Thorn

[Bill Palmer]

Well I imagine there was nothing wrong with the teaching, just my recall of
it ~ 47 years after the fact.

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Thorn


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Thorn
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I hope noone teaches this today. As I understand it, the Old English
> letters (thorn and eth) were used interchangeably or according to the
> preferences of the scribe. Since there was no phonemic difference between
> voiced and voiceless fricatives in OE, it would be very strange for them
> to have an orthographic distinction between these sounds. Of course the
> eth functions today as the phonetic symbol (in IPA) for the voiced
> interdental fricative.
>
> - Matt Gordon
>
>
> On 2/10/10 2:26 PM, "Bill Palmer" <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET> wrote:
>
> If Anglo-Saxon is still taught as it was in the 1960's "thorn" represents
> devoiced  "th", and "eth" represented the voiced version.
>
> Bill Palmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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