d, letter that has retained the fourth place in thealphabet from the earliest point at which it appears in history. It corresponds toSemiticdaleth and Greekdelta (Δ). The form is thought toderive from an early pictograph, possiblyEgyptian, indicating the folding door of a tent. The rounded formD occurs in theChalcidian alphabet, whence theLatin alphabet may have acquired it by way of theEtruscans. The letter has retained the rounded form that it had in the Latin alphabet until the present day.

Click Here to see full-size tableIn Latin cursive forms of the 5th and 6th century, the right-hand rounded line of themajuscule letter was carried far above the level of its junction with the stroke. From these forms and from theuncial arose theCarolingian and our ownminusculed.

The sound consistently represented by the letter in Semitic, Greek, Latin and the modern languages of Europe is the voiced dentalstop. In English this sound, as well as the unvoiced sound represented byt, has become alveolar, that is to say, is pronounced by the pressure of the tongue upon the gums rather than upon the teeth.

Theetymologicalvalue ofd in words of native English origin is generally the same as that of Germant (th), Sanskritdh, Greekθ, Latinf (initial) ord orb (medial), all being derived fromdh in the parent Indo-European speech (e.g., Englishdo, Germanthun, Sanskritdadhāmi). In some other instancesd is derived from Indo-Europeant when thed originally resulting from thet has been subsequently altered by the change familiarly known asVerner’s law. The occurrence of this change depended on the place of the Indo-European accent (so, for example, the priord inhundred, Sanskritśatám, Latincentum).