![]() ![]() In the later scripts, where wynn basically didn't exist anymore, then the capital thorn tended to also take on a more triangular shape, but this made it look like a cursive capital Y with the top closed. In the caroline and insular hands, the capital thorn tended to be either entirely rounded, or the bowl would be pointed near the top and rounded near the bottom, and it could look like Ƿ either with or without a pronounced ascender whereas a capital wynn was usually more triangular in shape to distinguish it (not like the rune-letter wynn, which looks like a pointy P, "ᚹ", but more like Ꝩ with a flat top and sometimes with a curly or slanted tail). A small thorn looks very þ-like in Anglo-Saxon or Caroline minuscule, more ƿ-like in proto-Gothic and in some secretary hands (like Flemish style gothic cursive), and quite y-like in other bâtarde hands, most notably the English secretary hand, as well as in the Gothic textura quadrata and in italic script. The shape of þ changed a great deal down through the centuries, generally getting more and more ƿ-like (and then y-like in the Middle English period).īut that's more a function of hand than language. In Old English, þ and ð are completely interchangeable, and both letters follow the same rules for voiced/voiceless pronunciation as the letters f and s do-voiceless when initial or terminal voiceless when medial and next to another voiceless consonant voiced when medial and flanked only by vowels and other voiced consonants. ![]() To be more specific, in Icelandic, þ only occurs initially and is always pronounced, while ð occurs medially and terminally and is always pronounced. In (Modern) Icelandic, Þ is only used to write the voiceless interdental fricative, whereas in Old English, Þ can be used to write either the voiceless or voiced phonemes, and which pronunciation you use depends on its position in the word (whereas which letter the scribe used to write either sound, þ or ð, was dictated by custom, habit, aesthetics, or whimsy). There is a minor difference in pronunciation. ![]() The origin is the same-thorn was a rune-letter borrowed into the Latin alphabet in the early Middle ages by Germanic-speaking peoples to write a sound that existed in Germanic but not Latin. ![]() But I guess it depends on what you mean by "difference". ![]()
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