Tittle

From Freepedia

A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot over an i. It first appeared in Latin manuscripts in the 11th century, to distinguish the letter i from strokes of nearby letters. Although originally a larger mark, it was reduced to a dot when Roman-style typefaces were introduced.

The only place a modern reader is apt to confront this word is in a Bible verse,Matthew 5:18 (NKJV): "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." The quotation uses them as an example of extremely minor details. The phrase "jot and tittle" indicates that every small detail has received attention. A variant is "jot and jittle". In the Greek original translated as English "jot and tittle" is found "iota" and "keraia". Iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet (ι), but since only capitals were used at the time the Greek New Testament was written (Ι), it probably represents the Aramaic yodh (י) which is the smallest letter of the Aramaic alphabet. "Keraia" is a hook or serif, possibly accents in Greek but more likely hooks on Aramaic letters, (ב) versus (כ), or additional marks such as crowns (as Vulgate apex) found in Jewish Bibles. The standard reference for NT Greek is A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, Bauer, Gingrich, Danker, et al. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon for keraia is here: [1]

In the modern Turkish alphabet, the tittle is an actual diacritical mark distinguishing two different phonemes, appearing even on top of capital letters: I / ı, with the absence of a tittle, representing the sound [ɯ], and İ / i, with the inclusion of a tittle, representing [i].

Links

• Jewish Encylopdedia: Tagin