Talk:Eth

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Tau gallicum?[edit]

I wonder if there is a relationship between the eth (and maybe the Đ too) with the "tau gallicum" ("gaulish T") used when writting old gaulish language; gaulish was first written in greek alphabet and the greek theta used for a somewhat similar gaulish, then roman influence made them switch to latin alphabet, which has less letters, and so they used a sort of barred D (which may have derived from the theta maybe?). I'm not a specialist in phonetics, but it seems to me that the usage the eth has some phonetic similarity; could old Norse have borrowed it from gaulish usage?

Srtxg 07:05, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Norman dislike?[edit]

In Middle English, ð was no longer used; the Normans did not like characters in English which did not exist in the Latin alphabet. Ð was replaced with th, unfortunately making the voiced consonant indistinguishable from the unvoiced one, as the letter þ was also replaced by this digraph.

This is simply not true, by my understanding. Firstly, <ð> remained in common use until around the end of the 13th century - it is used, for example, in the Layamon text of Cotton Caligula A. ix (c.1275-1300) - that is, at least 200 years after the Norman Conquest. Secondly, it was replaced with <þ>, not <th>; <þ> remained in common use for another two centuries after that. Finally, I am not aware that there ever was a consistent use of <ð> for voiced and <þ> for unvoiced sounds in English, and the supposed Norman dislike of non-Latin letters can be ruled out altogether by the persistence of <þ>, and the introduction of yogh for sounds written <h> in Old English.

I propose rewriting as follows: "Ð began to fall out of use in the Middle English period, and by the 14th century the /th/ sound was consistently written with þ instead."

I was about to express my shock that this valid concern had remained unaddressed for over a year. Then I realised that I posted the unsigned comment above myself, so "fix it yourself" applies. I have duly done so. ;) — Haeleth Talk 23:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Moved back to Eth (letter) per policy.[edit]

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). "Ð" is not a letter in any form of contemporary English, and both Old English and Middle English are distinct languages from the modern tongue. Robert A West 19:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC) Oh, and if someone feels the need to move it back again, please take it to WP:RM. The default rule on Wikipedia has been elucidated by Jimbo Wales: "My perspective is that if I don't see it on my keyboard, and if I didn't sing it in the alphabet song, it's 'fancy' and therefore should be avoided." We should not do otherwise without consensus. Robert A West 19:32, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Will you shortly be moving Æ to A-E ligature or Ash (letter) and ß to Sharp s? — Felix the Cassowary 05:34, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
As I noted elsewhere, æ has been used in English within living memory. On the other hand, ß is not and never has been an English letter, and is so not a valid title for an article in the English Wikipedia; the German Wikipedia is a different matter, of course. Robert A West 06:43, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Quite honestly, I would have no problem with Ash (letter) and Sharp s (letter). Indeed I would like the Wikipedia entries for letternames to be standardized throughout. It staves off argument. Evertype 08:50, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
I also don't have that much of a problem, as long as if this is the logic it's consistent. I just like ð a lot more than any other fake letter :) A'course, the fact that capital eth looks the same as capital d with stroke is probably an extra argument in favor of keeping it separate. Ah well, I retract the implied hostility in my earlier statement... — Felix the Cassowary 10:12, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I took it as exaſperation, not hoſtility. Hey, perſonally, I am all for re-introducing wer and letting man return to a genderleſs word, but I wouldn't put þat in the Wikipedia eiþer. :-) Seriouſly, þis iſsue is being debated, in a sliȝtly different context, in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). My view is þat if it is common not to uſe diacritics for þe name in queuſtion (as Handel or Goering) þen þey shouldn't be uſed in þe title, even if it is alſo common to uſe þem. Similarly, we should have "Birhtnoth", not Byrhtnoð, as the title, becauſe the latter is not modern orðography. Robert A West 14:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Can't change the image[edit]

I've tried to edit the image and upload it, but it doesn't seem to be accepted. I am not sure why. The edit I want to make is to display Ðð Ðð rather than ðÐ ðÐ because capitals typically precede smalls in alphabet displays of this kind. Evertype 08:47, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes it takes hours or a day for the cache to catch up to a new uploaded image. I see "Ðð Ðð" right now, so I think it worked. —Michael Z. 2006-01-17 20:39 Z

Delta - Eth equivalence[edit]

The article says that Eth is the only letter capable of representing modern greek Delta's sound. I think this is not true. The traditional romanization has always used D, and, although the sounds does not exactly match, there is no other sound in greek more similar do D. You may also notice that D is spanish is often pronounced like Eth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.135.135.183 (talk) 21:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Computer Encoding - Mac OSX[edit]

I've discovered that on Mac OS 10.5.7, typing Ð requires that the user must first select "U.S. Extended" as the keyboard layout. This is done by going to System Preferences > International, then scrolling down through the list and turning on "U.S. Extended" (or some other keyboard layout from the list that includes Ð; I'll continue with "U.S. Extended" since that works for me). "Show input menu in menu bar" also needs to be turned on. This causes the input menu to appear (it should appear with a country flag, the US flag in my case). From the menu, "U.S. Extended" needs to be selected.

Once that's done, Option-d will give ð and Option-Shift-d will give Ð. If the keyboard layout is on "U.S." instead (that is, not Extended), then Option-d gives ∂ and Option-Shift-d gives Î, which are probably not intended when trying to type Eth.

I don't know how to concisely describe this in the Computer Encoding section of the article, or if it's worthwhile to try.

--James-Chin (talk) 07:17, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


In Mac OS X 10.11.1, "U.S. Extended" has been renamed to "ABC Extended"

--Dowobeha (talk) 19:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Citation[edit]

Just a quick note, FIX THAT INLINE CITATION. That is no good. Thanks folks. I would do it myself, but I don't know how :(. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.214.241 (talk) 23:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of name of the letter[edit]

The lede gives the name of the letter as being pronounced with ð, which on the face of it is pretty logical, but... in the article body, it's stated that the Icelandic name has a θ instead, and is silent on its name in Faroese. So, is the claim that the voiced is the OE name? Or the usual IPA one? 84.203.43.181 (talk) 16:54, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Very first one is how English speakers (today) pronounce the word "eth". — Lfdder (talk) 17:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Which speakers? In what context? It's not exactly an everyday "word". Do medievalists and linguists both use "eð"? In any event, the article could stand clarification on this point. 84.203.43.181 (talk) 18:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone else other than medievalists and linguists ever talk about eth? :-) Regardless, that's the only pronunciation to be found in dictionaries. — Lfdder (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Point taken, and several dictionaries do indeed confirm this. It could stand some clarification and contextualisation all the same, especially as regards its OE usage and (presumed) name. Waiting for inspiration as how best to do so to strike. 84.203.43.181 (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Used in Vietnamese?[edit]

Other articles mention that "D with stroke" is a different letter from Eth and that Vietnamese uses the former, not the latter. The article for "D with Stroke" says "Unicode has a distinct code point for the visually very similar capital eth, Ð, U+00D0, which can lead to confusion."

Can anyone clarify with appropriate references that the letter in Vietnamese is Eth and not D with Stroke? 173.164.74.129 (talk) 23:59, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I've removed Vietnamese from this article, it was a recent addition. They are considered different letters. – Thjarkur (talk) 14:35, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

"Computer Input"?[edit]

Could someone please explain in the text what the whole section headed "computer input" means? At the moment it assumes an expert level of knowledge. Needs to be explicit. Cassandra — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.252.10 (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

I believe I have made the section ever so slightly more accessible. – Thjarkur (talk) 23:01, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

"Eþþa" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

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An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Eþþa. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed, Rosguill talk 22:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Was "ðæt" really its name?[edit]

This article claims ð was called "ðæt" by Anglo-Saxons, but I just found this:

"However, just as the Cotton Titus manuscript lists as letters what we would call abbreviations, it seems equally likely that the Stowe 57 writer was doing the same and that ð was intended as an abbreviation for the word ðæt rather than the name of the letter." - The "Abecedarium" from British Museum Cotton MS. Titus D 18, V. McCarren & R. Mory, Modern Philology Vol. 87, No. 3, February 1990, pages 266-271 Hurlebatte (talk) 07:19, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

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