WonderLanguage fact

The small dot over a lowercase i or j is called a tittle, from the Latin titulus, a word medieval scribes used for small marks written above letters. In Turkish the dot does real work: it separates two different letters, i and ı.

Ikigai Daily

The story behind the card

Medieval scribes wrote i, m, n and u with the same short vertical strokes, called minims, so in dense handwriting a word could look like a row of identical lines. A small stroke above the i helped readers pick it out, and over time that stroke shrank into the round dot of printed type. The word tittle has been used in English since the 14th century. The King James Bible of 1611 promises that not 'one jot or one tittle' shall pass from the law, so 'jot and tittle' came to mean the smallest detail. The phrase 'to a T', meaning exactly, may come from an older 'to a tittle'. In Turkish the tittle has a real job. Since the alphabet reform of 1928, dotted İ i and dotless I ı have been separate letters for separate vowel sounds, as in kır (countryside) and kir (dirt).

Türkçe oku

İngilizcede küçük i ve j harflerinin üstündeki noktaya tittle denir. Sözcük Latince titulus'tan gelir; Orta Çağ kâtipleri harflerin üstüne konan küçük işaretlere bu adı verirdi. Türkçede ise bu nokta gerçek bir iş görür: i ile ı'yı, yani iki ayrı harfi birbirinden ayırır.

Orta Çağ kâtipleri i, m, n ve u harflerini aynı kısa dikey çizgilerle yazardı; sık bir el yazısında bir sözcük birbirinin aynısı çizgilerden oluşan bir sıraya dönebiliyordu. Harfin üstüne konan küçük bir çizgi, okurun i'yi seçmesine yardım etti; bu çizgi zamanla küçülüp matbaa harflerindeki yuvarlak noktaya dönüştü. Tittle sözcüğü İngilizcede 14. yüzyıldan beri kullanılır. 1611 tarihli King James İncil çevirisindeki “one jot or one tittle” (ne bir zerre ne bir nokta) ifadesi yüzünden “jot and tittle” en küçük ayrıntı anlamına gelir. “Tam olarak” anlamındaki “to a T” deyiminin de daha eski “to a tittle” deyiminden geldiği düşünülür. Türkçede ise noktanın gerçek bir görevi var: 1928 Harf Devrimi'nden beri noktalı İ i ile noktasız I ı, ayrı sesleri gösteren ayrı harflerdir; kır ile kir arasındaki fark yalnızca bu noktadır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tittle

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The small dot over a lowercase i or j is called a tittle, from the Latin titulus, a word medieval scribes used for small marks written above letters. In Turkish the dot does real work: it separates two different letters, i and ı.

The story behind the card

Sources and further reading

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