Tau gallicum

Tau gallicum ( ) is a letter that was used to write the Gaulish language.[1] It is a D with the horizontal bar from the Greek letter Θ.[1] It likely represented a [ts] or [st] sound.[1]

The name ARAÐÐOVNA on a Gallic tomb.

Name

The Latin phrase "tau gallicum" literally means "Gallic tau". The only known mention of the letter is found in Catalepton, a set of epigrams attributed to Virgil and collected after his death in Appendix Vergiliana.[2] The second epigram contains the following text:

Corinthiorum amator iste uerborum,

iste iste rhetor, namque quatenus totus

Thucydides, tyrannus Atticae febris:

tau Gallicum, min et sphin ut male illisit,

ita omnia ista uerba miscuit fratri.

— Virgile, Catalepton II

It is not known, however, whether the sound described by Virgil is the same as that for which the term is currently used.

Letter

After using the Greek alphabet, the Gauls adopted the Latin alphabet to transcribe their language. However, they keep a few letters from the previous alphabet to note sounds unknown to the second. Tau gallicum is said to have been inspired by the Greek letter Θ (theta). Its spelling is very variable: one meets among others a crossed out D, resembling Đ but where the horizontal bar crosses completely the letter, as well as a form similar to the lowercase eth ð. The character then evolves to a double or single s crossed out, ss, then to one or two single s.

The letter can be found in the initial of the name of the Celtic goddess Sirona, whose name is written as: Sirona, Đirona or Thirona, highlighting the difficulty of noting the initial sound in the Latin alphabet.

The letter is also present in the lead of Chamalières, a lead tablet discovered in 1971 in Chamalières and written in the Gallic language with Latin cursive letters: snIeððdic, aððedillI.

Pronunciation

The precise value of the sound transcribed by the Gallic tau is not known. It is supposed that it denotes the dental affricate consonant group / t͡s /, interchangeable with / s͡t / in the initial position.

References
  1. Proposal for the addition of four Latin characters to the UCS. Michael Everson and Chris Lilley, 2019.
  2. Frank, Tenney (1935). "Tau Gallicum, Vergil, Catalepton II, 4". The American Journal of Philology. 56 (3): 254–256. doi:10.2307/289677. ISSN 0002-9475. JSTOR 289677.
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