3 ms·
This says it really was thorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde#History Ð/ð (eth) certainly is the voiced th
by dahart 3y ago
This says it really was thorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde#History
Ð/ð (eth) certainly is the voiced th in Old English and modern Icelandic. I’m not sure why thorn was being used for ‘the’.
- n_plus_1_acc 3y agoAFAIK thorn and eth were used in free variation, as there is rarely any possibility of confusion.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoI would recommend consulting Prokosh Comparative Germanic Grammar. It’s a very old reference and may not be online, but what my germanic linguistics professor used with us Germanic linguistics grad students. He was a world renowned expert on the various futhark versions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_H._Antonsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_H._Antonsen
- jjtheblunt 3y agoProkosch's book is still available https://a.co/d/0u4S28Y https://a.co/d/0u4S28Y
- blown_gasket 3y agoI'm not huge on taking the Wikipedia entry at face value and prefer to look at the references used for the entry. In this case the reference CHAPTER 25 TYPOGRAPHY AND THE PRINTED ENGLISH TEXT, page 6, does mention that y/ye was used in place of both eth and thorn.
- jjtheblunt 3y agoMispelling or incomplete font set for printing press possibly? Note modern English collapsed the distinction into simpler orthography, “th” for both eth and thorn, so simplicity in spelling certainly happens.