D, the Sütterlin letter d

History

The letter D is the 4th letter of the German alphabet. Phonetically, it represents a voiced alveolar plosive /d/, which is realized as voiceless /t/ in syllable-coda positions due to terminal devoicing.

In Sütterlin, lowercase d preserves the iconic backward loop over the bowl, but the sharp angles are softened into smooth, rounded curves that align neatly with the upright vertical grid. Capital D consists of a vertical spine and a broad, upright semicircle.

Because d appears in ubiquitous grammatical articles and conjunctions ('der', 'die', 'das', 'den', 'dem', 'und'), its backward-looping ascender acts as a reliable paleographical landmark across all varieties of German cursive from the sixteenth century to 1941.

Where d comes from is uncertain: scholars currently derive it either from a Proto-Sinaitic sign for a fish or from one for a door.^[1] The Phoenician letter's reconstructed name is dalet.^[2] The Greeks dropped the stub from its triangle,^[3] and the Etruscans, who had no d sound, hardly used the letter but kept it.^[4] The Romans closed it along the baseline and used it for d again.^[5]