D-comma

(D-comma) is a letter that was part of the Romanian alphabet to represent the sound /z/ or /dz/ if 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.

D with comma below.

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...: " sicut Latinorum z ac cyrillicum з".[2]

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

On 23 October 1858, the Eforia Instrucțiunii Publice of Wallachia issued a decree in which, among other rules, was for the third time adopted instead of Cyrillic з. However, the 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 would be fired.[5]

In Moldavia, the transitional alphabet and the letter 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 ( was often pronounced /dz/, /ds/. This was also the case with șss and țts).[6]

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

Ḑ ḑ is part of the Livonian alphabet but is written with a cedilla.

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 a substitute as part of the Unicode standards because the typographic point of view of D-cedilla is very similar that has a comma.

See also

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.
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