T


T or t is the 20th letter in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is tee, plural tees. It is derived from the Semitic letters taw via the Greek letter τ. 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 common letter in English-language texts.

History

Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets. The sound value of Semitic Taw, Greek alphabet Tαυ, 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 voiceless alveolar plosive, 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 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.
A common digraph is, which usually represents a dental fricative, but occasionally represents

Other languages

In the orthographies of other languages, is often used for, the voiceless dental plosive or similar sounds.

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, denotes the voiceless alveolar plosive.

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

Other representations