� and � no longer in English, why?

Originally posted by King John Jacob, thanks for the Beowulf text. Another question for anybody who wants to attempt an answer. Why is Icelandic the only language in which the letters � and � survive? At least it is the only one that I can think of. I'm not talking about the sounds produced by these sounds but rather strictly the letters. Does Icelandic use the letter combination of 'th,' as in English the or that, or does it simply use the � and/or � in its place?

Icelandic is not the only one...I can think of Dalecarlian:

http://www.unilang.org/wiki/index.php/Dalecarlian_pronounciation

It has both letters, but only voiced sound, so it seems to be used as in Old English.

Faroese still uses Edh letter, but lacks the sound. Some North Frisian dialect has the sound AFAIK, but probably not the letter.

That's probably all. So to sum tup:
thorn - Icelandic, Dalecarlian
edh - Icelandic, Faroese, Dalecarlian

I have a book by Chrystal called "the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language'. Bought it only a few years ago (second edition, Cambridge University Press, 2004), so I'd say it is still available under that title.

Edited by Aelfgifu - 25-Feb-2008 at 18:00

To the person who made the distinction between the pronunciation of � and � in Scandinavian pronunciation, it's my understanding that by the time the various Angle and Saxon dialects had merged into the first semblance of a standard English (which would have been the Mercian dialect with Offa's rise) there was no distinction between the pronunciation of the two letters: they seem to have been used interchangeably. Maybe this is one reason why they died out.

No offence but I find the idea that because Cockneys often choose not to pronounce 'th' (they are not physically incapable - it is a idiomatic habit, albeit engrained) to be the reason why these letters have died out to be a bit unrealistic.

1) Cockneys have spoken with round about the same accent since at least the Great Vowel Shift, by which time the letters had already fallen out of use.

2) The Cockney accent is probably descended from Midland dialect (which stretched from London up to Staffordshire, albeit the Cockneys accent would have been mixed extensively with Kentish) and was the lingua franca by the time of Chaucer (who also used that dialect and helped further popularize it), again by which time at least the eth had died out.

3) The pronunciation of eth and thorn as f/v is not restricted to Cockney.

4) Mockney is not the same as Cockney, and I suspect that if you did any kind of study of Mockney, you'd find that the f/v pronunciation is one of the last to be mimicked. This is because the 'th' is one of the last sounds for babies to acquire and such a hard-won sound is less likely to be lost, and also because the similarly common 'd' substitution for the hard 'th' is easier to say than f/v: themselves not so easy. Also it's because the f/v pronunciation is one of the most stigmatized elements.

5) True Cockney is getting more and more eroded by Estuary English itself (which like Mockney doesn't use the 'th' mutation), and some linguists have suggested that it's dying out, or at least getting more and more restricted in geographical area. Anyway, its influence is definitely waning.

I agree with those who have suggested that the Normans were the biggest influence on their disuse. Norman dialects had already lost the 'th'.

Just a couple of ideas.




Edited by Mercian - 24-Feb-2008 at 15:06

I have rarely met an English person (let alone English-speakers from other areas) who didn't pronounce 'th' properly (both voiced and voiceless).

perhaps because the printing press did not have the same effect in Iceland as it did in England

perhaps the invention of the printing press also played a role.

Neither 'th' sound has died at all in the States. In areas with Germanic or Eastern European people, one is frequently pronounced 'd' and the other 't', although schools attempt to eradicate those pronounciations.

Here's a line by line translation into modern English of Beowulf. It clearly shows the old symbols as used by modern 'th.'


http://www.heorot.dk/beo-intro-rede.html

JT



Edited by jacobtowne - 03-Dec-2007 at 21:06

Originally posted by Paul Just putting forward the theory. As you say,�2 of the 3�'th' sounds have died in the english language. All three have died in much of London (primarily the south and east). So it seems to be a naturally dying sound. Perhaps Londoners are just a little ahead of the rest of the country and it will die nationally. � And outside London you are beginning to hear London pronunciation repeated by people believing it's trendy to do so. particularly in the counties around London (there's even a name for this phenomena -mockneye-)�and occasionally even further north.

The 'th' sound hasn't died out though, just the two earlier letters used to represent the sound. Modern English however isn't limited to England or the areas surrounding London, 'th' sound is still in great use in other English speaking nations just like in England. The question at the heart of this thread is why do you think that the �,� and �,� have been replaced (in writing) by the representation of this same sound as 'th'? Why do you think this was the case? Did it have something to do with the Norman Conquest? Would you embrace these letters if the came back into English? (I know this is a silly question but I think the answer is interesting) I personally feel that letters like �, �, �, �, and � give written language a certain unique feel. As opposed to the standard latin alphabet where everything is so standardized and boring.

Paul, are you using the Cockney accent as an indicator of all England? I only ask this because your above post is only a short quote from the wikipedia article describing Southern English Dialect. This quote however doesn't discuss all of England but rather a particular London dialect, Cockney. This dialect is not symptomatic of greater English trends of pronunciation. I also ask this because you made the statement earlier that "Much of the population of England don't pronounce the 'th' at all when they speak." Are you then taking the London Cockney accent as indicative of the English ability to pronounce the 'th' sound? The Cockney region of London is mostly the East End (but not entirely). While in London I met many people born and raised in london and as I said before they were fully able to make the 'th' sound.

The question here is more about written English then spoken English. However, spoken English still uses the 'th' sound, some slangs and sub-cultures might replace the 'th' with a 'd' sound. That however doesn't mean that they are unable to make the 'th' sound.