Szolnok, a town of Hungary, on the Theiss, 66 miles by rail E. by S. of Budapest, with a lively trade in tobacco, timber, and salt. Pop. (1880) 18,247; (1890) 20,640.

T

the twentieth letter in our alphabet, is derived from the Greek letter tau, which corresponds in position, name, form, and value to the Semitic letter tau, a name which denoted the 'sign' or 'cross' used in marking the ownership of cattle. Whether, like most of the other letters, it was derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphics is uncertain. If so it must be referred to the hieroglyphic picture usually called the lasso or noose, but which is probably the picture of a tongue (see ALPHABET). The oldest Semitic forms are x, which appears in the 9th century B.C. on the Moabit Stone, and †, found about a century earlier in the Baal Lebanon inscription. This earlier form was transmitted to the Greeks unaltered, save that, even in the earliest inscriptions, those from Thera, we have the form T, the vertical stroke not projecting above the horizontal bar. The Romans retained the Greek form of the letter, and it was not till the 12th century A.D. that in the minuscule (t) we have a reversion to the older form.

The sound of t is that of the hard dental mute, and is produced by the tip of the tongue being brought into contact with the base of the upper teeth, or, as in trance, with the front of the hard palate. The difference between d and t is that the first is voiced or soft, and the second voiceless or hard. By Grimm's Law (q.v.) a primitive t becomes th in Low German and d in Old High German. Thus the Latin tu and tres become thou and three in English, and du and drei in German. A primitive d becomes t in Low German, and z in Old High German. Thus the Latin duo, decem, and dens become two, ten, and tooth in English, and zwei, zehn, and zahn in German. A primitive th (dh) becomes d in Low German, and t in Old High German. Thus the Greek thugatēr is daughter in English, and tochter in German.

A final n, s, or r often attracts an intrusive t, as in the words tyrant, parchment, cormorant, ancient, pleasant, against, amongst, amidst, behest, or thwart. A final t sometimes disappears, as in anvil or petty. A t followed by i or y may lapse into the sound of sh, as in nation; or if followed by u, sounded as iu, it may become tsh, as in nature. A final c may also become tch, as in thatch or watch. A t may become d, as has happened with the words proud, bud, diamond, and card; or d may become t, as in clot, abbot, and partridge. In Latin a t is assimilated before s, as in missi from mitto, and at the end of a word only one s is retained, thus giving virtus for virtut-s, sors for sort-s, or compos for compot-s. English, Welsh, Spanish, and Greek are the only languages which possess the difficult aspirated sound of th. In French loan-words, as thé and théologie, the th is pronounced as t, and the same is now the case in German, as in the words thal, thier, and thun (now often spelt tal, tier, tun).