CanaDave

Hi one, Hi all,

A couple of years ago I ran into a post on some remote language forum discussion where a bunch people from all over Scandinavia helped by somebody from Iceland were discussing the origins of the word “THE” in the English language.

From my understanding there were originally two different articles that over time turned into just one: the word “the”. They came from the Old Norske, Icelandic or somewhere in those regions.

One was “the” pronounced kinda like “ze” as in “this“ and the other one was pronounced like “sse” as in “through”.

My question here is, does anybody know about this (or “zis”) and would they help me find the letters that were once “ze” and “sse” ?

Thanks a million,

Dave

PetrePricopi

Hi CanaDave,

There's no mystery about it. Icelanderdars still preserve the difference between Thorn (the) and the other thing they have (dhe). English people gave it up centuries ago for all kinds of reasons, not least being hacked about by the Danish/Norwegians.I look forward to your reply in any specie of Inuit, or at the very least, French-Canadian.. or shouldl I say, Canadian-French?

Bons bisous

Peter (aka Pierre)

CanaDave

Hey Petre,

Do you know the letters that are supposed to be the "THE" and "ZHE"?

I'll write to you in Inuktitut if I could only set my mind to their grammar !

The only words I know are man: Angun and woman: Arnaq

Dave

ceann-feachd

I think the letters you are thinking of are thorn (Þ þ) and eth (Ð ð). Old English also used æsc (Æ æ) and wynn (Ƿ ƿ) as well as an alternate version of s (ſ). There are likely other's that I've forgotten about.

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Bidh a h-uile bàta sàbhailte 'sa phort. Ach cha bhi sinn a' dèanamh bhàtaichean airson a' phuirt.
Every ship is safe in the harbor. But we don't make ships for the harbor.