Confusion with the pronoun "ye" later led to a two-letter (digraph) convention of "þ" → "th" in print that became the standard spelling.
There are six total letters in the Old English alphabet that didn't make it through the conventions of European printing. But that's a story for another time.
There are six total letters in the Old English alphabet that didn't make it through the conventions of European printing. But that's a story for another time.
Comments
Þ/ð were completely interchangeable in OE, both could be either th sound. They only represent different sounds in Icelandic.
œ was /ø/, the Norwegian ø/German ö vowel. It unrounded to /e(:)/ later though.
And ƿ is just /w/, it comes from the Germanic rune used for that sound.
þanks for learning about þe þorn wiþ me!
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¹ Or is this French œ an affectation?
There are manuscripts where all four spellings of the word oððe ("or"), oðþe, oþþe, oððe, and oþðe, get used in the same paragraph. It's pretty funny.