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| Wynn | |
|---|---|
| Ƿ ƿ | |
| (See below) | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Adapted fromFuthorc intoLatin script |
| Type | Alphabetic andlogographic |
| Language of origin | Old English |
| Sound values | [w] /wɪn/ |
| In Unicode | U+01F7, U+01BF |
| History | |
| Development | ᚹ
|
| Time period | ~700 to ~1100 |
| Descendants | Ꝩ ꝩ |
| Sisters | Ꝩ ꝩ |
| Transliterations | w |
| Variations | (See below) |
| Other | |
| Associated graphs | w |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
| Name | Proto-Germanic | Old English |
|---|---|---|
| *Wunjō | Wynn | |
| "joy" | ||
| Shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc |
 | ||
| Unicode | ᚹ U+16B9 | |
| Transliteration | w | |
| Transcription | w | |
| IPA | [w] | |
| Position in rune-row | 8 | |
Wynn orwyn[1] (Ƿ ƿ; also spelledwen,win,ƿynn,ƿyn,ƿen, andƿin) is a letter of theOld English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound/w/.
While the earliestOld English texts represent thisphoneme with thedigraph⟨uu⟩, scribes soon borrowed therunewynnᚹ for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use during theMiddle English period, circa 1300.[2] In post-wynn texts, it was sometimes replaced with⟨u⟩ but often replaced with a ligature form of⟨uu⟩, which the modern letter⟨w⟩ developed from.
The denotation of the rune is "joy,bliss", known from the Anglo-Saxonrune poems:[3]
ᚹǷenne brūceþ, þe can ƿēana lẏt
sāres and sorge and him sẏlfa hæf
blǣd and blẏsse and eac bẏrga geniht.— Lines 22–24 in the Anglo-Saxon runic poem
Who uses it knows no pain,
sorrow nor anxiety, and he himself has
prosperity and bliss, and also enough shelter.— Translation slightly modified from Dickins (1915)
It is not continued in theYounger Futhark, but in theGothic alphabet, the letter𐍅w is calledwinja, allowing aProto-Germanic reconstruction of the rune's name as*wunjô "joy".
It is one of the two runes (along with thorn,þ) to have been borrowed into theEnglish alphabet (or any extension of theLatin alphabet). A modified version of the letter wynn calledvend was used briefly inOld Norse for the sounds/u/,/v/, and/w/.
The rune may have been an original innovation, or it may have been adapted from theclassical Latin alphabet'sP,[4] orQ,[citation needed] or from theRhaetic's alphabet'sW.[5] As with þ, the letter wynn was revived in modern times for the printing of Old English texts, but since the early 20th century, the usual practice has been to substitute the modern⟨w⟩.
The following wynn and wynn-related characters are inUnicode:[6]
| Preview | Ƿ | ƿ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN | LATIN SMALL LETTER WYNN | ||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 503 | U+01F7 | 447 | U+01BF |
| UTF-8 | 199 183 | C7 B7 | 198 191 | C6 BF |
| Numeric character reference | Ƿ | Ƿ | ƿ | ƿ |
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).