Eth

Ð
Ð
Ð ð
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and logographic
Language of origin	Old English; Old Norse
Sound values	[ð]; [θ]; [ð̠]; /ˈɛð/
In Unicode	U+00D0, U+00F0
History
Development	Δ δ 𐌃 D d Ꝺ ꝺ Ð ð; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Time period	~800 to present
Sisters	None
Transliterations	d
Other
Associated graphs	th, dh
Writing direction	Left-to-Right
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

This page uses notation for orthographic or other linguistic analysis. For the meaning of how ⟨ ⟩, | |, / /, and [ ] are used here, see this page.

Lower case and upper case of Eth (⟨Ð⟩, ⟨ð⟩ expressed by a sans serif single-stroke-width font and a serif variable-stroke-width font — Eth in Arial and Times New Roman

Eth (/ɛð/ edh, uppercase: Ð, lowercase: ð; also spelled edh or eð), known as ðæt in Old English,^[1] is a letter used in Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called edd), and Elfdalian.

It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with ⟨dh⟩, and later ⟨d⟩.

It is often transliterated as ⟨d⟩.

The lowercase version has been adopted to represent a voiced dental fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Faroese

In Faroese, ⟨ð⟩ is not assigned to any particular phoneme and appears mostly for etymological reasons, but it indicates most glides. When ⟨ð⟩ appears before ⟨r⟩, it is in a few words pronounced [ɡ]. In the Faroese alphabet, ⟨ð⟩ follows ⟨d⟩.

Khmer

⟨Ð⟩ is sometimes used in Khmer romanization to represent ឍ thô.

Icelandic

Photo of black handwritten text on a seemingly yellow paper with the top and bottom blurry and vertical middle clear — A sample of Icelandic handwriting with some instances of lowercase ð clearly visible: in the words *Borðum*, *við* and *niður*. Also visible is a thorn in the word *því*.

In Icelandic, ⟨ð⟩, called "eð", represents an alveolar non-sibilant fricative, voiced [ð̠] intervocalically and word-finally, and voiceless [θ̠] otherwise, which form one phoneme, /θ/. Generally, /θ/ is represented by thorn ⟨Þ⟩ at the beginning of words and by ⟨ð⟩ elsewhere. The ⟨ð⟩ in the name of the letter is devoiced in the nominative and accusative cases: [ɛθ̠]. In the Icelandic alphabet, ⟨ð⟩ follows ⟨d⟩.

Norwegian

In Olav Jakobsen Høyem's version of Nynorsk based on Trøndersk, ⟨ð⟩ was always silent, and was introduced for etymological reasons.

Old English

In Old English, ⟨ð⟩ (called ðæt) was used interchangeably with ⟨þ⟩ to represent the Old English dental fricative phoneme /θ/ or its allophone /ð/, which exist in modern English phonology as the voiceless and voiced dental fricatives both now spelled ⟨th⟩.

Unlike the runic letter ⟨þ⟩, ⟨ð⟩ is a modified Roman letter. Neither ⟨ð⟩ nor ⟨þ⟩ was found in the earliest records of Old English. A study of Mercian royal diplomas found that ⟨ð⟩ began to emerge in the early 8th century, with ⟨ð⟩ becoming strongly preferred by the 780s.^[2] Another source indicates that the letter is "derived from Irish writing".^[3]

Under the reign of King Alfred the Great, ⟨þ⟩ grew greatly in popularity and started to overtake ⟨ð⟩, and completely overtook it by Middle English. However, ⟨þ⟩ in turn died out by Early Modern English, mostly due to the rise of the printing press,^[4] and was replaced by the digraph th.

Welsh

⟨Ð⟩ has also been used by some in written Welsh to represent /ð/, which is normally represented as dd.^[5]

Phonetic transcription

/ð/ (U+00F0) represents a voiced dental fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
/ᶞ/ (U+1D9E) is used in phonetic transcription.^[6]
ᴆ (U+1D06) is used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.^[7]

Computer encoding

Upper and lower case forms of eth have Unicode encodings:

U+00D0 Ð LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH (Ð)
U+00F0 ð LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH (ð)

These Unicode codepoints were inherited from ISO/IEC 8859-1 ("ISO Latin-1") encoding.

Modern uses

A capital eth is used as the currency symbol for Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency.

References

^ Marsden, Richard (2004). The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge University Press. p. xxix.
^ Shaw, Philip (2013). "Adapting the Roman alphabet for writing Old English: evidence from coin epigraphy and single-sheet charters". Early Medieval Europe. 21 (2): 115–139. doi:10.1111/emed.12012. S2CID 163075636.
^ Freeborn, Dennis (1992). From Old English to Standard English. London: Macmillan. p. 24. ISBN 9780776604695.
^ Hill, Will (30 June 2020). "Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text" (PDF). The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System. p. 6. ISBN 9780367581565. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 7 July 2022. The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood 'ye' occurs through a habit of printer's usage that originates in Caxton's time, when printers would substitute the <y> (often accompanied by a superscript <e>) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169)
^ Testament Newydd (1567) [The 1567 New Testament], archived from the original on 2012-01-29, retrieved 2011-01-30.
^ Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
^ Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).

External links

"Thorn and eth: how to get them right", Operinan, Briem, archived from the original on 2019-07-26, retrieved 2010-08-22
"Älvdalsk ortografi", Förslag till en enhetlig stavning för älvdalska (PDF) (in Swedish), February 2007, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 February 2007.

[1] Marsden, Richard (2004). The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge University Press. p. xxix.

[2] Shaw, Philip (2013). "Adapting the Roman alphabet for writing Old English: evidence from coin epigraphy and single-sheet charters". Early Medieval Europe. 21 (2): 115–139. doi:10.1111/emed.12012. S2CID 163075636.

[3] Freeborn, Dennis (1992). From Old English to Standard English. London: Macmillan. p. 24. ISBN 9780776604695.

[Hill-4] Hill, Will (30 June 2020). "Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text" (PDF). The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System. p. 6. ISBN 9780367581565. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 7 July 2022. The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood 'ye' occurs through a habit of printer's usage that originates in Caxton's time, when printers would substitute the <y> (often accompanied by a superscript <e>) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169)

[5] Testament Newydd (1567) [The 1567 New Testament], archived from the original on 2012-01-29, retrieved 2011-01-30.

[L204132-6] Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).

[7] Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).

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Eth