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Note: This article treats Latin letter. For the Greek letter used in Bactriane and having a similar C-W communication, to see Sho. ---- Thorn (capital Þ , tiny þ , sometimes noted Þorn ) is a letter which is today used only in the alphabet Icelandic.

Linguistics

Þ is used to transcribe the sound of a fricative Consonne deaf dental consonant (like the “HT” of “English thick”). It was employed by the Anglo-Saxon , language disappeared, but always formed part of the alphabet Icelandic.

The sound shape of this consonant (as in “English the”) was also transcribed in the past by this letter, but this use is restricted with the letter 2D in Icelandic.

History

Letter Þ originates in the rune ᚦ, called “thorn” in Anglo-Saxon and “thurs” (giant) in Scandinavia.

Þ was used in Middle English before the invention of the Imprimerie in Europe. William Caxton, the first printer of England, brought with him a character set coming from continental Europe from where Þ missed, Ȝ and 2D. It substituted Y for Þ, while referring to certain manuscripts of the 15th century when these two letters were traced in an identical way. In Scandinavia, Þ was used with the Middle Ages, but was replaced later by “HT”. In Iceland, Þ is always employed at present.

Data-processing representation

Letter Þ has the following representations Unicode:

Capital Þ: U+00DE (Latin capital letter thorn, supplement Latin-1);
Tiny þ: U+00FE (Latin small letter thorn, supplement Latin-1);
Rune ᚦ : U+16A6 (runic letter thurisaz thorn thurs HT, runes).

The thorn also has a coding HTML:

Capital Þ: & THORN;
Tiny þ: & thorn;

See too

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