Yes. This is why we call you C. Si? I mean, ja?
Riv
A) The fact remains that it is not true that eth and thorn were regularly used in Old English to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced sounds. Both letters were used for both sounds, just as f was used for both /f/ and /v/ and s was used for both /s/ and /z/.
B) I understand that, in some ways, Old English spelling was more regular than, say, Elizabethan, because it was still wholly phonetic.
C) I don’t know the process by which “Sie” came to mean formal “you” in German, but “lei” in Italian does genuinely mean both “she” and formal “you”. This is a result of the fact that “-ship” words (lordship, ladyship, etc.) in Italian are grammatically feminine.
Linguistics. It’s a funny old game.
Interestingly enough, in the sole text I could find on the 'net from the first press in England seems to write þe/ye/the simply out as the and NOT as ye. See: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~neils/renaissance/caxton.htm
but since this is just a small sample it probably meaningless.
However since every document I’ve been able to find on the internet seems to indicate that the þ evolved into y and not the ð as I previously thought I relucantly recant my views.
BUT the example I could find (not english I admit, but hopefully same style of handwriting) seems to suggest that the þ and the ð were quite different looking and the ð more similar to Y.
for example here are a few ðs
http://am.hi.is/handritinheima/handritid/handritalestur/skyringar/mynd3/1.jpg ,http://am.hi.is/handritinheima/handritid/handritalestur/skyringar/mynd3/9.jpg
but for the þs here is a shortening of þar (there): http://am.hi.is/handritinheima/handritid/handritalestur/skyringar/mynd1/8.jpg
this is það (or þat) meaning that: http://am.hi.is/handritinheima/handritid/handritalestur/skyringar/mynd1/7.jpg
plain old þ here (inside the circle is written þan): http://am.hi.is/handritinheima/handritid/handritalestur/skyringar/mynd1/10.jpg
modern people who are unfamiliar with þ usually misread it for p, imagine pe olde tea shoppe, thus ping for þing (thing), presumably pong for þong (thong).
ps forgot to mention but þ and Þ make for very nice stick-out-yer-tongue smilies
:Þ and :þ
About sound distinction of edh and thorn: I’ve seen an article (can’t find a link right now) that says thorn is derived from runic letter and was originally used in northern and western England, while edh is derived from letter d which denoted the same sound in German (at that time) and was originally used in southern England. Latter, says the article, the letters became mixed until there appeared a tradition of using them for distinction between voiced and voiceless sounds.
Now, my twocent about pronouns for adressing friends and strangers: in Russian, they say “ty” to friends (=thou), “vy” to many persons (=ye), and “Vy” to strangers (=thou Mr.); the difference between “vy” and “Vy” is solely in capitalization.
A few quick points:
The letter that “thorn” was confused with was not modern Y, which was not in common use when thorn and edh were, but yet another archaic letter called “wen,” pronounced with a consonantal /y/ sound in at least some dialects (IIRC that was its standard pronunciation but I would not be surprised to be in error on that). Wen was written quite similarly to thorn but with the bulge at right being a triangle with a point rather than a curve – and its similarities to modern Y, given that shape, are evident.
Second, I must disagree with the “thy before consonant, thine before vowel.” Like my/mine, our/ours, your/yours, her/hers, and their/theirs, thou had two forms of the possessive, one used prenominally and one disjunctively: “That’s my car/that car is mine” and similar constructions. Towards the end of *thou’*s regular use in English, the language was influenced by German forms resulting in “a poor thing but mine own” and “to thine own self be true” where traditionally “my” and “thy” would have been called for.
It’s also important to note that there are verb constructions called for by the use of “thou”: “To be” gives “thou art” in the present, “thou wast” in the past, “thou beëst” in the rare present subjunctive, and “thou wert” in the past subjunctive. “To have” produces “thou hast” and a few other verbs seem to require the “-st” ending, e.g., “Thou needst not agree with me.” Notably, the future in “shall” and “will” call for “shalt” and “wilt” respectively – though if one adheres to the “I shall/he will” traditional usage, “shalt” is by far the more common usage: “Thou shalt not kill.”
Finally, it was a peculiarity of Quaker “plain speech” that the objective “thee” was used nominatively. A Quaker would use “thou” about as rarely as you or I would; he or she would avoid the polite plural in address of a single person by using “Thee” as both subject and object pronoun where we would use “You.”
I would just like to post a little bit of interesting thoughts into this comment. English was Germanic language and stems mainly from Angels, Saxons, and the Jutes that came from Northern Germany and Denmark in this general area. Of course when William the Conqueror came in 1066 he brought French with him so that’s why there isn’t anything too much like English today. But if you notice, there are many similarities between English and German, and of course other Germanic languages.
It is often the case in many instances where in English there is a TH while German uses a D.
All is IIRC, btw so if I have an error, I’m sorry
Theif in English is Dieb in German
Thick in English is Dick in German
That in English is Dass in German
The in English is der/die/das in German (Nom. Case)
Thou in English is basically Du in German.
While this doesn’t really sound like it, Where I live the dialect uses something that sounds like Dou in English and “Dau” in German. Thats kind of interesting and I think its pretty cool. when you get to the other forms Thine, sounds just like Dein.
Like I say I’m not a linguist, but I find these coincidences cool. I’ve heard someone tell me in Dutch how to say “You” and IIRC it sounds like “Yow” or Thou with a Y in front.
It just may possibly have been pronounced “y” in some odd dialect or other, but its normal pronunciation was like modern “w”, which is why its name was “wen” (or “wynn”). Because it looks so very much like thorn, it is normally transcribed as “w” in modern OE texts.
Yes, like other Indo-European languages, OE distinguished between possessive adjectives and the genitive case of the personal pronouns, and assigned each to certain roles. Nevertheless, as you admit, the vowel/consonant phase did occur.
“A few other verbs”? All other EMnE verbs take “-est” (or “-'st”), or “-st” with “thou” in the present indicative.
(And just to fill in the remaining corner, “-eth” (or “-'th”) and “-th” are exactly the same as MnE “-es” and “-s”. They had once been dialect features, but in Shakespeare’s time the two were both used in London. Eventually “-es”/"-s" won out.)
There are much more examples that prove that English TH = German D, and that’s why, as I have posted, one of the glyphs made for the sound is modified glyph of Latin letter D. However, English has not only Germanic but also (don’t remember the name, maybe Celtic or so) roots, and that language had the sound TH as well, and their runic alphabet wrote the letter thorn for the sound. That’s why the two letters came it to denote the same sound.
So many errors, so little time.
-
Old English is not descended from Modern High German. That there is some connection between the glyph “eth” and “D” is clear, but the Anglo Saxons did not learn to write from their eastern neighbors.
-
Old English has no significant non-Germanic roots, although it has a handful of words imported from Old Welsh. (However, perhaps someone who knows something about Old Welsh can comment on whether Welsh “DD” existed in that period.)
-
In any case, runes are themselves Germanic, adapted from one of the Mediterranean alphabets (the last I heard there was still some question as to which). (Needless to say, claims that runes were independently developed belong solely in anthologies of Nazi propaganda.)
-
There are two different English sounds spelled “th” (as in “thick” and “this”), although, in the OE period, which one was used depended on the phonetic context, so it may be that OE speakers thought of them as the same sound.
I’m quite thankful for pointing out my errors; learning more is my sole purpose of visiting these forums. Yet I believe it wasn’t necessary to ashame me like that.
Here’s where I got those ideas. Maybe I misinterpreted it, but more likely it’s an original misconception.
And I believe it wasn’t necessary for you to make a confused and confusing posting that I had to spend time correcting.
If you want to learn, ask questions; don’t dump your ignorance on other people and expect them to clean it up.
It doesn’t say, as you did, that eth is derived from D because many words in Modern English beginning with “th” have cognates in Modern High German beginning with “D”. It doesn’t say, as you did, that English has Celtic roots. It doesn’t say, as you did, that thorn is Celtic. And it doesn’t refer, as you did, to English “th” as a single sound.
The Moderator speaketh: In this forum, insults are not permitted, neither explicit insults nor gratuitous jabs. Politeness and good manners at all times. OK?
Please from now on consider the question “Am I correct?” an implicit ending of each my post here.
What I said was that the glyph for Edh is derived from letter D by German scribes who denoted the same sound as English Th with their letter D, and that’s exactly what I meant by interconnection between German D, English Edh, and their glyphs.
Here’s the quote that made me think like that: “ÞORN was sometimes assigned to the the Latin letter D (perhaps due to influence of German-speaking scribes, for whom Þorn was Dorn)” (2.5)
Here’s the quote about derivation of Thorn from a runic script: “LATIN LETTER ÞORN was borrowed from the well-known Runic script” (2.9)
Here’s the quote about the original regional separation of Thorn- and Edh-users: “In other parts of Anglo-Saxon England, LATIN LETTER EÐ, a letter derived from LATIN LETTER D, was used for these sounds.” (2.9)
Here’s the quote about the original lack of distinction between the two sounds: “In Old English, no particular distinction was made between ÞORN and EÐ and either or both could be used even in a single text. The Old English alphabet spread to Iceland and Scandinavia, and by the 14th century, the use there of EÐ for the voiced /ð/ and ÞORN for the voiceless /θ/ was common.” (2.9) I know quite well that there are two distinct sounds, so no need to convince me of the distinction. I couldn’t find in any of my posts where I stated otherwise.
It indeed doesn’t say that English has Celtic roots, but neither did I.
I don’t believe that “the Anglo Saxons did not learn to write from their eastern neighbors”, since there was no other way for them to learn the Latin script.
Neither I believe that “runes are themselves Germanic, adapted from one of the Mediterranean alphabets”. The article proves clearly that runes originate from elsewhere, e.g. because all scripts that come ultimately from Phoenician have a certain order of letters and runes have completely unrelated order.
Looking forward to being corrected further.
And here’s the whole quote:
It’s talking about German and other scribes, centuries later, copying Eth as D, not about how Old English scribes came to use Eth in the first place.
Throughout your entire original post, you referred to “the sound”.
Yes you did. “However, English has not only Germanic but also (don’t remember the name, maybe Celtic or so) roots…”
Then you believe wrongly. There is no reason to believe that the English learned the Latin alphabet from speakers of Old High German. There is plenty of reason to believe that they learned it primarily from Roman missionaries, and secondarily from the Irish and Welsh.
I prefer to believe scientists instead of New-Age and “Aryan” websites.
Then please set forth your own opinion of the way the glyphs for the letters were invented, mainly I’m interested how would you explain the regional spread of them. As far as I’ve understood, you suppose Anglo-Saxons invented both glyphs by themselves? That is, drawn from scratch?
My way of interpretation that involves German influence on the formation of English script explains pretty well both how the letters appeared, why there were two, and why the eastern England used Edh.
In case you’re interested, I’m neither Nazi nor even German, so it’s not connected to any ‘national pride’; just my POV.
It’s more of inaccurate statement than of error, but thanks for correction anyway.
I admit that phrased this way it’s false. I don’t know too well what exactly I meant by mentioning Celtic 
but you inspired me to do a lookup on the topic. I expect quickly to gather enough information to back the statement up - that is, that English had two major roots.
Please enlighten me on at least some of that reason.
Do you consider this an “Aryan” website?
Quote: “There is, in my opinion, no clear influence of any specific alphabet. The runic script could have been constructed by chance, by anyone familiar only with the idea of classical alphabets.”
I don’t have time for this. Life’s too short.