Eth

Eth (/ɛð/, uppercase: Ð, lowercase: ð; also spelled edh or eð), known as ðæt in Old English,[1] is a letter used in Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called edd), and Elfdalian.

For other uses, see Eth (disambiguation).
"Edh" redirects here. For other uses, see Edh (disambiguation).
Similar letters: Ɖ·ɖ·Đ·đ
"Ð" redirects here. For the cryptocurrency, see Dogecoin. For letters that look similar to Ð, see D with stroke.
Ð
Ð ð
(See below)
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and Logographic
Language of originOld English language
Old Norse language
Phonetic usage[ð]
[θ]
[ð̠]
/ˈɛð/
Unicode codepointU+00D0, U+00F0
History
Development
Time period~800 to present
DescendantsĐđ
SistersNone
Transliteration equivalentsd
Variations(See below)
Other
Other letters commonly used withth, dh
Eth in Arial and Times New Roman

It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh, and later d.

It is often transliterated as d.

The lowercase version has been adopted to represent a voiced dental fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Old English

In Old English, ð (called ðæt) was used interchangeably with þ to represent the Old English dental fricative phoneme /θ/ or its allophone /ð/, which exist in modern English phonology as the voiced and voiceless dental fricatives both now spelled "th".

Unlike the runic letter þ, ð is a modified Roman letter. Neither ð nor þ were found in the earliest records of Old English. A study of Mercian royal diplomas found that ð (along with đ) 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 from Irish writing".[3]

Under King Alfred the Great, þ grew greatly in popularity and started to overtake ð. Þ completely overtook ð by Middle English, and þ died out by Early Modern English, mostly due to the rise of the printing press, and was replaced by the digraph th.

Lower case version

The lowercase (minuscule) version has retained the curved shape of a medieval scribe's d, which d itself in general has not.

A sample of Icelandic handwriting with some instances of lowercase ð clearly visible: in the words Borðum, við and niður. Also visible is a thorn in the word því.

Icelandic

In Icelandic, ð, called "eð", represents a voiced dental fricative [ð], which is the same as the th in English that, but it never appears as the first letter of a word. At the end of words as well as within words when it's followed by a voiceless consonant, ð is devoiced to [θ̠]. The ð in the name of the letter is devoiced in the Nominative and Accusative cases [ɛθ̠]. In the Icelandic alphabet, ð follows d.

Faroese

In Faroese, ð is not assigned to any particular phoneme and appears mostly for etymological reasons, but it indicates most glides. When ð appears before r, it is in a few words pronounced [ɡ]. In the Faroese alphabet, ð follows d.

In Olav Jakobsen Høyem's version of Nynorsk based on Trøndersk, ð was always silent, and was introduced for etymological reasons.

Welsh

Ð has also been used by some in written Welsh to represent /ð/, which is normally represented as dd.[4]

Khmer

Ð used in Khmer romanization, e.g. preðh riðciðnaacak kampucið (Kingdom of Cambodia).

Phonetic transcription

U+00F0 ð LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH represents a voiced dental fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

U+1D9E ᶞ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL ETH is used in phonetic transcription.[5]

U+1D06 ᴆ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL ETH is used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.[6]

Computer input

The Faroese and Icelandic keyboard layouts have a dedicated button for eth.

On Microsoft Windows, eth can be typed using the alt code Alt+(0240) for lowercase or Alt+(0208) for uppercase, or by typing AltGr+d using the US International keyboard layout. On Windows 10, it can also be inserted into text via the symbol menu, presented by using Windows+;, then selecting Symbols, associated with the Omega (Ω) character, and then selecting Latin Symbols, associated with the C-cedilla (Ç) character.

On macOS, eth can be typed by activating the ABC Extended keyboard layout and typing ⌥ Option+D.

Using the compose key ("multi key") which is popular on Linux, eth can be typed by typing Compose D H for lowercase or Compose ⇧ Shift+D ⇧ Shift+H for capital letters.

On Chrome OS with 'extended keyboard' Chrome extension, AltGr+D will result in ð being displayed; ⇧ Shift+AltGr+D will result in Ð.

Other
SystemUppercaseLowercase
Unicode U+00D0U+00F0
HTML Ðð
TeX/LaTeX \DH\dh
GTK Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U D0 ↵ Enter Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U F0 ↵ Enter
Vim[7] Ctrl+K ⇧ Shift+D - Ctrl+K D -

Modern uses

This operator gives rise to spin-weighted spherical harmonics.

  • A capital eth is used as the currency symbol for Dogecoin.[8]

See also

References
  1. Marsden, Richard (2004). The Cambridge Old English Reader. Cambridge University Press. p. xxix.
  2. Shaw, Philip (2013). "Adapting the Roman alphabet for writing Old English: evidence from coin epigraphy and single-sheet charters". Early Medieval Europe. 21 (2): 115–139. doi:10.1111/emed.12012.
  3. Freeborn, Dennis (1992). From Old English to Standard English. London: Macmillan. p. 24. ISBN 9780776604695.
  4. Testament Newydd (1567) [The 1567 New Testament].
  5. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
  6. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
  7. "Vim documentation: digraph".
  8. "README.md". Dogecoin Integration/Staging Tree (Source code). February 5, 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2014.

Further reading
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