Why did English stop using thorn?

Originally, it was an entirely different letter called thorn, which derived from the Old English runic alphabet, Futhark. We replaced it with ‘th’ over time—thorn fell out of use because Gothic-style scripting made the letters Y and thorn look practically identical.

Why does æ exist?

The ash, as it is called in English, or Æ, originates in Latin. It’s a ligature to represent the diphthong “ae”. In modern typography, it is rarely used, but the diphthong it represents is still very much with us in words like archaeology and aesthetics. It’s now rendered as “ae” or sometimes just reduced to “e”.

What is the difference between thorn and eth?

Both thorn / þ and eth / ð make a dental fricative (a “th” sound), but originally, the difference between thorn and eth was that unvoiced thorn was used to show voiceless “th” (like the Modern English words thing, thumb, thunder, thin, and thorn itself, or the Greek letter theta), while voiced eth tended to be used for …

Where did the letter thorn go?

Here’s an example: in Old English, a letter called thorn (þ) represented the th sound (as in that) in Modern English. In the Latin alphabet, the Y was the symbol that most closely resembled the character that represented thorn. So, thorn was dropped and Y took its place. (As you may know, Y can be a vowel.)

How did the thorn become ay?

In the Latin alphabet, the Y was the symbol that most closely resembled the character that represented thorn. So, thorn was dropped and Y took its place. (As you may know, Y can be a vowel.) That is why the word ye, as in “Ye Olde Booke Shoppe,” is an archaic spelling of the.

What happened to the letters eth and Thorn?

Because of similarities and how Eth and Thorn could sound the same depending on accents, Eth was phased out in favor or thorn. The letter Ash is another lost letter that you’ve probably seen a few times here and there, more than likely in old church texts.

What is the origin of the word thorn?

The use of the letter thorn lasted substantially past the Old English period, and even into Early Modern English in certain specific contexts: many function words starting with the th sound had abbreviations starting with thorn, which came to be written in a way that looked like the letter y.

What is the difference between etheth and Thorn?

Eth was lost early, within Old English; thorn survived all the way into Early Modern English, and is found in the first printing of the King James Bible. (Norman) French influences brought about some use of th, but þ was still widely popular and universally understood.

Why isn’t there a thorns font in other languages?

But German, French, Italian, and other prominent languages of the time didn’t use thorn, and thus typefaces imported from Europe didn’t include it.