| Ð | |
|---|---|
| Ð ð | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | Alphabetic andlogographic |
| Language of origin | Old English Old Norse |
| Sound values | [ð] [θ] [ð̠] /ˈɛð/ |
| In Unicode | U+00D0, U+00F0 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Time period | ~800 to present |
| Sisters | None |
| Transliterations | d |
| Other | |
| Associated graphs | th, dh |
| 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. | |
⟨ ⟩,| |,/ /, and[ ]are used here, seethis page.
Eth (/ɛð/edh,uppercase: ⟨Ð⟩,lowercase: ⟨ð⟩; also spellededh oreð), known asðæt inOld English,[1] is aletter used in Old English,Middle English,Icelandic,Faroese (in which it is callededd), andElfdalian.
It was also used inScandinavia during theMiddle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with⟨dh⟩, and later⟨d⟩.
It is oftentransliterated as⟨d⟩.
The lowercase version has been adopted to represent avoiced dental fricative (IPA:[ð]) in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet.
InFaroese,⟨ð⟩ is not assigned to any particular phoneme and appears mostly for etymological reasons, but it indicates mostglides. When⟨ð⟩ appears before⟨r⟩, it is in a few words pronounced[ɡ]. In theFaroese alphabet,⟨ð⟩ follows⟨d⟩.
⟨Ð⟩ is sometimes used inKhmer romanization to representឍthô.
In Icelandic,⟨ð⟩, called "eð", represents an alveolar non-sibilantfricative, voiced[ð̠] intervocalically and word-finally, and voiceless[θ̠] otherwise, which form one phoneme,/θ/. Generally,/θ/ is represented bythorn⟨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 theIcelandic alphabet,⟨ð⟩ follows⟨d⟩.
InOlav Jakobsen Høyem's version ofNynorsk based onTrøndersk,⟨ð⟩ was always silent, and was introduced for etymological reasons.
In Old English,⟨ð⟩ (calledðæt) was used interchangeably with⟨þ⟩ to represent the Old Englishdentalfricativephoneme/θ/ or itsallophone[ð], which exist in modernEnglish as thevoiceless andvoiced dental fricatives both now spelled⟨th⟩.
Unlike therunic letter⟨þ⟩,⟨ð⟩ is a modifiedRoman letter. Neither⟨ð⟩ nor⟨þ⟩ was found in the earliest records ofOld English. A study ofMercianroyal 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 fromIrish writing".[3]
Under the reign ofKing Alfred the Great,⟨þ⟩ grew greatly in popularity and started to overtake⟨ð⟩, and did so completely by theMiddle English period.⟨þ⟩ in turn went obsolete by theEarly Modern English period, mostly due to the rise of theprinting press,[4] and was replaced by the digraph⟨th⟩.
⟨Ð⟩ has also been used by some in writtenWelsh to represent/ð/, which is normally represented as⟨dd⟩.[5]
Upper and lower case forms of eth haveUnicode encodings:
These Unicodecodepoints were inherited fromISO/IEC 8859-1 ("ISO Latin-1") encoding.
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)
