The ancient Phoenicians and other tribes used the letter "T." However, in those days it simply meant "taw", the marker or signature for the people who were illiterate and unable to sign their own names. In other words, initially it meant "marked" or "signed". The system was carried on for years together. In fact, only centuries later it was altered by the ancient Greeks, who introduced it in the alphabet to represent the current letter "T". Today, "T" is no longer stands for a signature, it is one of the most useful letters in the English language.
Phoenician |
Etruscan |
Greek |
Taw |
T |
Tau |
+ |
T |
T t |
It is to be noted that, Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets. The sound value
of Semitic Taw, Greek alphabet Tau, Old Italic and Latin T has remained fairly constant, representing [ t ] in each of these – and surprisingly till today, it has kept its original basic shape in all of these alphabets.