Re: thorn vs. y or th, eth and other similar letters/signs (was: Level of Unicode support required for various languages)

From: John H. Jenkins (jenkins@apple.com)
Date: Sun Oct 28 2007 - 19:09:56 CST

  • Next message: Mark E. Shoulson: "Re: thorn vs. y or th, eth and other similar letters/signs"

    On Oct 27, 2007, at 4:57 AM, Philippe Verdy wrote:

    > I did not realise that the old orthography "thou" (common in English
    > priest
    > books and Bible) for the modern "you" could have a common origin
    > with the
    > same original thorn letter, which was transliterated differently
    > between the
    > two orthographies. I initially thought that the change of
    > orthography was
    > justified only by change of phonetics, but now it seems that the
    > original
    > orthography with thorn allowed two possible realizations.
    >

    Huh? No, this is not the case. English "thou" is cognate with other
    second person singular pronouns (tu, du), and "you" with the other
    second person plural pronouns (vous, vos). Archaic English letters
    aren't involved at all.

    =====
    John H. Jenkins
    jenkins@apple.com

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