Thorn (letter)
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Not to be confused with ϸ, the Graeco-Bactrian letter Sho.
Þ
Þ þ
Writing system
Latin script
Type
Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin
Old English language
Old Norse language
Phonetic usage
[θ]
[ð]
[θ̠]
[z]
/θɔːrn/
Time period
~800 to present
Descendants
ꝥ, þͤ, þͭ, þͧ, yᷤ, yͤ, yͭ
Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ) is a letter in the Old English, Gothic, Old Norse, Old Swedish, and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th, except in Iceland, where it survives. The letter originated from the rune ᚦ in the Elder Fuþark and was called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and thorn or thurs in the Scandinavian rune poems. It is similar in appearance to the archaic Greek letter sho (ϸ), although the two are historically unrelated.
It is pronounced as either a voiceless dental fricative [θ] or the voiced counterpart of it [ð]. However, in modern Icelandic, it is pronounced as a laminal voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative [θ̠],[1][2] similar to th as in the English word thick, or a (usually apical) voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative [ð̠],[1][2] similar to th as in the English word the. Modern Icelandic usage generally excludes the latter, which is instead represented with the letter eth ⟨Ð, ð⟩; however, [ð̠] may occur as an allophone of /θ̠/, and written ⟨þ⟩, when it appears in an unstressed pronoun or adverb after a voiced sound.[3]
In typography, the lowercase thorn character is unusual in that it has both an ascender and a descender (other examples are lowercase Cyrillic ф and in some fonts, the Latin letter f).
Contents
1Uses
1.1English
1.1.1Old English
1.1.2Middle and Early Modern English
1.1.2.1Abbreviations
1.1.3Modern English
1.2Icelandic
2Computing codes
3Variants
4See also
5References
6Bibliography
7External links
Uses[edit]
English[edit]
Old English[edit]
The letter thorn was used for writing Old English very early on, as was ð; unlike ð, thorn remained in common use through most of the Middle English period. Both letters were used for the phoneme /θ/, sometimes by the same scribe. This sound was regularly realised in Old English as the voiced fricative [ð] between voiced sounds, but either letter could be used to write it; the modern use of [ð] in phonetic alphabets is not the same as the Old English orthographic use. A thorn with the ascender crossed (Ꝥ) was a popular abbreviation for the word that.
Middle and Early Modern English[edit]
The modern digraph th began to grow in popularity during the 14th century; at the same time, the shape of thorn grew less distinctive, with the letter losing its ascender (becoming similar in appearance to the old wynn (Ƿ, ƿ), which had fallen out of use by 1300, and to ancient through modern P, p). In some hands, such as that of the scribe of the unique mid-15th-century manuscript of The Boke of Margery Kempe, it ultimately became indistinguishable from the letter Y. By this stage, th was predominant and the use of thorn was largely restricted to certain common words and abbreviations. In William Caxton's pioneering printed English, it is rare except in an abbreviated the, written with a thorn and a superscript E. This was the longest-lived use, though the substitution of Y for thorn soon became ubiquitous, leading to the common 'ye', as in 'Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe'. One major reason for this was that Y existed in the printer's type fonts that were imported from Germany or Italy, while thorn did not.[citation needed] The word was never pronounced with a "y" sound, though, even when so written.[4] The first printing of the King James Version of the Bible in 1611 used the Y form of thorn with a superscript E in places such as Job 1:9, John 15:1, and Romans 15:29. It also used a similar form with a superscript T, which was an abbreviated that, in places such as 2 Corinthians 13:7. All were replaced in later printings by the or that, respectively.
Abbreviations[edit]
The following were abbreviations during Middle and Early Modern English using the letter thorn:
– (þͤ) a Middle English abbreviation for the word the 
– (þͭ) a Middle English abbreviation for the word that 
– (þͧ) a rare Middle English abbreviation for the word thou (which was written early on as þu or þou) (yᷤ) an Early Modern English abbreviation for the word this
– (yͤ) an Early Modern English abbreviation for the word the 
– (yͭ) an Early Modern English abbreviation for the word that Modern English[edit]
Thorn in the form of a "Y" survives in pseudo-archaic uses, particularly the stock prefix "Ye olde". The definite article spelt with "Y" for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced /jiː/ ("yee") or mistaken for the archaic nominative case of the second person plural pronoun, "ye", as in "hear ye!". In fact, the y in the pronoun would have been spelled with a yogh, ȝe, rather than a y.
Icelandic[edit]
The Icelandic language is the only living language to retain the letter thorn (in Icelandic; þ, pronounced þoddn, [θ̠ɔtn̥] or þordn [θ̠ɔrtn̥]). The letter is the 30th in the Icelandic alphabet, modelled after Old Norse alphabet in the 19th century; it is transliterated to th when it cannot be reproduced[5] and never appears at the end of a word. For example, the name of Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is anglicised as Hafthor.
Its pronunciation has not varied much, but before the introduction of the eth character, þ was used to represent the sound [ð], as in the word "verþa", which is spelt verða(meaning "to become") in modern Icelandic or normalized orthography.[6] Þ was originally taken from the runic alphabet and is described in the First Grammatical Treatise from the 12th-century:
Staf þann er flestir menn kalla þ, þann kalla ég af því heldur þe að þá er það atkvæði hans í hverju máli sem eftir lifir nafnsins er úr er tekinn raddarstafur úr nafni hans, sem alla hefi ég samhljóðendur samda í það mark nú sem ég reit snemma í þeirra umræðu. [...] Höfuðstaf þe-sins rita ég hvergi nema í vers upphafi því að hans atkvæði má eigi æxla þótt hann standi eftir raddarstaf í samstöfun.[7]
– First Grammarian, First Grammatical Treatise
The letter which most men call thorn I shall call the, so that its sound value in each context will be what is left of the name when the woverl is removed, since I have now arranged all the consonants in that manner, as I wrote earlier in this discussion. [...] The capital letter of the I do not write except at the beginning of a section, since its sound cannot be extended, even when it follows the vowel of the syllable.[8]
– First Grammarian, First Grammatical Treatise, translation by Einar Haugen
Upper- and lowercase versions of the thorn character, in sans-serif (left) and serif (right).
Computing codes[edit]
character
Þ
þ
The Old English Alphabet: special characters
https://langscape.org.uk/OEtutorial/thealphabet.html
The Anglo-Saxons used two different systems of writing: runes, and the Roman alphabet. Runes were of limited use, mostly used in the very early period for carving onto stone or wooden objects; there are no charter bounds written in runes, so these will not be considered here.
The system of writing that we are interested in was brought to the Anglo-Saxons through contact with the post-Roman world of Christian Europe. This is essentially the same alphabet that we use today, but there are some letters which, for the writing of Old English, have come and gone over time. There are four letters which we don't use any more (‘thorn’, ‘eth’, ‘ash’ and ‘wynn’) and two letters which we use but which the Anglo-Saxons didn't (‘j’ and ‘v’). Until the late Old and early Middle English period, they also rarely used the letters ‘k’, ‘q’ and ‘z’.
The problem was that the Roman alphabet was designed for the language of the Romans, namely Latin. But there were some sounds in Old English which don't exist in Latin, and so there was no obvious way of writing them. One example of this is the sound we represent in modern English by the letters th.
There are several ways of dealing with this problem. You can amalgamate two separate letters into one new letter. You can adapt an existing letter to create a new one. You can put two letters together. Or you can borrow a letter from a different alphabet. The Anglo-Saxons did all four.
The letter æ ‘ash’ is an amalgamated letter roughly representing a sound between ‘a’ and ‘e’. Two letters were borrowed from the runic alphabet: þ 'thorn', and ƿ 'wynn', and one was adapted from the Latin alphabet ð ‘eth’. Eth and thorn both represent the th sound, and wynn represents w. Because wynn has exactly the same sound as our modern w, a lot of editors just use w to represent wynn, and we are building in a facility to enable you to replace the wynn with a w in the edited texts.
Please note that ð (eth), þ (thorn), and æ (ash) can be displayed on your monitor but wynn may be more difficult. This is because æ, ð, and þ are still used in the Icelandic language today, and so they are built into your computer. If you want to see these letters in action then have a look at Morgunblaðið which is the daily newspaper in Iceland. There are other characters, such as a crossed thorn (see later), which you could use if you install a special font on your computer. This font is called Junicode and can be downloaded from the Junicode website. The instructional part of this module will use w rather than wynn.
Letter thorn
https://www.scottishhandwriting.com/cmLFth.asp
When reading sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century documents written in Scotland expect to come across a letter which is now defunct, and which, confusingly, looks like a y. This is the archaic letter thorn. It fell out of use because of the standardisation of letters by printers.
The thorn looks very like a y, and represented the sound th. In the image below, the word the starts with a thorn.
This is why today one can find signs saying things like Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe. This is a misrepresentation. People in the past did not say 'ye' they said 'the'; it's just that they had a separate letter, the thorn, which denoted the sound th. When transcribing a thorn, write th.
Short words beginning with a thorn were often abbreviated. For example the word in Figure 4 is that written with a thorn and a superscript t superscript to show that something is missing - in this case the letter a. It should be subscribed th[a]t
It is also possible to find thorn in the middle of common words as shown below with oth[e]r and broth[e]r.
Thorn - Missing Letter of the Alphabet
The thorn , Þ þ , is one of the most fascinating of letters and, in a form unrecognisable to the untrained eye, is still used to convey 'olde-worlde' charm. Twee shop fronts may bear the legend 'Ye Olde Shoppe' in an attempt to recreate a feeling of the medieval, and inevitably the word spelled as 'Ye' will be pronounced by all as 'Yee'.
However, 'Ye Olde Shoppe' ought actually to be pronounced as 'The Old Shoppe', because the 'Y' derives from a printed form of the thorn.
A Fuþorc in the Road
The thorn is a letter which originally derived from a rune. This runic alphabet was called fuþorc1after the sounds of its first six signs and was developed by Germanic peoples at least as early as the 2nd Century AD. Scholars are divided about the fuþorc's origin, but it's agreed that some of the signs in the runic alphabets are derived from Italic or Alpine letter forms and others are probably influenced by Latin and Greek letters.
Though and Through - the 'th' Sounds
The thorn represented a 'th' sound and it's now a moot point whether there was originally a distinction between voiced and unvoiced 'th' sounds, in terms of how they were represented. A voiced 'th' sound is that made in the word 'there'. You can hear the buzzing sound when you stress the 'th' sound. An unvoiced 'th' sound is that made in the word 'think'. It is breathier and does not buzz.
From Giants to Thorns
While several runic alphabets developed from the basic 24-character Elder fuþark, the one we call the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc was the most common. This is distinguished by nine extra characters,2 some altered forms and additional signs. These changes were mostly to accommodate the Old English language. This can be evidenced not only by runes found in the British Isles, but also in changed runic inscriptions in north-west Germany and northern Holland after the Anglo-Saxon invasions (5th Century AD).
The thorn first appeared as the name of a character in the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc, usurping a different name for the same sound and symbol in the Elder fuþark. In the Elder fuþark it was called the þurisaz, meaning 'giant'. This was the third sign in the Elder fuþark, and the thorn retained the same position in the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc.
While there were a few different fuþorcs formed from the basic Elder fuþark, the one we call the Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc was the most common. That which is codified as the Anglo-Saxon fuþorcis distinguished by nine extra characters,3 some altered forms and additional signs. All these changes bring us to a total of 33 runes in the Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc.
A Source-rich Language
The English language consists of a hotchpotch of source material combining to form one of the most agile and expressive languages in the world. While using a base of the Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) alphabets, it soon incorporated a great deal from other languages such as Latin, classical Greek (which itself incorporated much from ancient Semitic languages), and French (in two distinct waves).
Ð ð : The other form used in Medieval English to express the 'th' sound was the thok or eth (Ð ð). It's believed that this form was created by Insular4 scribes crossing their d form.
The Romans appropriated quite a lot from the Greeks, but evidence suggests that they did not adopt the letter theta5 which was used by the Greeks to denote variant 'th' sounds. Instead, they expressed the 'th' sound by using the digraph6 'TH'.
A Medieval Scribe's Dilemma
Medieval English thus contained a variety of signs for the sound 'th' - the digraph 'TH', the thorn , and the eth (or thok ). Scribes ended up using a mixture of these, although some tried to make a distinction between those used for a voiced 'th' sound and the signs used for a voiceless 'th'. As a result, reading medieval texts today can be enormously confusing. Is that a 'y'? Is it a 'p'? Or a 'th'? The problem is compounded by the inclusion of yet another runic sign which made it into Medieval English - the wen7, a symbol that looks very like a thorn , except that the triangular portion sits even higher, giving it a strong look of an angular 'p'.
Even readers at the time often found it difficult to know precisely what the text was saying, given the combination of Latin characters and the remnants from the runic alphabet. Heaven help the reader whose ability to transcribe the various letters and runes (and all their forms) was poor and couldn't work out the meaning from the context! The problem was made worse by the occasional juxtaposition of Latin and Old English texts on the same page, and by the shorthand and unique methods employed by individual scribes in transcribing the letters
The Font of Wisdom
The thorn was particularly popular as a sign for 'th' in Medieval English, but with the advent of printing came a problem. There was no thorn sign in the printing fonts, as they were usually cast outside of England. So, since the sign for thorn slightly resembled the lower-case 'y', that's what was substituted.
The thorn continued to be used, but printing caused its eventual demise from the English alphabet. As mentioned earlier, lingering proof of its existence hangs on in the outmoded 'Ye'.
Our Thorny Past
Is the perseverance of this 'Ye' a thorn in the flesh? Of course, it is a marvellous relic of a runic alphabet no longer used, and reiterates the richness of the English language by reminding us of its fascinating history and various sources. But as the thorn 's legacy, the contrived and archaic 'Ye' should come with a little reminder that it's pronounced as 'The'.
Thorn (Þ, þ)
https://readable.com/blog/the-five-lost-letters-of-the-english-language/
You're probably quite a bit more familiar with this letter than you might realize. If you've ever seen the word "ye" used in a tavern or on a business sign, as in "ye merry" or "ye olde", the word ye is not actually pronounced using the y sound at all. The y is really used to substitute for the letter thorn, derived from the runic alphabet of Futhark, and it's pronounced like "th", as in the word "the". Due to most printing presses not having the letter thorn available, it became common practice to use a y instead, leading to "ye". So, the next time you see "Ye Olde Brick Tavern" or something similar in your travels, you'll recognize that it's really just saying "The" after all.
Thorn (þ)
https://qz.com/914372/we-used-to-have-six-more-letters-in-the-english-alphabet/
Thorn is in many ways the counterpart to eth. Thorn is also pronounced with a th sound, but it has a voiceless pronunciation—your vocal cords don’t vibrate when pronouncing the sound—like in thing or thought.
Today, the same th letter combo is used for both þ and ð sounds. There is a pronunciation difference—thorn is a voiceless pronunciation and eth is voiced—but that’s just something you pick up as you learn to speak. Of course, you’ll never hear about this in school, because that’s English for you.
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