View source for Social:Tau gallicum

{{Short description|Letter of the Latin alphabet}}
[[File:Tau gallic CourDOr Metz 3147.jpg|thumb|The name ARAꟇꟇOVNA on a Gallic tomb.]]
'''Tau gallicum''' (majuscule: Ꟈ([[File:Latin_capital_letter_Tau_gallicum.svg|12x12px]]), minuscule: ꟈ(12x12px)) is a letter that was used to write the [[Social:Gaulish language|Gaulish language]].<ref name=":0">[https://unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5044-tau-gallicum.pdf Proposal for the addition of four Latin characters to the UCS]. Michael Everson and Chris Lilley, 2019.</ref> It is a D with the horizontal bar from the Greek letter Θ.<ref name=":0" /> It likely represented a {{IPAslink|t͡s}} or {{IPA|/st/}} sound,<ref name=":0" /> like the '''ts''' in ca'''ts''' or the '''st''' in '''st'''op.

== Name ==
The Latin phrase {{lang|la|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.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Frank|first=Tenney|date=1935|title=Tau Gallicum, Vergil, Catalepton II, 4|journal=The American Journal of Philology|volume=56|issue=3|pages=254–256|doi=10.2307/289677|issn=0002-9475|jstor=289677}}</ref> The second epigram contains the following text:
{{Poem quote|text={{lang|la|Corinthiorum amator iste uerborum,
iste iste rhetor, namque quatenus totus
[[Biography:Thucydides|Thucydides]], tyrannus Atticae febris:
tau Gallicum, min et sphin ut male illisit,
ita omnia ista uerba miscuit fratri.}}|sign=Virgil|source=''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 ([[Biology:Theta|theta]]). Its spelling is very variable: one meets among others a [[Social:D with stroke|crossed out D]], resembling [[Social:D with stroke|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'', ''Ꟈirona'' 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 [[Social:Gaulish language|Gallic language]] with Latin cursive letters: snIeꟈꟈdic, aꟈꟈedillI.

== 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 {{IPA|/t͡s/}}, in free variation with {{IPA|[st]}} in the initial position.

==Use on computers==
The letter is encoded into [[Unicode]] as {{Unichar|42951}} and {{Unichar|42952}} respectively.

{{charmap
|A7C7|name1=LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH SHORT STROKE OVERLAY
|A7C8|name2=LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH SHORT STROKE OVERLAY
}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Palaeography]]

{{Sourceattribution|Tau gallicum}}