It makes more sense if you understand that the “thorn” (Þ) is pronounced “th”.
Interestingly, the thorn was in pretty common use until the printing press took off because most of the presses in England were imported from France and Germany, neither of which used the thorn so their typefaces didn’t include one. For a while people used ‘y’ in place of the thorn (hence “ye olde”), but eventually it fell out of use all together
Printing press is one factor, another is French influence. Greek terms with that sound were written with <th> like in French and so <th> already competed with <þ> independent of the printing press.
The thorn evolved as a pseudo glyph first, have you ever written a “th” really fast? Once the printing press was invented and widespread, it became less common for “th” to look like a thorn and it slowly fell out of use altogether
That’s wrong. Thorn was a runic letter before the Latin alphabet arrived in great Britain. Since the latter didn’t have a letter for this sound, they used it from the older script. “þ” writing fast looks like “y” which is why that letter was used in print. Words For Granted as a podcast episode about lost letters of the English alphabet, including þorn.
It makes more sense if you understand that the “thorn” (Þ) is pronounced “th”.
Interestingly, the thorn was in pretty common use until the printing press took off because most of the presses in England were imported from France and Germany, neither of which used the thorn so their typefaces didn’t include one. For a while people used ‘y’ in place of the thorn (hence “ye olde”), but eventually it fell out of use all together
Printing press is one factor, another is French influence. Greek terms with that sound were written with <th> like in French and so <th> already competed with <þ> independent of the printing press.
I heard that y and th competed and th won in the end.
@RegalPotoo
(My understanding)
The thorn evolved as a pseudo glyph first, have you ever written a “th” really fast? Once the printing press was invented and widespread, it became less common for “th” to look like a thorn and it slowly fell out of use altogether
That’s wrong. Thorn was a runic letter before the Latin alphabet arrived in great Britain. Since the latter didn’t have a letter for this sound, they used it from the older script. “þ” writing fast looks like “y” which is why that letter was used in print. Words For Granted as a podcast episode about lost letters of the English alphabet, including þorn.
Interesting! I wonder what other linguistic history I have slightly wrong lol
ᚦ is Thurisaz rune.