# TH sounds in other languages

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-sounds-in-other-languages/1027957>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 25, 2026, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-sounds-in-other-languages/1027957 "2026-02-25T14:30:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-sounds-in-other-languages/1027957/41 "2026-03-03T02:22:18Z")

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Just for kicks, I looked in my 1920s vintage OED to see if it included geographical names, and it didn’t. However, I did find that that where the word “Esthonia” would be, the preceding was was “esthiomene,” which it described as an obsolete term for a gangrenous sore. Wikipedia has a different definition for it. . . but you just might not want to look it up during work.

Edit:

I remember once on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show \*Orson Bean was a guest, and he was showing a more phonemic alphabet for English. Unfortunately the only letter I remember was the ‘th’ letter, which looked a lower case h with a little taller ascender but with a crossbar. I remember him showing how the word ‘throughout’ would be spelled, but aside from the beginning letter, I don’t recall. Also don’t recall if there were voiced and voiceless letters for it, but I suspect not.

\*Well, he was one of Johnny’s favorites, so he was a frequent flier.

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**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-sounds-in-other-languages/1027957/42 "2026-03-03T06:21:49Z")

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> [@Johanna](#):
>
> [Why](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-what-were-those-old-germans-thinking-paleography/1024079) did they use to spell “Esthonia” and “Thibet” with the digraph ⟨th⟩ when they were _never_ pronounced with [θ] or anything but plain [t]?

Why did they use to spell “thun” (“es thut mir leid”) that way? Why did they stop?

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**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-sounds-in-other-languages/1027957/43 "2026-03-03T19:01:28Z")

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There’s a discussion [here](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/17639/why-do-some-german-words-have-th-instead-of-t-in-their-older-spelling), but if you read the comments to the one answer, it’s inconclusive. It’s not clear why German ever used “th” in its orthography. They stopped with the spelling reform of 1901, it looks like.

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**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/th-sounds-in-other-languages/1027957/44 "2026-03-03T19:40:10Z")

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> [@Topologist](#):
>
> They stopped with the spelling reform of 1901, it looks like.

Interestingly, the old spelling was retained in the English “Neanderthals”, while we write them as “Neandertaler”.

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