Editing Thorn (letter) (section)

== Uses ==

=== English ===

==== Old English ====

The letter thorn was used in [[Old English language|Old English]] very early on, as was [[ð]], which was called [[eth]]. Unlike eth, thorn remained in common use through most of the [[Middle English]] period. Both letters were used for the phoneme {{IPA|/θ/}}, sometimes by the same scribe. This sound was regularly realised in [[Old English#Phonology|Old English]] as the voiced fricative {{IPA|[ð]}} between voiced sounds, but either letter could be used to write it; the modern use of {{IPA|[ð]}} in [[International Phonetic Alphabet|phonetic alphabets]] is not the same as the [[Old English#Orthography|Old English orthographic use]]. A thorn with the [[Ascender (typography)|ascender]] crossed ([[Thorn with stroke|Ꝥ]]) was a popular abbreviation for the word ''[[that]]''.

==== Middle and Early Modern English ====
[[File:The Book of Margery Kempe, Chapter 18 (clip).png|thumb|"... hir the grace that god put ..." (Extract from ''[[The Book of Margery Kempe]]'')]] 
The modern digraph ''[[Th (digraph)|th]]'' began to grow in popularity during the 14th century; at the same time, the shape of {{angbr|Þ}} grew less distinctive, with the letter losing its ascender (becoming similar in appearance to the old [[wynn]] ({{angbr|Ƿ}}, {{angbr|ƿ}}), which had fallen out of use by 1300, and to ancient through modern {{angbr|[[P]]}}, {{angbr|p}}). By this stage, ''th'' was predominant and the use of {{angbr|Þ}} was largely restricted to certain common words and abbreviations. This was the longest-lived use, though with the arrival of [[movable type]] printing, the substitution of {{angbr|y}} for {{angbr|Þ}} became ubiquitous, leading to the common "''ye''", as in '[[Ye Olde]] Curiositie Shoppe'. One major reason for this was that {{angbr|Y}} existed in the printer's [[Movable type|types]] that were imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while {{angbr|Þ}} did not.<ref name=Hill>{{cite book | title= The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System |isbn=9780367581565 |chapter=Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text |first=Will |last=Hill |date=30 June 2020 |chapter-url=https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710022857/https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |archive-date=2022-07-10 |url-status=live |page=6 |quote=The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood ‘ye’ occurs through a habit of printer’s usage that originates in Caxton’s time, when printers would substitute the <y> (often accompanied by a superscript <e>) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169)}}</ref> The word was never pronounced as /j/, as in ⟨'''''y'''es''⟩, though, even when so written.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/ye-olde|title=ye-olde – Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes {{!}} Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com|website=www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com|access-date=2019-12-13}}</ref> The first printing of the [[King James Version of the Bible]] in 1611 used ''y<sup>e</sup>'' for "''the''" in places such as Job 1:9, John 15:1, and Romans 15:29.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/1611TheAuthorizedKingJamesBible/page/n1399/mode/1up|website=archive.org|title=1611 The Authorized King James Bible|page=1400|accessdate=14 August 2022}}</ref> It also used ''y<sup>t</sup>'' as an abbreviation for "''that''", in places such as 2 Corinthians 13:7. All were replaced in later printings by ''the'' or ''that'', respectively.

===== Abbreviations =====
<div class='skin-invert-image'>
{{multiple image
| align = right
| direction = horizontal
|width = 75
| image1 = Barred Thorn after Ælfric.svg
| image2 = Middle English the.svg
| image3 = EME ye.svg
| title = ꝥ, þͤ, yͤ
}}</div>

The following were [[scribal abbreviation]]s during Middle and Early Modern English using the letter thorn:
* [[File:Barred Thorn after Ælfric.svg|class=skin-invert-image|12 px|alt= Barred thorn with superscript e]] {{char|ꝥ}}{{snd}} The [[thorn with stroke]] (or barred thorn) is the earliest abbreviation, it is used in manuscripts in the [[Old English language]]. It is the letter {{angbr|þ}}, with a bold horizontal stroke through the ascender, and it represents the word ''þæt'', meaning "the" or "that" (neuter [[nominative|nom.]] / [[accusative|acc.]])
*  [[File:Middle English the.svg|class=skin-invert-image|alt=thorn with superscript t]] {{char|þͤ}}{{snd}} a Middle English abbreviation for the word ''the''
* [[File:Middle English that.svg|class=skin-invert-image|alt=thorn with superscript t]] {{char|þͭ}}{{snd}} a Middle English abbreviation for the word ''that''
* [[File:Middle English thou.svg|class=skin-invert-image|alt=thorn with superscript u]] {{char|þͧ}}{{snd}} a rare Middle English abbreviation for the word ''[[thou]]'' (which was written early on as {{lang|ang|þu}} or {{lang|ang|þou}})
In later printed texts, given the lack of a [[sort (typesetting)|sort]] for the glyph,<ref name=Hill /> printers substituted the (visually similar) letter [[y]] for the thorn:
*{{nbsp}}{{nbsp}}{{nbsp}}{{char|yᷤ}}{{snd}} an Early Modern English abbreviation for the word ''this''
* [[File:EME ye.svg|class=skin-invert-image|alt=y with superscript e]] {{char|yͤ}}{{snd}} an Early Modern English abbreviation for the word ''the''
* [[File:EME that.svg|class=skin-invert-image|alt=y with superscript t]] {{char|yͭ}}{{snd}} an Early Modern English abbreviation for the word ''that''

==== Modern English ====
{{see also|ye (article)}}
Thorn in the form of a "Y" survives in pseudo-archaic uses, particularly the [[stock phrase|stock prefix]] "[[ye olde]]". The [[definite article]] spelt with "Y" for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced {{IPA|/jiː/}} ("yee") or mistaken for the archaic [[nominative case]] of the second person plural pronoun, "[[ye (pronoun)|ye]]", as in "hear ye!".

===Icelandic===
[[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] is the only living language to keep the letter thorn. In Icelandic, ''þ'' is pronounced ''þoddn'', {{IPA|is|θ̠ɔtn̥|}} or ''þorn'' {{IPA|is|θ̠ɔrn̥|}}. The letter is the 30th in the [[Icelandic orthography|Icelandic alphabet]], modelled after [[Old Norse orthography|Old Norse alphabet]] in the 19th century; it is [[transliteration|transliterated]] to ''th'' when it cannot be reproduced<ref>{{cite web |url=http://geonames.nga.mil/gns/html/Romanization/Romanization_RomanScripts.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161026165643/http://geonames.nga.mil/gns/html/Romanization/Romanization_RomanScripts.pdf |archive-date=2016-10-26 |url-status=live |title=Icelandic BGN/PCGN 1968 Agreement}}</ref> and never appears at the end of a word. For example, the name of [[Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson]] is [[anglicise]]d as Haf'''th'''or.

Its pronunciation has not varied much, but before the introduction of the [[eth]] character, ''þ'' was used to represent the sound {{IPA|[ð]}}, as in the word "''ver'''þ'''a''", which is now spelt ''ver'''ð'''a'' (meaning "to become") in modern Icelandic or normalized orthography.<ref name="Gordon 1927">{{cite book|last=Gordon|first=E.V.|title=An Introduction to Old Norse|year=1927|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=0-19-811184-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontool00gord/page/268 268]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontool00gord/page/268}}</ref> Þ was originally taken from the [[runic alphabet]] and is described in the [[First Grammatical Treatise]] from the 12th-century:
{| class=wikitable
|Staf þann er flestir menn kalla ''þ'', þann kalla ég af því heldur ''þe'' að þá er það atkvæði hans í hverju máli sem eftir lifir nafnsins er úr er tekinn raddarstafur úr nafni hans, sem alla hefi ég samhljóðendur samda í það mark nú sem ég reit snemma í þeirra umræðu. [...] Höfuðstaf þe-sins rita ég hvergi nema í vers upphafi því að hans atkvæði má eigi æxla þótt hann standi eftir raddarstaf í samstöfun.<ref>{{Citation|title=First Grammatical Treatise|url=http://etext.old.no/gramm/|series=eText|edition=modernized spelling|place=NO|publisher=Old}}.</ref><br/>
– First Grammarian, [[First Grammatical Treatise]]
|The letter which most men call ''thorn'' I shall call ''the'', so that its sound value in each context will be what is left of the name when the vowel is removed, since I have now arranged all the consonants in that manner, as I wrote earlier in this discussion. [...] The capital letter of ''the'' I do not write except at the beginning of a section, since its sound cannot be extended, even when it follows the vowel of the syllable.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Haugen|first=Einar|date=1950|title=First Grammatical Treatise. The Earliest Germanic Phonology|journal=Language|volume=26|issue=4|pages=4–64|doi=10.2307/522272|jstor=522272|issn=0097-8507}}</ref><br/>
– First Grammarian, [[First Grammatical Treatise]], translation by [[Einar Haugen]]
|}

[[Image:Latin alphabet Þþ.svg|class=skin-invert-image|thumb|Upper- and lowercase versions of the thorn character, in [[sans-serif]] (left) and [[serif]] (right)]]