Ð ⁊ Þ (Eth and Thorn)

[cenwulf]

I have just read on Wikipedia that ð came into English from Irish, and was originally called ðæt in Old English. Presumably it was then transferred to Icelandic etc, and it is the earlier use in Old English that accounts for the confusion we have between ð and þ (I always thought it came to us from Icelandic). Presumably, also, it's name comes from a common word beginning with th. So when (and why) did we start calling it eth? And as we already had the runic letter þ to represent th, why did we take up ð as well?

[Horsa]

What I want to know is where you got the tironian nota. I've been using 7. It's not fun.

Seeing as the English learnt latin letters and Christianity originally from the Irish, I would imagine that they first started representing that sound with the ð and later introducing the runic characters. It's interesting reading Bede's Death song as it represents the w sound with uu and Ð ⁊ Þ with th. I sometimes wonder if that represents an early orthography - trying to represent the sounds of english with an alphabet that they'd only seen represent Latin and Irish.

Mind you, I've never seen the manuscript, and editors, although they retain Ð ⁊ Þ will, irritatingly, substitute ƿ with w.

[cenwulf]

I must admit, I copy-pasted it from Wikipedia.

I'm not typing this on my home laptop, and although I can view Ð and Þ OK, all I see for ⁊ is garbage. The Þ article is quite good because it shows various ways of typing that letter. But on my laptop, non of them work. So I usually resort to copy-paste.

This browser (Firefox 4.0.1) is currently set to Unicode (UTF-8). With anything else I can't even see the Ð and Þ.

...

OK, I've just installed the Junicode font set, and I can now see all the letters and marks correctly. 
If you're on Windows, you can open up Word and select Insert -> Symbol. There is a Shortcut Key... button. If you highlight the letter you want (choose Junicode in the Font dropdown menu), you can assign any shortcut you want. This will only work within Word, but you can compose your message/epic poem in Word and copy-paste into whichever program you are using.

For (my) future reference, here are the shortcuts I've assigned:
Æ = ALT + SHIFT + A (swas ShowAllHeadings)
Ð = ALT + SHIFT + D (was InsertDateField)
Þ = ALT + SHIFT + T (was InsertTimeField)
æ = ALT + A
ð = ALT + D
þ = ALT + T
⁊ = ALT + 7

You could even assign shortcuts to all the runic letters, then type away in English to produce an instant translation. 

[peter horn]

I have just read on Wikipedia that ð came into English from Irish, and was originally called ðæt in Old English.

I would have thought unlikely that eth came from the Irish, since they, like most races, have difficulty in pronouncing th, whether it be eth or thorn. Another explanation is that it is a book convention. rather than write a runic thorn they used a crossed d or D.  It would be nice if thorn had separate uses, thus the th in thorn would be thorn and the th in windeth would be eth; but it seems that thorn and eth were used indiscriminately.

[cenwulf]

OK, spent last night (in between watching Ring of the Nibelungs) getting Junicode to work on my Android phone. I can now read the subject line properly. Trouble is, the rest of the text is a little hard to read :-(
I wonder if I can be bothered to merge the two fonts together?

[cenwulf]

Right, remind me never to mess with fonts again 

I finally got my phone displaying readable text AND OE characters and runes. It only took me the whole weekend.

If anyone has an android phone and wants to use my fonts, drop me a message.

[Jayson]

---I've written about this before and I hope you don't mind seeing it again because it's still something which puzzles me.   

In Kipling's poem 'A Tree Song' (Puck of Pook's Hill) he talks of 'Oak and Ash and Thorn'.   Since he's setting his stories in early English times, how likely is it that he's taken this from Eth and Aesc and Thorn?


Sonya

[Linden]

---I've written about this before and I hope you don't mind seeing it again because it's still something which puzzles me.   

In Kipling's poem 'A Tree Song' (Puck of Pook's Hill) he talks of 'Oak and Ash and Thorn'.   Since he's setting his stories in early English times, how likely is it that he's taken this from Eth and Aesc and Thorn?

Yes - we have indeed been asked this question before. 

http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_weland1.htm

See this site which includes the following:-

'....the ballad of `Glasgerion' (Percy, Reliques of Ancient Poetry, 3rd ser., Bk. 1), where the hero:

`swore a full great othe
By oake and ashe and thorne'.

Philip Holberton has suggested that Kipling may also have found it in Charles Kingsley’s novel Westward Ho! In chapter 2: 'Sir Richard swore a great and holy oath, like Glasgerion’s, "by oak and ash and thorn.” '. ......................................'

[peter horn]

---I've written about this before and I hope you don't mind seeing it again because it's still something which puzzles me.   

In Kipling's poem 'A Tree Song' (Puck of Pook's Hill) he talks of 'Oak and Ash and Thorn'.   Since he's setting his stories in early English times, how likely is it that he's taken this from Eth and Aesc and Thorn?


Sonya

Not very likely, because only two, ie Aesc and Thorn, are trees. The rune for oak is ac not eth
Peter