# Why Did English Lose All Its G's? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2020, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577 "2020-08-08T10:04:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/21 "2020-08-09T23:20:35Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > IIRC there were distinct additional letters for both the voiced “th” as in “the” and the unvoiced version as in “thin”. That would be the _Ð_ (edh or _ðæt_) and _Þ_ (thorn), mentioned above. Incidentally, they are both still used in Icelandic. In Old English, they were used somewhat interchangeably, although today we think of _edh_ as the voiced and _thorn_ as the unvoiced version. It wasn’t just printing that killed them off, but also because Norman-trained scribes didn’t like using them. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/22 "2020-08-09T23:22:11Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > > [@Acsenray](#): > > > > “Thou” didn’t _become_ “you.” It was _replaced by_ “you” and that had nothing to do with spelling. Even after Caxton, English had thou/thee/thy/thine and ye/you/your/yours. Originally the distinction was singular versus plural, but the plural became the “polite” usage, like in other European languages, and it eventually displaced the “thou” set altogether. It has nothing to do with spelling or printing. > > But that doesn’t explain why the accusative or objective form you took over the 2nd person forms and not the nominative ye. I’ve never understood that. Meh, that’s just the randomness of language development. Why do the Quakers use “thee” in both subjective and objective cases? People forget the “rules,” so to speak and many changes are random. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/23 "2020-08-10T12:12:03Z")
Another question I have, why was common every day speech dictated by ‘Norman scribes’ (or Medieval monks or whatever). Most people back then were illiterate. They couldn’t read what the scribes or others were writing. How did they learn? And how did English become universal throughout Britain? And unrelated, but I just had to ask. How did Latin become spread throughout the Roman empire? Again, most people were illiterate. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/24 "2020-08-10T12:18:03Z")
“Common everyday speech” was _not_ “dictated by Norman scribes.” Where did you get that idea? Languages spread through a society when people find it useful. Often it’s because people need to interact with a ruling class. Sometimes it’s because the ruling class uses force. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/25 "2020-08-10T12:52:41Z")
You seem to have the strange idea that people can only learn languages from written sources. That’s not true at all. Most people have always learned languages by hearing it spoken and interacting with people who speak it. English became common in Britain because it was the language of the Saxons and Angles who conquered large parts of Britain from the 5th century onwards. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/26 "2020-08-10T14:12:58Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > It’s just history of English: no the… > > [https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/](https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/) I came here to mention that podcast. I love it! ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/27 "2020-08-11T16:01:18Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > And unrelated, but I just had to ask. How did Latin become spread throughout the Roman empire? Again, most people were illiterate. Through the church. Nearly everyone was illiterate, the main exception being the clerics and the church scribes. When they were Anglo-Saxon, they used the old letters. After the Norman conquest, they were all Norman, but the church business was always conducted in Latin. And they didn’t like to use the edh, etc. Incidentally, wouldn’t it make more sense to use dh for the voiced version? So we would have thin, but dhis, broth, but brodher. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/28 "2020-08-11T16:20:48Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > > [@Jim\_B](#): > > > > And unrelated, but I just had to ask. How did Latin become spread throughout the Roman empire? Again, most people were illiterate. > > Through the church. I suspect that the practice of pensioning off legionnaires with land in the various provinces had more to do with the spread of Latin than the church. The church was a relative latecomer, having only become official about 380 AD. By then, the pensioning had been going on for about 400 years. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/29 "2020-08-11T16:43:27Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > the practice of pensioning off legionnaires with land in the various provinces That practice was ended by Augustus, right at the beginning of the Empire (and had only existed since the Late Republic, anyway). It’s a big mistake to think that the way the Roman Army functioned and fought remained constant over time. Latin became the main language of the Western Empire and Greek of the Eastern Empire because those were the languages of administration and government. They were also the common means of communication across diverse language groups in those regions. Compare modern India, where English is still the lingua franca throughout the subcontinent, as a result of the British Raj. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/30 "2020-08-12T22:51:48Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > But that doesn’t explain why the accusative or objective form you took over the 2nd person forms and not the nominative ye. I’ve never understood that. Perhaps this happened because of the inherently vocative aspect of second person pronouns. When emphasis is required, “You!” does seem much more effective than “Ye!” would be. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/31 "2020-08-13T05:30:29Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > That practice was ended by Augustus, right at the beginning of the Empire (and had only existed since the Late Republic, anyway). It’s a big mistake to think that the way the Roman Army functioned and fought remained constant over time. While the formal practice ended, around the same time the practice of troops garrisoning in permanent barracks at the frontiers began. It became very common for a soldier to spend most of his career stationed at the Rhine, Danube, Limes Arabicus or Hadrians Wall and upon discharge they would often settle down locally. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577/32 "2020-08-13T13:30:25Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > . It became very common for a soldier to spend most of his career stationed at the Rhine, Danube, Limes Arabicus or Hadrians Wall and upon discharge they would often settle down locally. True, but they received money on retirement, not land. They were mostly not native Latin speakers, and they would only have made a difference on the fringes on the Empire. In the central provinces, like Italy, Spain, Gaul, Egypt, North Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, you would find very few soldiers throughout most of the period. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-lose-all-its-gs/917577.md?page=1)