Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1993 01:41:25 CST

From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET

Subject: Re: th/dh



At the time of the demise of eth and thorn, were pronunciation patterns

stable enough for scribes to make firm decisions? E.g., did that

handful of function words vocalize initial "th" over a short enough time

for scribes to be able to establish a clear pattern? My guess is that

the "silent e" would have helped retain the eth. And medial thorn

next to voiceless consonants would have had a strong influence operating on

it. But then why didn't our predecessors do something about those

ambiguous s's when the zed/zee came into common use? Neither Brits nor

USians have seemed to want to zedify, though f and v were negotiable.

Interesting questions. DMLance