Þ þ - The thorn is one of the most fascinating of letters, one whose presence remains with us in a spirit of Olde-worlde'-ishness. Cute or twee shop fronts may bear the legend 'Ye Olde Shoppe' in an attempt to recreate a feeling of the mediæval, and inevitably the word spelled as 'Ye' will be pronounced as 'Yee'.

But 'Ye Olde Shoppe' ought actually to be pronounced as 'The Old Shoppe'... because the 'Y' derives from a printing form of the thorn.

The strange history of the letter thorn (Þ and þ) and its close associates

A Fuþorc in the Road

The thorn is a letter which originally derived from a rune (in a fuþorc)¹. This runic alphabet was called fuþorc after the sounds of the first six signs within it, and was developed by Germanic peoples at least as early as the 2nd century A.D. Scholars are divided about the fuþorc's origin, but it is agreed that at least some of the signs in the runic alphabets are derived from Italic or Alpine letter forms, and very probably some are derived from or at least influenced by Latin and Greek letters.

Though and Through - the "th" sounds

The thorn represented a "th" sound, and it's a moot point whether there was originally a distinction between voiced and unvoiced 'th' sounds in terms of how they were represented. A voiced 'th' sound is that made in the word 'there'. You can hear the buzzing sound when you stress the 'th' sound. An unvoiced "th" sound is that made in the word 'think'. It is breathier and does not buzz.

From Giants to Thorns

The thorn was not present in the fuþorc from which the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc is derived (ie, the Elder fuþorc). The sound 'th' was, though - and the runic sign for the sound in the Elder fuþorc was the same as the thorn. However, it had a different name and a different meaning - it was called the þurisaz and meant 'giant'. It was third in the alphabet, and retained that position in the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc.

The Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet developed out of the 24-character Elder forþorc - but what's known as the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc had extra runes added to it to accommodate the Old English language. This is evidenced not only by the runes found in the British Isles, but also in changed runic inscriptions in the north-west of Germany and northern Holland of the 5th century A.D. after the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

That which is codified as the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc is distinguished by the extra characters and the altered forms of some of the runes, as well as some runes being given completely different letters to those customarily used in the Elder fuþorc. Between five and nine runes were added, the commonest being nine extra runes - which brings us to that total of 33 runes in the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc.

Ð ð: The other form used in Mediaeval English to express the 'th' sound was the thok or eth (Ð ð). It's believed that this form was created by Insular² scribes crossing their d form.

A Source-Rich Language!

English is, of course, a hotchpotch of source material which has combined to form one of the most agile and expressive languages in the world. While using a base of the Anglo Saxon (Germanic) alphabets, it early incorporated a great deal from other languages such as Latin, classical Greek (which itself incorporated much from the ancient Semitic languages), and French (in two distinct waves).

The Romans appropriated quite a lot from the Greeks, but the evidence suggests that they did not adopt the letter theta³ which was used by the Greeks to denote variant 'th' sounds. Instead, they expressed the 'th' sound by using the digraph⁴TH.

A Mediæval Scribe's Dilemma

Mediæval English thus contained a variety of signs for the sound 'th' - the digraph TH, the thorn, and the eth (or thok). Scribes ended up using whatever sign they felt like using, although some tried to make a distinction between the signs used for a voiced 'th' sound and the signs used for a voiceless 'th' sound. Reading mediaeval texts now can be enormously confusing. Is that a y? Is that a p? Is that a 'th'? The problem is only compounded by the inclusion of yet another runic sign which made it into Mediæval English - the wen⁵ (a symbol that looks very, VERY like a thorn, save that the triangular portion sits even higher, giving it a strong look of an angular 'p'). Even readers at the time often found it difficult to know precisely what the text was saying - Heaven help the reader whose ability to transcribe the various letters and runes (and all their forms) was poor and couldn't work out the meaning from the context! The problem was made worse by the occasional juxtaposition of Latin and Old English texts on the same page, and by the shorthand and unique methods employed by individual scribes in transcribing the letters.

The font of wisdom?

The thorn was particularly popular as a sign for 'TH' in Mediæval English, but with the advent of printing came a problem. There was no thorn sign in the printing fonts (this was only to be expected, since printing fonts were usually cast outside of England), so, since the sign for thorn somewhat resembled the sign for the lower-case 'y', that's what was substituted to symbolise thorn.

The thorn continued to be used, but certainly printing hurried the eventual dropping of thorn from the English alphabet. As mentioned above, thorn still hangs on tenaciously in the outmoded 'Ye'.

Our Thorny Past

Is the perseverance of this 'Ye' a thorn in the flesh? Yes, in some ways... Of course, it is a marvellous relic of a runic alphabet no longer used, and reiterates the richness of the English language by reminding us of its fascinating history and various sources. But the thorn's contrivedly archaic use as 'Ye' could do with a timely reminder that it would still be pronounced as 'The'.