Latin theta (uppercase: ϴ, lowercase: θ) is an additional letter of the Latin script, based on the lowercase letter theta from the Greek alphabet. It is used in Cypriot Arabic, Gros Ventre, Comox, Fox, Thompson, Tuscarora, Halkomelem, Wakhi, Yavapai, Havasupai–Hualapai, and Romani.[1] It also historically was used in the Lepsius Standard Alphabet.
| Latin theta | |
|---|---|
| ϴ θ | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | Alphabetic and logographic |
| History | |
| Development |
|
| Sisters | Θ |
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
Usage
editThe letter appears in the International Standard Alphabet of the Romani language, where it represents the voiceless alveolar plosive ([t]) when placed after a vowel, and the voiced alveolar plosive ([d]) when placed after a nasal consonant.[1]
In the Gros Ventre, Fox, and Comox languages, it represents the voiceless dental fricative ([θ]) sound.
It was used in the Lepsius Standard Alphabet created for transcription of Egyptian hieroglyphs and African languages. In it, it represented the voiceless dental fricative ([θ]) sound, before being replaced by the letter Ṯ.
Latin theta is also found in Cypriot Arabic and the Latin script for the Wakhi language.[2]
Unicode
editAs of 2024, the Latin thetas are not separately encoded in the Unicode standard. U+03F4 ϴ GREEK CAPITAL THETA SYMBOL appears identical to the capital version. U+03B8 θ GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA appears identical to the lowercase version.
See also
edit- Tau gallicum, another Latin letter based on the Greek theta
References
edit- ^ a b Hancock, Ian. A Handbook of Vlax Romani
- ^ Moyogo, Denis (2014-08-07). Additional proposal to encode Latin characters for theta and delta (PDF) (Report). Unicode. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
Bibliography
edit- Hancock, Ian. A Handbook of Vlax Romani. Columbus. Slavica Publishers. 1995. ISBN 0-89357-258-6.