D with stroke

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For a list of letters that look similar to Đ in uppercase, see D with stroke (disambiguation).
Latin alphabet Đđ.svg

Đ (lowercase: đ, Latin alphabet), known as crossed D or dyet, formed from base character D/d overlaid with a crossbar. Crossing was used to create eth (ð), but eth has an uncial as its base whereas đ is based on the straight-backed roman d. Crossed d is a letter in the alphabets of several languages and is used in linguistics as a phonetic symbol.


Barred d, with crossbar through the bowl.

In the lowercase, the crossbar is usually drawn through the ascender, but when used as a phonetic symbol it may be preferred to draw it through the bowl, in which case it is known as a barred d.[1] In some African languages' orthographies, such as that of Moro, the barred d is preferred.[2]

In the uppercase, the crossbar normally crosses just the left stem, but in Vietnamese and Moro it may sometimes cross the entire letter.[3]

Ligature DE.

The DE ligature should not be confused with the Đ. That ligature was used stylistically in pre-19th century Spanish as a contraction for de, as a D with an E superimposed. For example, Universidad DE Guadalajara.

Uses by language[edit]

A 9th century Latin manuscript. The abbreviation ſcđo (secundo, "second") occurs on the third line.

African languages[edit]

A lowercase đ appeared alongside a lowercase retroflex D in a 1982 revision of the African reference alphabet. This revision of the alphabet eliminated uppercase forms, so there was no conflict between ɖ and đ.


Đ was used in Medieval Latin to mark abbreviations of words containing the letter d. For example, hđum could stand for heredum "of the heirs". Similar crossbars were added to other letters to form abbreviations.[4]

South Slavic languages[edit]

The crossed d was added to Gaj’s Latin alphabet for Croatian by Đuro Daničić in the 19th century. The letter soon found its way into the romanizations of Serbian first (through the Serbian and Croatian historical chapters) and then Macedonian (its Latin transliterations heavily influenced by Serbo-Croatian from the Yugoslav period) and Bosnian to represent the affricate [].

The crossed d is a distinct letter, and is placed between and E in alphabetical order. Its Cyrillic equivalent is Ђ ђ. Its partial equivalent in Macedonian is Ѓ ѓ (as only some dialects contain the /dʑ/ sound). When a true đ is not available or desired, it is transcribed as dj in Serbo-Croatian, and as gj in Macedonian. The use of dj in place of đ used to be more common in Serbo-Croatian texts, but is now considered obsolete and discouraged by style guides.

An example of đ being used for a voiced dental fricative in the phonetic transcription of early Germanic languages, alongside ƀ for bilabial and ʒ for velar, from Joseph Wright's Old High German Primer (1906).

Sami languages[edit]

In the Bergsland–Hasselbrink orthography of Northern Sami and Skolt Sami, đ represents the fricative [ð].[5] It is considered a distinct letter and placed between D and E in alphabetical order.


A page from the đ section of de Rhodes' Dictioniarum Annamiticum, a 1651 Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary.

Đ is the seventh letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, after D and before E.[6] Traditionally, digraphs and trigraphs like CH and NGH were considered letters as well, making Đ the eighth letter.[7] Đ is a letter in its own right, rather than a ligature or letter-diacritic combination; therefore, đá would come after in any alphabetical listing.

Đ represents a voiced alveolar implosive (/ɗ/) or, according to Thompson (1959), a preglottalized voiced alveolar stop (/ʔd/).[8] Whereas D is pronounced as some sort of dental or alveolar stop in most Latin alphabets, an unadorned D in Vietnamese represents either /z/ (Hanoian) or /j/ (Saigonese).

The Vietnamese alphabet was formally described for the first time in the 17th-century text Manuductio ad Linguam Tunckinensem, attributed to a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, possibly Francisco de Pina[9] or Filipe Sibin.[10] This passage about the letter Đ was later incorporated into Alexandre de Rhodes' seminal Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum:[11]

Another letter written with the symbol đ is completely different than our own and is pronounced by raising the tip of the tongue to the palate of the mouth, immediately removing it, without in any way touching the teeth, for example đa đa: partridge. And this letter is very commonly used at the beginning of a word.

Manuductio ad Linguam Tunckinensem[note 1]

On older typewriters, Đ was located where Z would be in the French AZERTY layout.[13] Alternatively, a hyphen can be overstruck onto a D.

On computers without support for a Vietnamese character set or Unicode, Đ is encoded as DD and đ as dd according to the Vietnamese Quoted-Readable standard. Vietnamese computer users typically input Đ as DD in the Telex and VIQR input methods or as D9 in the VNI input method. In the absence of an input method, the TCVN 6064:1995 and Microsoft Windows Vietnamese keyboard layouts map ZA0-09 (0 on a U.S. keyboard) to đ, or Đ when holding down Shift. The Windows layout also maps ZA0-11 (=) to ₫.

In Vietnamese Braille, Đ is , which corresponds to D in French Braille. In the Vietnamese manual alphabet, Đ is produced by touching the thumb to the index finger.[14]

Other uses[edit]

Phonetic transcription[edit]

The lowercase đ is used in some phonetic transcription schemes to represent a voiced dental fricative [ð] (English th in this). Eth (ð) is more commonly used for this purpose, but the crossed d has the advantage of being able to be typed on a standard typewriter, by overlaying a hyphen over a d.[15]

Currency symbols[edit]

A minuscule form of the letter, đ, is the symbol of the đồng, the currency of Vietnam, by a 1953 decree by Ho Chi Minh.[16] The South Vietnamese đồng, on the other hand, was symbolized "Đ.", in majuscule. In Unicode, the Vietnamese đồng symbol is properly represented by U+20AB dong sign, but U+0111 đ latin small letter d with stroke is often used instead. In Vietnamese, the đồng sign is written after the amount in superscript, often underlined.

Computer encoding[edit]

Đ and đ are encoded in Unicode as U+0110 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH STROKE and U+0111 LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH STROKE; in Latin-2, Latin-4 and Latin-10 as D0 and F0 respectively; and, in Latin-6 as A9 and B9 respectively. In PostScript they are Dcroat, Dmacron, Dslash, dcroat, dmacron and dslash. In Unicode, both crossed d and barred d are considered glyph variants of U+0111.[1]

Unicode has a distinct code point for the visually very similar capital eth, Ð, U+00D0, which can lead to confusion.

As part of WGL4, Đ and đ can be expected to display correctly even on older Windows systems.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ As printed in Hồn Việt:[11] Alterum đ notatur eo signo, quia est omnino diversù à nostro et pronunciatur attollendo extremum linguae ad palatum oris illamque statim amovendo absque eo, quod ullo modo dentes attingat, ùt đa đa: perdrix. Et haec littera est valde in usu in principio dictionis.

    As paraphrased by de Rhodes:[12] ...estque vitium linguæ, aliud đ notatur eo signo quia est omninò diversum à nostro & pronunciatur attollendo extremum linguæ ad palatum oris, illamque statim amovendo, absque eo quod ullo modo dentes attingat ut đa đa, perdix: & hæc litera est valdè in usu in principio dictionis.


  1. ^ a b The Unicode Consortium (2003). The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley Developers Press. p. 432. 
  2. ^ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2 Revised Proposal to Encode Additional Latin Orthographic Character JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2847R
  3. ^ Example: Lê Bá Khanh; Lê Bá Kông (1991). Vietnamese-English/English-Vietnamese Dictionary (7th printing ed.). New York City: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-87052-924-2. 
  4. ^ Bischoff, Bernhard (1990). Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press. p. 150. 
  5. ^ Bergsland, Knut; Gustav Hasselbrink (1957). Sámien lukkeme-gärjá. Oslo, Norway: A.W. Brøggers boktrykkeri A/S. 
  6. ^ "Bài Tập Tại Nhà #1" [Homework Practice #1] (PDF). Portland, Oregon: Lạc Hồng Vietnamese Language School. August 7, 2009. p. 1. Retrieved November 17, 2013. 
  7. ^ "Tài Liệu Cho Giáo Viên" [Teaching Materials] (PDF) (in Vietnamese). La Vang Vietnamese Language School. October 28, 2011. p. 1. Retrieved November 18, 2013. 
  8. ^ Thompson, Laurence (1959). "Saigon phonemics". Language (Linguistic Society of America) 35 (3): 458–461. doi:10.2307/411232. JSTOR 411232. 
  9. ^ Jacques, Roland (2002). Portuguese Pioneers of Vietnamese Linguistics. Bangkok: Orchid Press. ISBN 9748304779. 
  10. ^ Gesammelte Studien. Bibliotheca Instituti Historici S.I. (in Portuguese) 21. Jesuit Historical Institute. 1963. p. 12. "…e a « Manuductio ad linguam Tunckinensem » do Padre Filipe Sibin SI…" 
  11. ^ a b Nguyễn Minh Hoàng. "Alexandre de Rhodes có phải là cha đẻ của chữ Quốc ngữ?" [Was Alexandre de Rhodes the father of the Vietnamese alphabet?]. Hồn Việt (in Vietnamese). Retrieved November 17, 2013. 
  12. ^ de Rhodes, Alexandre (1651). "Lingue annamiticæ seu tunchinensis brevis declaratio". Dictionarium annamiticum lusitanicum, et latinum (in Latin). Rome: Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. p. 3. 
  13. ^ VietNamese Typewriter on Flickr
  14. ^ "Hướng dẫn sử dụng ngôn ngữ ký hiệu khi tiếp xúc người khiếm thính" [A guide to using sign language when contacting a deaf person] (in Vietnamese). Đất Việt. April 5, 2013. Retrieved November 18, 2013. 
  15. ^ Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide. University of Chicago Press. pp. 36–37. 
  16. ^ Ho Chi Minh (May 20, 1953). "Sắc lệnh của Chủ tịch Nước Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa số 162/SL" [Decree number 162/SL of the President of Vietnam] (in Vietnam). Democratic Republic of Vietnam.