D-comma

D with comma below.

D̦ d̦ (D-comma) is a letter which was part of the Romanian alphabet, and used to represent the sound /z/ or /dz/ where it was derived from a Latin d (e.g. d̦i, pronounced /zi/ came from Latin die, day)^[1]. It was the equivalent of the Cyrillic letters З and Ѕ.

This letter was first introduced by Petru Maior in his 1819 book Ortographia romana sive Latino-Valachica, una cum clavis, qua penetralia originationis vocum reserantur...: "d̦ sicut Latinorum z ac cyrillicum з"^[2].

In 1844 Ioan Eliade introduced d̦ again in his magazine Curierul de ambe sexe as a substitute for з^[3].

On 23 October 1858 the Eforia Instrucţiunii Publice of Wallachia issued a decree in which, among other rules, d̦ was for the third time adopted instead of Cyrillic з. However, this rule will not be fully adopted until later^[4].

Taking the matter in his hands, internal affairs minister Ion Ghica stated on 8 February 1860 that whoever in his order ignored the new transitional alphabet rules, was going to be fired^[5].

In Moldavia, the transitional alphabet and the letter d̦ was adopted much later. In his grammar published in Paris in 1865, Vasile Alecsandri adopted this sign instead of з, viewing the comma below d as a small s (d̦ was often pronounced /dz/, /ds/. This was also the case with ș—ss and ț—ts)^[6].

This letter was abandoned in 1904 and is no longer in use.

It is also a part of the Livonian alphabet.

Computer encoding

Unicode does not include precomposed characters for D̦ d̦—they must be represented with a combining diacritic, which may not align properly in some fonts. Nevertheless, the sequence of base character + combining diacritic is given a unique name. Otherwise, the D-cedilla (Ḑ ḑ) is somewhat to be used as part of the unicode standards because the typographic point of view of D-cedilla is very similar that has a comma.

See also

• S-comma
• T-comma

Notes

1. ^ Negruzzi, p. 234.
2. ^ Vîrtosu, p. 208
3. ^ Vîrtosu, p. 223.
4. ^ Vîrtosu, p. 234–235.
5. ^ Vîrtosu, p. 236.
6. ^ Vîrtosu, p. 245.

References

• Negruzzi, Constantin, Studii asupra limbei române, in vol. "Alexandru Lăpuşneanul", Ed. Pentru Literatură, Bucharest, 1969.
• Vîrtosu, Emil, Paleografia româno-chirilică, Ed. Ştiinţifică, Bucharest, 1968.

The ISO basic Latin alphabetv · d · e
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter D with diacritics
Ďď	Ḋḋ	Ḑḑ	Ḍḍ	Ḓḓ	Ḏḏ	Đđ	Ɖɖ	Ɗɗ	Ƌƌ	ᵭ	ᶁ	ᶑ	ȡ	∂
Letters using comma sign ( ◌̦ )
D̦d̦	Șș	Țț
Related
History • Palaeography • Derivations • Diacritics • Punctuation • Numerals • Unicode • List of letters • ISO/IEC 646