S-comma
Encyclopedia
S-comma is a letter which is part of the Romanian alphabet
, used to represent the Romanian language
sound /ʃ/, the voiceless postalveolar fricative
(like sh in shoe).
This letter however was not part of the early Unicode
versions, and not in the predecessors like ISO/IEC 8859-2
and Windows-1250
, which is why Ş
(S
-cedilla
) is often used in digital texts in Romanian. S-cedilla was introduced for computers for the sake of the Turkish language
, and later it was used unchanged also for the Romanian language. It was less of a problem then, since the screens and printouts had less resolution and newspapers and books would use a suitable font anyway.
S-comma
was introduced only in Unicode 3.0 at the request of the Romanian national standardization body, but most computers today still do not have font
s compatible with it (computers with Microsoft
operating system
s older than Windows XP
do not have compatible fonts. Windows XP does not support this letter out of the box, but it is possible to install European Union Expansion Font Update which add support for this letter). That is why almost all Romanian texts still use S-cedilla (or even S), despite the recommendation to migrate from cedilla to comma.
The letter is placed in Unicode in the Latin Extended-B range, under "Additions for Romanian", as the "capital letter S with comma" (U+0218) and "small letter s with comma" (U+0219). In HTML these can be encoded by
The letter was proposed in the Buda Lexicon, a book published in 1825, which included two texts by Petru Maior
, Orthographia romana sive latino-valachica una cum clavi and Dialogu pentru inceputul linbei române, introducing ș for /ʃ/ and ț for /ts/.
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
, used to represent the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
sound /ʃ/, the voiceless postalveolar fricative
Voiceless postalveolar fricative
The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...
(like sh in shoe).
This letter however was not part of the early Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
versions, and not in the predecessors like ISO/IEC 8859-2
ISO/IEC 8859-2
ISO/IEC 8859-2:1999, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 2: Latin alphabet No. 2, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1987. It is informally referred to as "Latin-2". It is generally...
and Windows-1250
Windows-1250
Windows-1250 is a code page used under Microsoft Windows to represent texts in Central European and Eastern European languages that use Latin script, such as Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian , Romanian and Albanian...
, which is why Ş
S
S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
(S
S
S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
-cedilla
Cedilla
A cedilla , also known as cedilha or cédille, is a hook added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation.-Origin:...
) is often used in digital texts in Romanian. S-cedilla was introduced for computers for the sake of the Turkish language
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, and later it was used unchanged also for the Romanian language. It was less of a problem then, since the screens and printouts had less resolution and newspapers and books would use a suitable font anyway.
S-comma
Comma (punctuation)
The comma is a punctuation mark. It has the same shape as an apostrophe or single closing quotation mark in many typefaces, but it differs from them in being placed on the baseline of the text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight but inclined from the vertical, or...
was introduced only in Unicode 3.0 at the request of the Romanian national standardization body, but most computers today still do not have font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
s compatible with it (computers with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s older than Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
do not have compatible fonts. Windows XP does not support this letter out of the box, but it is possible to install European Union Expansion Font Update which add support for this letter). That is why almost all Romanian texts still use S-cedilla (or even S), despite the recommendation to migrate from cedilla to comma.
The letter is placed in Unicode in the Latin Extended-B range, under "Additions for Romanian", as the "capital letter S with comma" (U+0218) and "small letter s with comma" (U+0219). In HTML these can be encoded by
Ș and ș, respectively.The letter was proposed in the Buda Lexicon, a book published in 1825, which included two texts by Petru Maior
Petru Maior
Petru Maior was a Romanian writer who is considered one of the most influential personalities of the Age of Enlightenment in Transylvania...
, Orthographia romana sive latino-valachica una cum clavi and Dialogu pentru inceputul linbei române, introducing ș for /ʃ/ and ț for /ts/.
Use of the comma with the letter S
- RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
- The RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
letter (S with comma) represents the voiceless postalveolar fricativeVoiceless postalveolar fricativeThe voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...
/ʃ/ (as in "show"). On outdated systems which do not support the glyph, the symbol (S with cedillaCedillaA cedilla , also known as cedilha or cédille, is a hook added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation.-Origin:...
) is used. Example word: .
- The Romanian