Re: USAGE: What happened to Anglo-Saxon letters? (was: Intro to Frankish)

Quoting Tristan McLeay <conlang@...>:

> But on the subject of ash, Danish and Icelandic both use it. Seeing as
> Icelandic had adopted the OE thorn and eth, I supposed they adopted the
> OE ash, too. But in Icelandic, it's pronounced /ai/ (or similar). Is
> the Icelandic then merely the old Latin ligature, or did it used to be
> /&/ or something else? (I could imagine it was a fronted equivalent of
> a backed á, and then whatever turned á into /au/ turned æ into /ai/.)
> Also, how's it pronounced in Danish?
Danish æ is /E/ and /E:/. In Old Icelandic, it was /E/, with the accented
version for /E:/. Icelandic vowels were subsequently thoroughly screwed up.

                                                      Andreas

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