Re: USAGE: Thorn vs Eth

On Tuesday, July 9, 2002, at 11:36 , Pavel Iosad wrote:

> Hello,
>
>>> Eth is the voiceless th. Like in Bath.
>>> Thorn is the voiced th. like in Then.
>>>
>>
>> Except that it's exactly the opposite!!!
>>
>> Thorn is the *voiceless* th, like in bath or think, while eth
>> is the *voiced*
>> th of then and that. That's why you often see it written
>> 'edh' instead.
True.

> In addition, in the natlangs that use(d) it, these are usually
> allophones of one another, so the graphic distinction is of little
> correlation to the pronunciation.
This was true of Old English where thorn and edh were two
different solutions to the same problem: to provide a letter for
the phoneme /T/ (with allophone [D]).  Some scribes simply
created a new letter by drawing a horizontal line through {d};
others borrowed the Runic letter thorn.   But, as Pavel rightly
says, both denoted the same sound.

But modern Icelandic does use the two letters for two different
sounds: thorn for /T/, and edh for /D/.   When advocates of
reformed spelling propose re-introducing the letters into
English, they also uniformly treat them this way also.

As some have pointed out, they are a few pairs of English words
which are distinguished by the two phonemes /T/ and /D/.

But forget _with_.  Here down south, old hands like me say [wID],
while the younger generations say [wiv].   In parts of the north
one hears [wiT] and in certain other parts [wi]; I've certainly heard
[wId] among Irish speakers.  'Tis a wee prepositions, and they tend
to weaken in pronunciation and get all sorts of local variants.  It
hardly relevant IMO in the thorn ~ edh business.

Ray.

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