While many languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, add specific accents to the letters or characters throughout their alphabet, the English alphabet has only two letters that include a diacritic dot. This mark is added to a letter to signal a change in either the sound or meaning of a character. What is the additional name of this curious dot that hovers over the ninth and tenth lowercase letters of the English alphabet, and how did it get there?
What is a tittle?
The small distinguishing mark you see over a lowercase i and a lowercase j is called a tittle—an interesting name that looks like a portmanteau (combination) of tiny and little, and refers to a small point or stroke in writing and printing. Generally, a diacritic dot such as a tittle is also referred to as a glyph, a mark that adds meaning to the written letter. However, in regards to i and j, the removal of the mark is still likely to be read as I or J; as such, these are not true examples of a glyph.
Derived from the Latin word titulus, meaning “inscription, heading,” the tittle initially appeared in Latin manuscripts beginning in the 11th century as a way of individualizing the neighboring letters i and j in the thicket of handwriting. With the introduction of the Roman-style typeface in the late 1400s, the original large mark was reduced to the small dot we use today.
Many alphabets use a tittle specifically in the case of the letter i. For example, the absence or presence of a tittle over the i in the modern Turkish alphabet, also Latin-based, helps to differentiate two unique letters that represent distinct phonemes.
What does to a tittle mean?
The phrase to a T is believed to be derived from the word tittle and the following passage from Edward Hall’s Chronicles circa 1548: “I then … began to dispute with my selfe, little considerynge that thus my earnest was turned euen to a tittyl not so good as, estamen.” It is believed the phrase to a T originated as to a tittle and means something done exactly right. It originally referred to the tiny detail of a tittle, suggesting that every minor detail was correct.
