Capital letters are most often used at the beginning of a sentence, as the first letter of a proper name or title, or in headers or inscriptions. They may also serve other functions, such as in the German language where all nouns begin with capital letters. The terms uppercase and lowercase originated in
108-549: A variety of modern uses in mathematics, science, and engineering . People and objects are sometimes named after letters, for one of these reasons: The word letter entered Middle English c. 1200 , borrowed from the Old French letre . It eventually displaced the previous Old English term bōcstæf ' bookstaff '. Letter ultimately descends from the Latin littera , which may have been derived from
135-456: Is considered to be a separate letter from ⟨n⟩ , though this distinction is not usually recognised in English dictionaries. In computer systems, each has its own code point , U+006E n LATIN SMALL LETTER N and U+00F1 ñ LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE , respectively. Letters may also function as numerals with assigned numerical values, for example with Roman numerals . Greek and Latin letters have
162-548: Is continued into Modern Greek , where the letter name is pronounced [ˈita] and represents the close front unrounded vowel , [i] . It shares this function with several other letters ( ι , υ ) and digraphs (ει, οι, υι), which are all pronounced alike. Eta was also borrowed with the sound value of [i] into the Cyrillic script , where it gave rise to the Cyrillic letter И . In Modern Greek , due to iotacism ,
189-572: Is indicated by the existence of precomposed characters for use with computer systems (for example, ⟨á⟩ , ⟨à⟩ , ⟨ä⟩ , ⟨â⟩ , ⟨ã⟩ .) In the following table, letters from multiple different writing systems are shown, to demonstrate the variety of letters used throughout the world. Eta Eta ( / ˈ iː t ə , ˈ eɪ t ə / EE -tə, AY -tə ; uppercase Η , lowercase η ; Ancient Greek : ἦτα ē̂ta [ɛ̂ːta] or Greek : ήτα ita [ˈita] )
216-437: Is said to be a Greek eta, but since enthalpy comes from ἐνθάλπος, which begins in a smooth breathing and epsilon, it is more likely a Latin H for 'heat'. In information theory the uppercase Greek letter Η is used to represent the concept of entropy of a discrete random variable. The lowercase letter η is used as a symbol in: These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using
243-557: Is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet , representing the close front unrounded vowel , [i] . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative , [h] , in most dialects of Ancient Greek , its sound value in the classical Attic dialect was a long open-mid front unrounded vowel , [ɛː] , which was raised to [i] in Hellenistic Greek , a process known as iotacism or itacism. In
270-405: The [h] sound itself at that time). This later became the standard orthography in all of Greece. During the time of post-classical Koiné Greek , the [ɛː] sound represented by eta was raised and merged with several other formerly distinct vowels, a phenomenon called iotacism or itacism , after the new pronunciation of the letter name as ita instead of eta . Itacism
297-587: The Cyrillic letters И and Й . The letter shape 'H' was originally used in most Greek dialects to represent the voiceless glottal fricative , [h] . In this function, it was borrowed in the 8th century BC by the Etruscan and other Old Italic alphabets , which were based on the Euboean form of the Greek alphabet. This also gave rise to the Latin alphabet with its letter H . Other regional variants of
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#1732765470013324-411: The Greek alphabet Tαυ ( Tau ), Old Italic and Latin T has remained fairly constant, representing [ t ] in each of these, and it has also kept its original basic shape in most of these alphabets. In English, ⟨t⟩ usually denotes the voiceless alveolar plosive ( International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA : / t / ), as in tart , tee , or ties , often with aspiration at
351-639: The International Phonetic Alphabet , ⟨ t ⟩ denotes the voiceless alveolar plosive . [REDACTED] Letter (alphabet) A letter is a type of grapheme , the smallest functional unit within a writing system. Letters are graphemes that broadly correspond to phonemes , the smallest functional units of sound in speech. Similarly to how phonemes are combined to form spoken words, letters may be combined to form written words. A single phoneme may also be represented by multiple letters in sequence, collectively called
378-593: The Greek diphthera 'writing tablet' via Etruscan . Until the 19th century, letter was also used interchangeably to refer to a speech segment . Before alphabets, phonograms , graphic symbols of sounds, were used. There were three kinds of phonograms: verbal, pictures for entire words, syllabic, which stood for articulations of words, and alphabetic, which represented signs or letters. The earliest examples of which are from Ancient Egypt and Ancient China, dating to c. 3000 BCE . The first consonantal alphabet emerged around c. 1800 BCE , representing
405-462: The Greek alphabet ( epichoric alphabets ), in dialects that still preserved the sound [h] , employed various glyph shapes for consonantal heta side by side with the new vocalic eta for some time. In the southern Italian colonies of Heracleia and Tarentum , the letter shape was reduced to a "half-heta" lacking the right vertical stem (Ͱ). From this sign later developed the sign for rough breathing or spiritus asper , which brought back
432-533: The Greek letter τ ( tau ). In English, it is most commonly used to represent the voiceless alveolar plosive , a sound it also denotes in the International Phonetic Alphabet . It is the most commonly used consonant and the second-most commonly used letter in English-language texts. Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets . The sound value of Semitic Taw ,
459-672: The Phoenicians, Semitic workers in Egypt. Their script was originally written and read from right to left. From the Phoenician alphabet came the Etruscan and Greek alphabets. From there, the most widely used alphabet today emerged, Latin, which is written and read from left to right. The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, nineteen of which the Latin alphabet used, and the Greek alphabet, adapted c. 900 BCE , added four letters to those used in Phoenician. This Greek alphabet
486-404: The ancient Attic number system (Herodianic or acrophonic numbers), the number 100 was represented by " Η ", because it was the initial of ΗΕΚΑΤΟΝ , the ancient spelling of ἑκατόν = "one hundred". In the later system of (Classical) Greek numerals eta represents 8. Eta was derived from the Phoenician letter heth [REDACTED] . Letters that arose from eta include the Latin H and
513-491: The beginnings of words or before stressed vowels. The letter ⟨t⟩ corresponds to the affricate /t͡ʃ/ in some words as a result of yod-coalescence (for example, in words ending in -"ture", such as future ). A common digraph is ⟨th⟩ , which usually represents a dental fricative , but occasionally represents /t/ (as in Thomas and thyme ). The digraph ⟨ti⟩ often corresponds to
540-438: The days of handset type for printing presses. Individual letter blocks were kept in specific compartments of drawers in a type case. Capital letters were stored in a higher drawer or upper case. In most alphabetic scripts, diacritics (or accents) are a routinely used. English is unusual in not using them except for loanwords from other languages or personal names (for example, naïve , Brontë ). The ubiquity of this usage
567-629: The distinct forms of ⟨S⟩ , the Greek sigma ⟨Σ⟩ , and Cyrillic es ⟨С⟩ each represent analogous /s/ phonemes. Letters are associated with specific names, which may differ between languages and dialects. Z , for example, is usually called zed outside of the United States, where it is named zee . Both ultimately derive from the name of the parent Greek letter zeta ⟨Ζ⟩ . In alphabets, letters are arranged in alphabetical order , which also may vary by language. In Spanish, ⟨ñ⟩
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#1732765470013594-571: The late 7th and early 8th centuries. Finally, many slight letter additions and drops were made to the common alphabet used in the western world. Minor changes were made such as the removal of certain letters, such as thorn ⟨Þ þ⟩ , wynn ⟨Ƿ ƿ⟩ , and eth ⟨Ð ð⟩ . A letter can have multiple variants, or allographs , related to variation in style of handwriting or printing . Some writing systems have two major types of allographs for each letter: an uppercase form (also called capital or majuscule ) and
621-471: The letter (pronounced [ˈita] ) represents a close front unrounded vowel , [i] . In Classical Greek , it represented the long open-mid front unrounded vowel , [ɛː] . The uppercase letter Η is used as a symbol in textual criticism for the Alexandrian text-type (from Hesychius , its once-supposed editor). In chemistry , the letter H as symbol of enthalpy sometimes
648-522: The marking of the [h] sound into the standardized post-classical ( polytonic ) orthography. Dionysius Thrax in the second century BC records that the letter name was still pronounced heta (ἥτα), correctly explaining this irregularity by stating "in the old days the letter Η served to stand for the rough breathing, as it still does with the Romans." In the East Ionic dialect , however,
675-525: The sound [h] disappeared by the sixth century BC, and the letter was re-used initially to represent a development of a long open front unrounded vowel , [aː] , which later merged in East Ionic with the long open-mid front unrounded vowel , [ɛː] instead. In 403 BC, Athens took over the Ionian spelling system and with it the vocalic use of H (even though it still also had
702-428: The sound /ʃ/ (a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant ) word-medially when followed by a vowel, as in nation , ratio , negotiation , and Croatia . In a few words of modern French origin, the letter T is silent at the end of a word; these include croquet and debut . In the orthographies of other languages, ⟨t⟩ is often used for /t/ , the voiceless dental plosive /t̪/ , or similar sounds. In
729-508: Was the first to assign letters not only to consonant sounds, but also to vowels . The Roman Empire further developed and refined the Latin alphabet, beginning around 500 BCE. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the development of lowercase letters began to emerge in Roman writing. At this point, paragraphs, uppercase and lowercase letters, and the concept of sentences and clauses still had not emerged; these final bits of development emerged in
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