dalathdalet

Dalathdalet is a term occasionally used in linguistic and epigraphic discussions to refer to a double occurrence of the Hebrew letter dalet (also transliterated daleth). It is not a standard or widely recognized concept in the study of Semitic alphabets. The Hebrew dalet represents the consonant /d/ and is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

In discussions of inscriptions or orthography, "double dalet" or "dalath-dalet" may be used informally to describe sequences in which two dalet characters appear in succession, such as within a word or as a scribal variant. The notion is primarily of interest in the analysis of scribal practice, orthographic variants, or typographic ligatures in early Hebrew or related scripts. There is no separate Unicode code point or dedicated symbol for dalathdalet; rendering uses two consecutive dalet characters.

Because the term is not standardized, precise usage varies by author. In formal contexts, scholars would typically refer to the phenomenon as a "double dalet" or "two consecutive dalet" rather than giving it a fixed compound name.

See also: Hebrew alphabet, Dalet/Dalet, Semitic epigraphy, epigraphic ligatures.