Þ in my side
Jun. 6th, 2013 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vikinginirelandWhat's that Þ thing?
It's a capital thorn, of course :-)
Despite appearances, it's not a P or a Greek letter. It's called thorn, and it's a letter that used to be used in English, and still is in Iceland. Nowadays, we use Th instead. The small letter is þ.
I'm not sure if the Latin alphabet was used where my persona comes from, or if it was just runes. I think probably both. The rune system used at the time was Younger Futhark. Þ/þ in Younger Futhark is ᚦ.
I've just found out I made a rather wrong assuption about the origin of runes. Wikipedia says they were derived from Old Italic alphabets. When I read that before, I took that to mean Italic hands of the Latin alphabet. Nooo... much older and more unfamiliar looking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet I'd also managed to forget that Italic hands came along much later. Oops!
Another letter that got replaced by Th in English is Eth: Ð/ð. Well, it was dropped in favour of þ, before that was replaced by th. Eth is also still in use in Iceland. Its Younger Futhark rune is the same as þ: ᚦ
It's a capital thorn, of course :-)
Despite appearances, it's not a P or a Greek letter. It's called thorn, and it's a letter that used to be used in English, and still is in Iceland. Nowadays, we use Th instead. The small letter is þ.
I'm not sure if the Latin alphabet was used where my persona comes from, or if it was just runes. I think probably both. The rune system used at the time was Younger Futhark. Þ/þ in Younger Futhark is ᚦ.
I've just found out I made a rather wrong assuption about the origin of runes. Wikipedia says they were derived from Old Italic alphabets. When I read that before, I took that to mean Italic hands of the Latin alphabet. Nooo... much older and more unfamiliar looking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet I'd also managed to forget that Italic hands came along much later. Oops!
Another letter that got replaced by Th in English is Eth: Ð/ð. Well, it was dropped in favour of þ, before that was replaced by th. Eth is also still in use in Iceland. Its Younger Futhark rune is the same as þ: ᚦ