# Orthography (s and t)



## SerinusCanaria3075

I've had this question for a long time. The letter T has a comma under it, right(*ţ***)? So what about the S. I've seen websites where they say it's with a comma and others with the _cedilla_.
Until now I've written the S with a _cedilla_ under it and the T with a comma underneath (both diacritical marks).


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## Trisia

The letter T with a "comma" (it's a cedilla in both cases)  is "ţ" or "Ţ" and it's read like "tz" in _tzar _or "zz" in _pizza_. We do have T/t, read just like "t" in _tree_.

S is the same. When it has a cedilla, it's read like "sh" in _sherry_.

(I bet you knew all that, but I said it for further reference)

Now, really... what's a cedilla if not a comma placed underneath a letter?


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## Outsider

The cedilla and the comma have different shapes. A cedilla is shaped like a sickle. If Wikipedia is correct, then prescriptively the Romanian diacritic should be a comma, but due to technical limitations it's often written as a cedilla, which is more widely available on computers.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

In the T the comma and cedilla look almost identical, but in the S you can actually tell when it's a comma (since it's "bigger/rounder" at the bottom) from the "hook" shape known as the cedille. In Turkish I think it makes a _huge_ difference (not really sure) on what diacritic mark you use. I think ç (with "hook") is pronouced like the Italian/Romanian c in front of e or i (or simply Ch) and C with comma differs, although I know for a fact that *ş *in Turkish is pronounced the same as Romanian (sh).

It may be like Outsider said, sometimes it's simplier or easier to insert a certain symbol (in my case I have to use Word since I don't know the codes for the A with circumflex...) and sometimes it occurs in Italian (some people spell perchè rather than the correct form perch*é*). 

So I guess no one really cares since I've seen websites and manuals that don't even have any diacritic marks (like _si _instead of _*ş*i_).


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## Outsider

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> In Turkish I think it makes a _huge_ difference (not really sure) on what diacritic mark you use. I think ç (with "hook") is pronouced like the Italian/Romanian c in front of e or i (or simply Ch) and C with comma differs [...]


I was not aware that Turkish used the comma diacritic...



SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> [...] sometimes it occurs in Italian (some people spell perchè rather than the correct form perch*é*).


Or _perche'_. 

By the way, I've often seen Romanians write *s,* and *t,*.

P.S. Cedilla and diacritical comma at Wikipedia.


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## OldAvatar

There should be a comma for both letters, *ţ* and *ş*. 

Actually, it all came from an error done in 1987, by the International Organisation for Standardization which put, by mistake, cedilla on both letters, *Ţ* and *Ş*. Some others companies and organizations, like big software developers, for example, followed the standard (ISO 8859‑2), even if it was not correct and now we've got a cedilla which hasn't got anything to do with Romanian alphabet. Linguistic Institute of Romanian Academy made an official protest in 2003, considering the cedilla as being wrong and, now, as far as I know, some Linux platforms and even Vista operating system use comma, being aware of the fact that the standardization was wrong.

As for the web sites which don't use these letters at all, there is a major reason. In order to see such letters, you should have CE (Central European) support in your computer. Many users still dont have this support installed, so developers wouldn't want to restrict the area of users or visitors and therefore prefer not to use them.

Best regards!


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## SerinusCanaria3075

> From *Outsider*
> Or _perche'_.
> 
> By the way, I've often seen Romanians write *s,* and *t,*.


Yeah, it occurs a lot in cartoons with subtitles (at least in Italian, where an apostrophe follows the last syllable to indicate an accent) and unfortunately I don't have any Romanian movies or cartoons to confirm what you said.



> From *OldAvatar*
> There should be a comma for both letters, *ţ* and *ş*.


OK, thanks. I'll keep that in mind from now on (I was almost 100% sure about the T but now I know they're both with a comma).
Although I've never been to Europe, I think I saw a Romanian building on a picture which did not have any symbols (I can't remember which company it belonged to) but here in Houston you can see almost all Asian businesses written in both alphabets with all diacritical marks (sometimes they use a circumflex and another diacritic on a single syllable ) in all letters. Just an interesting fact.


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## Trisia

Yeap. I checked too - it's a comma. Next time I'll just shut up and wait for OldAvatar to answer questions


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