De (Д д; italics:Д д orД д; italics:Д д) is a letter of theCyrillic script. It commonly represents thevoiced dental stop/d̪/, like the pronunciation of⟨d⟩ in "door", except closer to the teeth. De is usually Romanized using the Latin letterD.
The major graphic difference between De and its modern Greek equivalent lies in the twodescenders ("feet") below the lower corners of the Cyrillic letter. The descenders were borrowed from a Byzantineuncial shape of uppercase Delta.
De, like theCyrillic letter El, has twotypographical variants i.e. an older variant where its top is pointed (akin to uppercase Greek letter⟨Δ⟩) and a modern one (first used in mid-19th-century fonts) where it is square. Nowadays, almost all books and magazines are printed with fonts with the second variant of the letter — the first one is rather stylish and only a few popular text fonts use it (the best known example is "Baltika" designed in 1951-52 by V. G. Chiminova and others).
handwritten forms
In italic (Russian) type — the lowercase form looks more like the lowercase Latin⟨d⟩, a mirrored numeral⟨6⟩ or a partial derivative symbol⟨∂⟩. Southern (Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian) typography may prefer a variant that looks like a single-storey lowercase Latin⟨g⟩. Cursive lowercase De has the same two shapes, but with a different distribution e.g. the single-storey lowercase Lating-shaped variant is a standard for schools in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus but also used for certain typefaces with OpenType features.[1]
The (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian) cursive form of capital De looks like Latin⟨D⟩ as the printed version is not comfortable enough to be written quickly.[clarification needed] The Serbian cursive form is closer to the shape of a numeral⟨2⟩ (akin to the form sometimes used for uppercase cursive Latin⟨Q⟩) — this form is unknown in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria.
Uncommon variant of Cyrillic⟨Д⟩ e.g. uppercase Greek letter⟨Δ⟩ with single/two vertical strokes at the horizontal bottom.
Ukrainian diaspora have been known to write the triangle form, namely uppercase Greek letter⟨Δ⟩ with single/two vertical strokes going through the horizontal bottom.[2]
This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(May 2025)
It most often represents thevoiced dental plosive/d̪/. However, word-finally and before voiceless consonants, it represents a voiceless[t]. Before apalatalizing vowel, it represents/dʲ/.
.svg)
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg)
