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The Lost Letters of the English Alphabet

posted by on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:56AM   
from the æ-þƿ-is-the-name-of-the-spy-in-my-novel dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Along quaint New England streets, you'll probably spot a sign or two declaring itself "Ye Olde Tavern" or "Ye Old Soda Shoppe." But before you adopt a British accent and order a pint of ale inside, there's a bit of history you should know.

Phrases like ye olde are actually just some of the late 19th century's first marketing ploys, meant to evoke a sentimental connection to older times. And ye has its own complicated story—based in the history of the alphabet.

English has always been a living language, changing and evolving with use. But before our modern alphabet was established, the language used many more characters we've since removed from our 26-letter lineup.

The six letters described in the article are: ð, þ, ƿ, ȝ, æ, and œ. Orthographic history is fun!

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Original Submission

• A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:15AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:15AM (#455867)

  When I was in first grade back in 1965, my very elderly teacher taught us the vowels were A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W.
  I never forgot that. Even though she never gave us any examples of words using W as a vowel.
  In college, after an argument with an english prof, I did some research and found three words -- one of which is in a chapter title in Darwin's Origin of Species book.
  Today I can only remember two of the words. They are:
    CRWTH -- a type fo harp-like musical instrument
    CWM -- a bowl-shaped valley. This one is in Darwin's book.

  Can anyone enlighten me to any others? There must be more.

   

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• Re:A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W Re:A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W (Score: 1) by charon on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:31AM

  by charon (5660) on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:31AM (#455873) Journal

  I know cwm is of Welsh origin, and according to wikipedia, crwth is also. I've not heard of any others. At a guess I'd say Welsh is just weird.

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  • Re:A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:48AM (#455877)

    Makes sense to me that w is pronounced as a doubled u.

    Parent

  • Re:A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W (Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:22PM

    by purple_cobra (1435) on Saturday January 21 2017, @01:22PM (#456950)

    'W' is a vowel in the Welsh language. For example, "bwrw glaw" (pr. boo-roo glow, with the last syllable pronounced as the 'ou' in 'ouch') means 'rain' (first DDG hit showed it to be "pouring with rain", with 'glaw' being 'rain'. I don't know enough of the language to confirm or deny that). You also see it in place names, e.g. Clywd; pronunciation of that I've heard as "clue-id" and "kloid" and as the majority of Brits speak English, the former tends to get more use.
    Weird? Compared to English, yes. Look at it as more a relative to French and it makes a little(!) more sense, e.g. 'pont' means 'bridge' in both Welsh and French, albeit with different pronunciations ('Pontnewydd' is 'Newport').

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• Re:A E I O U, sometimes Y and sometimes W (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:10AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:10AM (#455929)

  Here's another one for you: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Crynwr [wiktionary.org]

  Parent