Heads up for mobile typers! Þ: hold T, choose Þ Æ: hold A, choose Æ Đ: hold D, choose đ Œ: hold O, choose œ Bonus! For ‽, just hold (?) If youre like me, it wont come up when holding M to get ?, you have to go to the second page of characters instead. I couldn't find the eNG one unfortunately, i hope one of you can!

@swagattttt

3 жыл бұрын

Æ œ

@CommonCommiestudios

3 жыл бұрын

You can do ŋ from a mobile keyboard by holding ŋ

@xqzcri

3 жыл бұрын

I can’t do the t it doesn’t work I I’m sorry 😭😖😢

@darkflare1224

3 жыл бұрын

True d is ð

@triatic9476

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, but đ is actuallu different

The “long s” survives in the modern German letter ß, which is a double s (eg Strasse / Straße). The left hand side of the letter is a long s

@ianrogerburton1670

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for info ! Been living in Austria and Germany for over 40 years and I didn´t know that. Always remember seeing Neuschwanstein Castle for the first time whilst wondering why it was called a "SchloB" whlst thinking the ß was a B !

@ArturoStojanoff

Жыл бұрын

The difference between the ß and a double ss is that the double ss makes the previous vowel short, whereas the ß makes the previous vowel long.

@ianrogerburton1670

Жыл бұрын

@@ArturoStojanoff Thx for Info ! This naturally gives most German-speaking people and certainly most German-speaking kids a headache. The last that I heard was that the powers that be were trying to make the ß obsolete. I meanwhile fondly call the ß a "SCHLOB" with a B at the end after mis-reading Schloß Neuschwanstein.

@shreyanodoyto5975

Жыл бұрын

It's a long s with a tailed z

@BNOHVTHHisGD

Жыл бұрын

To get ±, hold +, choose ±. To get ‽, hold ?, choose ‽.

I love how you smile while explaining the history. I can tell you love it and that’s infectious! Great teacher.

Æs a Norwegian, I'm sitting here enthralled by this video. We still use Ææ Øø Åå. ^^ Also, I had no idea that futhark came from Anglo-Saxon. Learning new things is fun. ^^ So I will contribute! The "older" way of trying these letters in Norway, I was taught, was: Æ = AE. Ø = OE. Å = AA. ^^ Nifty! Though I am trying to teach my friends abroad how æ, ø, and å are all sounds in the English alphabet still! Maybe I can simply link them one of your videos. ^^

@John_Weiss

4 ай бұрын

Actually, Futhark came from old germanic runes that themselves split into Old Norse Runes and Old AngloSaxon Runes.

@Ocr908

Ай бұрын

Þþ

I will bring back þ if it kills me and þat is a promise I intend to keep

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

God speed!

@rosebud6116

3 жыл бұрын

yeah, let's bring back þ! þe alphabet could have þ again!

@soundsofstabbing3627

3 жыл бұрын

@@rosebud6116 I've been using it þe last two days and it is so nice

@rosebud6116

3 жыл бұрын

@@soundsofstabbing3627 Ah þats cool

@fwGh0ST

3 жыл бұрын

Þat I can agree. I þink it looks neat and it was very cool looking.

I once met a guy whose name was Thorn. When I suggested he spell his name using the letter, he seemed confused. Also, thank you for telling me how to pronounce Menzies.

@williamparis500

Жыл бұрын

Careful because in different parts of Scotland it's pronounced differently. Ming-es, Men-zies and I've heard it pronounced Mint-ez in the west!

@thethirdman225

Жыл бұрын

@@williamparis500 Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who was of Scottish heritage, was known as ‘Ming’. Now I know why. Thanks!

@danieljob3184

Жыл бұрын

We had a PM named Menzies. Guess what his detractors liked calling him? Minge = synonym for female pubic hair.

@michiganabigail

Жыл бұрын

@@williamparis500 so would Mckenzie be pronounced like mckengie?

@alexlobry4335

Жыл бұрын

It would be great to bring back thorn and eth to differentiate between the voiceless thorn and voiced eth forms of the interdental fricative consonant. We already do it with the voiceless/voiced pairs like p/b, t/d, f/v and s/z.

I really enjoy your language discussions and have watched many of your videos. Word origins have always been fascinating to me. I was in first grade in 1963, with Sisters of Mercy in a Catholic school. The nuns taught us some interesting things. First, our vowels were "A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y and sometimes W." W occasionally had an oo sound like in ooze. (I think it may be Welsh?) They also told us rooves was plural of roof. So at Christmas there were "hooves on the rooves". Plus (plusses) they taught us that the plural of BUS is BUSSES, with 3 Ss, not BUSES. Please keep posting, Mr. Rob, and thanks!

@garethaethwy

27 күн бұрын

W is indeed a vowel in Welsh, along with Y. And proper vowels too, not them part-time vowels in English.

Rob, I had NO idea the topic of your videos was something I would geek out over, but I LOVE IT! Thank you!

We need to bring back Þ. It's Þe best letter ever made

@Scivolemulo

3 жыл бұрын

@JOSHUA BEYER I þink we should

@oc2thorpe

3 жыл бұрын

@@user-op6bx6mw9h it would go between h and i

@lilidavila232

3 жыл бұрын

“Ðe” is “the”

@NFGLucy

3 жыл бұрын

A B C D E F G Þ H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y & Z

@Astro-Markus

3 жыл бұрын

And it looks like 😛.

I'm an ESL teacher and it's explanations such as this that give my students the rationale they need to help them grapple with spelling and pronunciation. Students from phonetic languages like to know why English looks different from the way it sounds. Thank you.

@Bonnieham

Жыл бұрын

All the more reason to modernise English. China completely changed the earlier English translations of Chinese for English speakers so as to make it clearer for them, and also easier for Chinese to understand English speakers when using Chinese words. Eg. Peking to Beijing. English is way behind in upgrading spelling to reflect common parlance.

@Run.Ran.Run1

Жыл бұрын

@@Bonnieham I don't know. I'm not convinced that the common usage should determine the core of a language. Where do you look for THE proper sound, hence spelling? Where do you draw the line in this reductionist world of inclusiveness that reaches for the lowest common denominator? Thumb typing exclusionary lingo and acronyms does not a language make. I'd rather advocate for more history of a language be included in its learning. The "why" is much more interesting than leaving such a task to today's, sorry to say, idiot on the street. Just look at the ridiculous preferences the EU makes of their version of English. Did you know there's something called EU English? It's based on what continental northern European technocrats consider more understandable to them. No, thank you.

@iwatchwithnoads7480

Жыл бұрын

Coming from a language that does have letters for quite a few of these sounds, I always wonder what kind of idiot wrote the English alphabet

@ingenuity23

Жыл бұрын

@@Run.Ran.Run1 language exists to facilitate human communication, its history although significant has not meaning if it becomes a garbled relic which doesn't serve its purpose. gatekeeping language is a frankly miserable thing to do so i hope you realise why simplifications become necessary at times

@Run.Ran.Run1

Жыл бұрын

@@ingenuity23 A consistent language facilitates communication. "Gatekeeping" as you call it, is much more consistent than letting just anyone decide how to say something. As I've mentioned before, I hope the "thumb typers" in the world aren't the ones who decide to simplify language. That would simply be dumbing down.

What a great channel. Thank you for your dedication and passion you put in your videos. It is great to learn more about English

C'est une de mes chaînes préférés. Drôle et passionnante à la fois. Continuez Rob !

The "Tironian et" is still used when writing Irish or Scott's Gaelic in the more traditional uncial script. It is also why, in Europe, the number '7' typically has the crossbar through it - to distinguish it from 'and'.

@svetlanastarkova4392

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for your comment, I always wondered!

@occamraiser

Жыл бұрын

ahhh, now there's a nice little factoid to add to my collection of interesting trivia. Thanks!

@cenimirius

Жыл бұрын

We, Serbs, believe that number seven has the crossbar through because we decided to reject the seventh commandment.🎉

@babboon5764

Жыл бұрын

MAYBE NOT .......... Modern Westen numbers were mainly 'borrowed' from the Arabic scholars In their original form the number could be deduced from counting the angles formed by the shape Unfortunately the shapes have morphed over the years and its no longer so obvious, but imagine an 8 as two boxes or a 2 shaped like a Z and you'll start seeing the patterns

@faeriefriendable

Жыл бұрын

@@cenimirius I had to look it up. Thanks

As a vocalist who uses a lot of IPA, it's so cool to see that a lot of symbols used in that were used in English way back when!

@Helicopter7

3 жыл бұрын

Ok

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Yes! Amazing that all the symbols seem to have been used somewhere at some point. Surprising how many of them were in English!

@thanosdude_4457

3 жыл бұрын

yep

@thebeartubechannel7022

Жыл бұрын

actually, the IPA was started in England so it does make some sense

@eyeofthasky

Жыл бұрын

@@RobWords its not really surprising as IPA was invented by euro-centric people only backin on their past, and diregarding a real international aspect in this system so most languages outside europe have to suffer to invent ad-hoc solutions cuz IPA has no means to express whats needed, and i say that INCLUDING all those diacritis... if u can it charge up with diacritics until it looks like an E̗̚x̳̓a̰̖̓ͤm̭̜̪ͬ͌ͦp̻͔̞̐̈́͐l̳͈̞̤̐ͣͨ̆e̫͖̝̞̝͒̊̃̏̐ of zalgo text and *still* it cant deliver the right features of articulation, then u know it's really _not_ .

I absolutely love your vids. Really informative and presented with the right balance between fun and fact. Thank you.

So happy that your channel popped up! I love it. You've got me hooked! Thank you so much

Thank you for filling in those obvious holes. I was born in Germany and came to America at age ten with no clue of American English. I learned fast and had to dump the accent in a hurry just to fit in. In high school I chose a language major and became a Latin scholar. Curiously that led me to become a high school art teacher for 35 years and a teacher teacher for five more after that. That also included 24 years of night school or adult education. Latin was so a part of me that I used every opportunity to include Latin word origins in my lesson both for the kids, adults and colleagues. I had 40 great years of passing on my my modest knowledge. I wish you had been around to enhance my etymology. I love your presentations. They give me great pleasure.

@RalphBellairs

Жыл бұрын

You mean "Þhank you for filling in þhose obvious holes"! 😄(Sorry...I couldn't resist!)

@MultiTimelady

Жыл бұрын

Oh darn, would have loved to be one of your students.

@tookiecar1

9 ай бұрын

⁠@@RalphBellairsthhank thhose

There's the Ash (Æ æ), There's the Edh (Ð ð), There's the Ethel (Œ œ) and the Thorn (Þ þ), There's the Wynn (Ƿ ƿ) and the Yogh (Ȝ ȝ), All of these are no more, There was also Ampersand (&), But that's still around

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Music to my ears. Bravo 👏👏👏

@heavenlydusk

3 жыл бұрын

How do I type ampersand-

@NyoomMonster

3 жыл бұрын

I found þorn!

@Donut-Eater

3 жыл бұрын

@@heavenlydusk it's a very common symbol, if you use a standard PC keyboard you type it through shift+7, if you have a different keyboard I can't remember on the spot right now

@heavenlydusk

3 жыл бұрын

@@Donut-Eater oh okay, I'll try to type it :')

Just watched this video twice with my 6-year-old son who just started learning English last year! All the edutainment things you used and the puns won him over instantly! You are a brilliant educator!

@iremovedmyhandle

7 ай бұрын

Þat is a ðiŋ. Þe ðree planets aka Mercury, Venus, Earþ. Ðat is the þiŋ, eachoðer. The ash is smooþed to Æ. But what is it? Each leŧer is a Eþel. Subpœna, and Diaŗhœa. The Neþer, agh. It is the Æther in Minecraft. This is the 9 lost letterſ in the alphabet.

@alyanahzoe

Ай бұрын

@@iremovedmyhandle you got the joke!

Just found your channel. Love it! I've always been fascinated by English and your channel is priceless

I have to say, that old anglo-saxen alphabet song was just awesome... how about a looped or full version?

@MultiTimelady

Жыл бұрын

That alphabet was cool

@tux_duh

Жыл бұрын

He had a link in the vid, I'll grab it

@tux_duh

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/g2l52biMY7aaYpc.html

@grasslure8893

Жыл бұрын

1:20

@conceptofeverything8793

Жыл бұрын

@@Skeptimystic awesome

As a child in the nineteen-sixties, I noticed on old pub signs that there were two types of what I thought to be Y, one with tail going left, the other with the tail going right. Years later, I learnt about thorn but the old pub signs had all been replaced, leaving me to doubt my memory. The signs I remember had probably been written fifty years earlier by sign-writers educated in 1900 who were aware of the old ways. Upon moving to Reading, I found the George Hotel in King Street, the frontage of which bears the ancient but nicely renovated 'Ye George MDVI', the first letter clearly being thorn with the tail bending towards the right.

@Perririri

Жыл бұрын

OK, Boomer!

@CrazyMazapan

Жыл бұрын

@@Perririri Your point being? Go take your meds, you're embarrassing yourself

@CrazyMazapan

Жыл бұрын

I'm not an English speaker, but I always wondered why it was Ye Old when Y and TH were nowhere near in appearance or pronunciation. Now I know!

@MultiTimelady

Жыл бұрын

I didn't know that I was mispronouncing those signs. Glad to know what "ye" really is

I love your posts. Very witty and extremely interesting. Keep up the good work

This is my favorite newly discovered channel of the month - maybe year ;-) Well done, chap.

For most of these, the replacements we have are perfectly fine and there’s no reason to go back. W works. & as well as simply “and”/“ond” works. But English orthography has no current way to distinguish between a voiced and voiceless “th”, so either “eth” or “thorn” or both would be a great thing to bring back.

@goodmaro

Жыл бұрын

Meanwhile we have redundancy in the form of the "x", which can be replaced by "ks", and the troika of "c", "k", and "s", of which we need only two. And then there's "y", which in French is the "Greek e", which could arguably be eliminated.

@Kyrelel

Жыл бұрын

@@goodmaro The US tried to 'phoneticise' English ... and just look at the result :/

@craigcarmichael5748

Жыл бұрын

Ya, ðat's like not differentiatiŋ between "F" and "V", "S" and "Z", "SH" (where'z its letter? Use Russian "Ш"?) and "J" (as in fusion).

@andeve3

Жыл бұрын

English could use dh and th to distinguish voiced and unvoiced, much like Icelandic uses ð and þ. Honestly, dh is a nicer looking digraph than th.

@mathy4605

Жыл бұрын

@@andeve3 I think I might have a problem aDHering to that.

Oh my god I audibly gasped when I realized "that" and "thanks" make different "th" sounds

@dmitrivasilyevich8859

3 жыл бұрын

oh SHIT

@thanhtruong946

3 жыл бұрын

How tf you didn't know it?

@anna_9195

3 жыл бұрын

OMGG SAME I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT-

@PKNproductions

3 жыл бұрын

​@@thanhtruong946 its just something most native speakers don't think about, because of how writing shapes our perception of language. Also the fact that there are pretty much no words in English where we carefully distinguish between the sounds (eg. þat and ðat aren't outright different words, just a natural sounding pronunciation and a weird one) means that it ends up being left to an unconscious accent quirk more than an overt difference in words. Another example of this kind of "native obviousness" is how most of us don't notice that the P in "poke" and the P in "spoke" are different. There's a puff of air when you say poke but not when you say spoke. Try saying "as poke" and then say "a spoke" and notice how the P sounds different in each even though we expect that these should sound identical.

@madide3978

3 жыл бұрын

i think “that” you put your tongue on your top teeth only. in thanks, you but it between top and bottom teeth making it clearer and stretched out... or im just wrong idk this is my guess

Always a great and informative presentation👏👏👏

Thank you for explaining the history and demise of these letters which I have often run across, and always wondered about, especially the long S.

Definitely bring back thorn, eth and eng. Seems way more efficient to have a single letter to denote a single sound instead of two letter combos.

@julesgosnell9791

Жыл бұрын

I don't think you need both Eth and Thorn - although we still do make a distinction in our pronunciation of the voiced and voiceless 'th' variant, I can't think of any word pairs that are distinguished just by these two sounds ? This may have happened after Eth was lost - maybe it was replaced by Thorn which was then replaced by 'th'. I'd be happy to just have Thorn and Eng.

@julesgosnell9791

Жыл бұрын

I've done a bit more research - we need both Thorn and Eth: thigh:thy, ether:either, teeth:teethe. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_%E2%9F%A8th%E2%9F%A9#:~:text=In%20English%2C%20the%20digraph%20%E2%9F%A8th,%2Ft%CE%B8%2F%20(eighth).

@IN-pr3lw

Жыл бұрын

Just learn the Shavian alphabet for English :) wayy more efficient

@undefinednull5749

Жыл бұрын

have you heard about CHINESE?

@spankynater4242

Жыл бұрын

There are so many two letter combos, that your plan would become unwieldy.

Eng is very intuitive, you can tell it was invented by squishing the letters together (n + g = ŋ). It is so intuitive that I found myself using it in university when taking notes without knowing it already existed. I also would incorporate an i into it for -ing by dotting it.

@alvexok5523

6 ай бұрын

That's interesting about Eng. Also, with what he said in the video about "Ye old" actually supposing to be "'The' old", that probably means that "Here ye, here ye" might be "Here the, here the". And that almost makes more sense because that could be translation for "Here is the speaker" or "Here I speak", since basically "Here ye, here ye" was said to get everyone's attention so he could speak

@joshuakurtenbach1972

6 ай бұрын

@@alvexok5523 I don't quite agree. "Hear ye" is a proper English. It is an imperative calling those present to listen.

@alvexok5523

6 ай бұрын

@@joshuakurtenbach1972 Oh. I'm sure you're correct. I wasn't fully sure on what I was saying, it was an idea I had. And also, my mistake, I had a little bit of homonym confusion, you're right, it was "hear ye", not "here ye"

@joshuakurtenbach1972

6 ай бұрын

@@alvexok5523 I didn't even catch your mistake, the ol' brain corrected it for me haha

Hi Rob Thanks again for an interesting post. My son still uses Thorn when he messages his mother and me. He is interested in the Anglo Saxon and Early Medieval periods and even has his 'phone set up to use a few of these old letter especially Thorn.

Great research about present day English. I bless you for your splendid noble work.

Thorn is definitely a useful letter that should make a come back. Some of these letters would definitely help especially when trying to teach English and to learn some of the other more complex languages in the world.

@carultch

Жыл бұрын

I prefer Eth and Theta as the way to tell apart the two TH sounds. Although, I think eth could use a better name, where it is easier to pronounce the consonant of its name, in a way that reflects the sound of the th in this.

@luckyperga

Жыл бұрын

@@carultch eth literally just sounds like f tbh

@nallid7357

Жыл бұрын

@@luckyperga the th and f sound make distinct sounds in my mind, like how I can hear the difference between eth and th even though they sound very similar. Just like how a Hindi speaking people can hear the difference between a and aa even though in Western languages they don't sound different. It's just about what you grew up with.

@raulkyamko6825

Жыл бұрын

Although, one problem. þorn porn

@carultch

Жыл бұрын

@@raulkyamko6825 If you grew up your whole life knowing that þorn was pronounced as thorn, you wouldn't mistake it for porn. Just as you don't mistake born for porn. Yet if you speak Finnish as a first language, you'd probably have a lot of trouble with this particular example, since b and p to them sound identical. Good luck trying to say crab cakes, as it would sound like "crap cakes".

You forget to mention that the long S "ʃ " was mainly used because quill and ink, or printing presses of the time would often turn two small "ss" into a blob of ink. So, the letter was necessary, as it separated the ink as "sʃ". As pens and printing presʃes evolved, its usage was no longer needed, and was eliminated simply because it was no longer necesʃary. By the way it was only used as a lower-case, and only if it followed another "s". And, it often had no crosʃ through it like and "f", so the distinction was easy enough to understand.

@19Szabolcs91

Жыл бұрын

Oh wait, so that's also why Germans have that alternate character repsesenting "ss" that looks like a beta?

@CrazyMazapan

Жыл бұрын

@@19Szabolcs91 Right. It's a combination of both.

@lennynunez7015

Жыл бұрын

How do you get the long s?

@tookiecar1

Жыл бұрын

Presses* necessary* cross*

@Oturan20

Жыл бұрын

@@tookiecar1 They're spelt right Just with a long s.

I am loving thorn and eth. I would gladly welcome half of them back. Keep up the good work!

Outstanding! I'm an amateur philologist (self-trained). Perusing old dictionaries or books I would often come across a character I had never seen before and, because they can't be searched for would always leave me wondering. This is excellent! Now if I can just get my tongue around the pronunciation of some of them it will be great. Thanks!

Very fascinating history of the evolution of the letters used in English. The long "s" always fascinated me and I tried to gauge what grammatical rules it followed ie never at the end of a word not before or after an actual "f" etc, but I found out like the rest of English grammar it was never consistent, had many exceptions and changed over time and often depend on the publisher. Thanks so much for sharing. 😉👌🏻

@katerbilla

Жыл бұрын

In German: "Round s" (the normal letter) was used at the end of words and syllables, "long s" at the start and mid of words (as long as it was not the end of a syllable too). That's also the reason why whe have "sharp s"=ß in German: it is, for example in the word "dass" => "daſs" the use of these rules: long s in the mid, round s at the end. Later the typesetters combined it, thus the ß.

@RustOnWheels

Жыл бұрын

I always enjoyed a Warfteiner or two… Shame that they changed it for the lack of typographical awareness.

@robertfitzjohn4755

Жыл бұрын

Almost certainly unconnected, but Greek sigma also has a variant used at the end of a word, as in Ὀδυσσεύς (Odysseus).

I first met þ in Tolkien, who used it in an obscure backstory part of LotR in the story "The Shibboleth of Fëanor", which tells a tale about how the Elves would change language unilaterally, so when a new pronunciation fashion took off, everyone changed everything that fashion applied to. The thing is, when a new fashion to change þ to s happened, Míriel Þerindë, the Ñoldor queen, was getting her name pronounced as Serindë and was offended by it, saying it *wasn't* her name! Even after her landmark death, her son Fëanor (very much a mother's boy) persisted in using the þ sound, as did his sons, and I presume his loyalist followers. If you know the background of "Shibboleth", it is from a Biblically-adjacent story where it is used as a test of whether someone was hebrew or not, because the other languages around them struggled with the sh's and th's. So I am guessing Tolkien's intent was that Fëanorian Quenya had this quirk that set it apart because their prince was honouring the memory of his beloved mother.

@gabenugget114

Жыл бұрын

AND ÐO NŒT GET ME STARTED ON 8:47

@telzeyamberdon3474

Жыл бұрын

Correction on the Shibboleth reference: in the story (the book of Judges) the shibboleth incident involves the tribes of Israel quarreling with each other. Several of the Israelite tribes (Reuben, Gad, etc.) were living in Gilead. The Ephraimites, who were the descendants of Joseph's son named Ephraim, had a petty beef with the Gildeadites. They went to Gilead to pick a fight. The Gildeadites finished it. Then they sussed out the Ephraimites in their midst by demanding they speak the word "shibboleth" when captured. The Ephraimites pronounced it "sibboleth," and were apparently the only Israelite tribe who did. I haven't read the Silmarillion yet, but your description suggests all of the characters in this scenario are elves. But one group purposely set themselves apart from their fellow elves. The comparison tracks.

@meganofsherwood3665

Жыл бұрын

IIRC, the story in the book of Judges is also the origin of the "Shibboleth authentication" message you sometimes see displayed on a webpage after logging in to your account, while waiting for the page to load

@occamraiser

Жыл бұрын

Christopher Tolkien, not the real one so it doesn't count.

@bjjt-nu9dx

Жыл бұрын

Tolkien pronounced Mordor "Morðor."

I have started to binge watch your videos!❤

New fav channel!!

1:18 My furniture started flying

@U20E0

Жыл бұрын

The full one is linked in the description.

I love how Ash and Ethel make an ah and oi sound respectively, but both of them now are used in words to make the ee sound

@l.p.7585

Жыл бұрын

Yeah it's odd like that isn't it. I think people somehow 'know'that informal English has very much middled pit the vowels, so when they see old timey words they overpronounce them in the way they imagine. Aether being pronounced 'eeþer' in fantasy and scifi has maybe contributed to that?

@Excommunicated-ei1ep

Жыл бұрын

That’s probably because the Greek Pronunciation of the æ and œ Letters, is different from the Anglo-Saxon Pronunciation?

@HimitsuYami

Жыл бұрын

It's also interesting how Æ in words like say, Æther is (probably incorrectly, but as language evolves, is it truly incorrect?) sometimes pronounced like ay-thur ay like hey or hay

@Excommunicated-ei1ep

Жыл бұрын

@@HimitsuYami But its not “Hey and Hay”, it’s “Ha” and “He”, that’s why the Æ/æ Letter is often pronounced in the Latin or Greek way, instead of the Old English way . . .

@jamsistired

Жыл бұрын

Also there are just cultural shifts like nuclear to nuculer, things change a bit and we see that all the time, it’s not wrong it’s different. You can say it like eether and be correct because that’s just the way things happen. Language is a constantly changing thing

I really enjoy your videos. Thank you

Æ is still commonly used in Norway, we have two written languages (technically three) and it's quite often used in the second of them. Even lore is it used when we write dialects informally to one another over text as it's one of many ways of writing "I"

@TorbenS

9 күн бұрын

We also use Æ in Danish 🙂

The long-s letter is still used in mathematics as the integral sign. The mathematical integral is a kind of continuous summation, so the long-s is a math abbreviation for an infinite summation. The corresponding discrete summation is signified in math formulas with a capital sigma.

@mal2ksc

Жыл бұрын

That's really why the letter dropped out of common use. People got tired of being reminded they failed Calculus.

@johnsimon4671

Жыл бұрын

Lol

@jorriffhdhtrsegg

Жыл бұрын

I propose using eth to refer to the differential

@knutrleer5479

Жыл бұрын

@@jorriffhdhtrsegg The symbol for the partial differential already looks a lot like the ð, but without the cross-stroke.

Beautiful locations. Your calm demeanor and eloquent speaking make it easy to follow along and learn. You make language fun and fascinating to learn about as an adult. Thank you for sharing your love of language.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

This is very kind, thanks Nick.

Very cool. As a practicing Heathen, learning the Elder and Younger futharks involves a lot of these letters. Thanks for sharing your expertise!

How could I not subscribe after this video? "Where the bee sucks, there suck I", made me laugh out loud when I caught on to what you were saying (rather quickly, I might add). Thank you - this made my morning! Best wishes from Australia.

I'm from Hamilton in Scotland and Hamilton originally evolved from the ancient Barony of Cadzow, except Cadzow was actually CadȜow but due to the typesetting of the printing press the Ȝ was replaced with a lower case Z. Very much enjoying your videos, fascinating stuff! 👍

@Error42279

Жыл бұрын

How do you get that3

@actionsub

Жыл бұрын

In the Cyrillic alphabet, that "z" sound is represented by "3". To prevent confusion, the Russians write their three's with a flat top, ironically the way a fancy "z" with a tail looks in English lettering...

@Kitkatswirlz678

Жыл бұрын

It looks like cursive

@tribaounidadedonstania

10 ай бұрын

@@actionsub З3 which one is the russian letter? hint: its either 1 or 2

@tookiecar1

9 ай бұрын

@@tribaounidadedonstania1

I am absolutely over the moon that I found this channel. Right up my interests. Love linguistics.

I so enjoy these!!

This was a really interesting video! 😊

The "ŋ" should come back. It should be used as well in german. The "Æ" had a replacement in german with "Ä" alongside with "Ö" and "Ü". The "ſ" was partially dropped, because it was too similar to an "f". But it kind of remained in german. In Germany we have a ligature consistin of the "ſ" (the long s) and "ʒ" (the old z). The ligature is "ß" (called sz).

@HippieVeganJewslim

Жыл бұрын

If the Germans can’t type it, they can write ss, ae, oe, or ue for ß, ä, ö, or ü, but when should eng be used in German?

@HalfEye79

Жыл бұрын

@@HippieVeganJewslim For example: The word "eng" ("tight"), "mangelhaft" ("faulty"), "Richtung" ("direction"), and many more.

@HippieVeganJewslim

Жыл бұрын

@@HalfEye79 Dankeschön, aber das ist nur ng in mangelhaft und Richtung, nicht wahr? Nu, vielleicht ist ng kein Weg zu sagen. Wieder danke!

@HalfEye79

Жыл бұрын

@@HippieVeganJewslim Das "ng" ist noch in vielen anderen Wörtern. Nicht in einem großem Teil der Wörter, aber, meiner Meinung nach, genug um den Buchstaben zu begründen.

@shoujahatsumetsu

Жыл бұрын

Up in the North, Norwegians have Æ, Ø, Å, Swedes have Ä, Ö, Å. Now, I'm no expert, but our Å is probably how you pronounce O, our O is like your U, and our U or Y is like your Ü. I think.

This is why I usually have to write my name as Thorsteinn when writing with foreign people, but as an Icelander, where Thorn is alive and well, my name is spelled Þorsteinn :) Same goes for Ð/ð which is heavily used here as well. Even sometimes both in the same word. Það var nefnilega það!

@brayanabbelinogonzalezurbina

Жыл бұрын

And when do you must use "Ɖ" i guess that do you use the digraphy Dh sometimes or no, I have seen that digraphy for this i guess. excusme my english, my lenguage is spanish.

@ThorsteinnK

Жыл бұрын

@@brayanabbelinogonzalezurbina We never use Dh in stead of Ð :) Never heard about that. We use Ð in all words spelled with that letter. The only times we write D in stead of it is in e.g. website URLs where you basically have to skip any special characters

@alephomega955

Жыл бұрын

@@ThorsteinnK Dh is the official way to represent the voiced th sound, but it makes more sense to represent it just as th since English does it.

@BruceYoung1

Жыл бұрын

Question: Are there clear rules for when to use Þ (thorn) and when to use ð (eth) in Icelandic? I've wondered if Þ is used for the unvoiced sound (like the "th" in "thorn" in English) and ð for the voiced sound (like the "th" in "this").

Love it, thanks. Justing reading about Anglo Saxon art. I like the and pictogram tool. Might bring that back 🔙

This takes me right back to my early childhood in the early 70's when they brought the teaching method of ITA into classrooms. Mum taught me the standard alphabet prior to going to school at age 5 and I could both read and write it. Schools had introduced the ITA method of alphabet so I had to unlearn and then re-learn how to read and write the "new" alphabet from the beginning. I remember struggling with the new letters a lot which included Ethel and Ash and maybe others. After a short period of time ITA was dropped and teaching reverted back to standard alphabet. I then had to relearn a 3rd time back to standard.

In German: "Round s" (the normal letter) was used at the end of words and syllables, "long s" at the start and mid of words (as long as it was not the end of a syllable too). That's also the reason why whe have "sharp s"=ß in German: it is, for example in the word "dass" => "daſs" the use of these rules: long s in the mid, round s at the end. Later the typesetters combined it, thus the ß. It still shall be used when using Fraktur or other scripts like that.

@JohnSmiffer

Жыл бұрын

You can see the pointlessness of these things when you have to explain it to someone don't you. "An s in the beginning is different than ss at the end." Why oh why! My theory is that Germans aren't as rebellious as the English to shake off all the silliness. Like the ridiculous verb placements. (Let's just throw all the verbs at the end and out of order shall we?)

@allesindwillkommen

Жыл бұрын

@@JohnSmiffer After the spelling reform, the letter "ß" has a very clear purpose in German, though. It helps differentiate words with a short vowel and with a long vowel. For example, the German words "Masse" and "Maße" are pronounced differently and mean different things.

@JohnSmiffer

Жыл бұрын

​@@allesindwillkommen It's a very narrow purpose though isn't it. I would wager that context would provide 99.99% of the clues of what meaning you were going for in terms of actual conversation.

@allesindwillkommen

Жыл бұрын

@@JohnSmiffer By that logic, both English and German can get rid of the letter "x", as well, since every word that has an "x" in it can be rewritten with other letters. So go ahead and start a petition to ban the letter "x".

@JohnSmiffer

Жыл бұрын

​@@allesindwillkommen I think USA has too many Meksikans to let that one pass. I actually don't mind the ß. it even looks interesting. I lived in Germany for a while, my main language complaint was with the general grammar. Verbs at ends, different endings for adjectives depending on gender/case. All seemed pointless to me.

The elongated “s” could appear initially or medially, but in final position there was only “s”.

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

Yes!

@naginiriddle7091

Жыл бұрын

During that section, it reminded me of the Greek letter sigma. There are three ways to write it: capital (Σ), lowercase (σ), and at the end of the word (ς). Frankly, I am all for bringing that back, since the long s looks so pretty to me, and I since I am already comfortable with the Greek sigma, I wouldn't struggle with there being a long s.

@scottmiller2591

Жыл бұрын

Correct. It was a very rare document that didn't have any final "s"s, so documents nearly always used both "ſ" and "s."

@Anson_AKB

Жыл бұрын

*in germany, we also had the two different "s"* (the "normal s" and the "Schluß-s", "end/final s"), and combining the "long s" with a "s" or "z" to one single ligature, we got our "ß" (called sz) which may be written with two ss if no ß is available (and always when swiss use words with ß). for details, search for "scharfes s" in german wikipedia, "sharp s" in english wikipedia, or "ß" in either. until 2017 we officially only had the seven extra letters äÄöÖüÜ and the lowercase ß (since there are no words starting with ß), but to be able to fill out forms in "uppercase only" we finally now got an uppercase version too :-) until then, people needed to fill out forms incorrectly, either changing ß (eg in their surnames) to SS or using lowercase ß. unicode (uppercase since 2008): U+00DF and U+1E9E "latin small/capital letter sharp s"

@29trent

Жыл бұрын

I have a very beautiful letter written by my recently-widowed great-grandfather in 1890 proposing marriage to the widow of a recently-deceased friend of his. He had an elegant Spencerian hand and used the long s/short s ligature in all words with interior double esses -- Miſsouri, Tenneſsee, and (best of all) Miſsiſsippi. He was born in 1846 and would've learned to write in Arkansas in the 1850s.

new to your channel and quite like it! - I see the long s on many a gravestone here in Quincy Massachusetts

How the hell have I only just found your channel. Holy shit. Fantastic content.

I really enjoyed this video. I found it by accident but took a look as I recently spent a few years working in Iceland (the country, NOT where mums go to shop!) so I'd been introduced to thorn, eth, and ash. I never did get far with my attempts to pick up Icelandic because my students all seemed to want to practice their English on a native English speaker as their exams were in English. About the third or fourth year out there I discovered that one of my students had an Australian mother. I asked him how long she'd been there and he replied "About twenty-eight years." I then asked how good her Icelandic was. With a grin on his face he replied "It's getting there." I've subscribed now and look forward to exploring the rest of your vids as language fascinates me. Thank you.

Æ is still used in 2 of the continental Scandinavian languages (Denmark and Norway) and in the insular languages (Icelandic and Faroese). It makes roughly the same sound as the "e" in the English word "Tent"

@mlo4982

Жыл бұрын

In Icelandic Æ is actually pronounced like the words "eye" or "I", and I'm fairly certain that the same goes for Faroese. In Icelandic we actually write Faroe Islands as Færeyjar!

@YaBoiRocc

Жыл бұрын

@@mlo4982 Interesting! Never known how to pronounce it in Icelandic before! We also call Faroe Islands Færøerne, so I can see the resemblance between Icelandic and Danish

@mikkolukas

Жыл бұрын

Bonus info: In Sweden they use Ä for the exact same sound and purpose.

@khole15

Жыл бұрын

Wouldnt say it resembles the "e" sound in english. It resembles the "a" sound in the word "ash" , like he said in the video.

@YaBoiRocc

Жыл бұрын

​@@khole15 It depends. Words like Æsel, Væsen, Æske all have the E sound in Tent. Other words like Ære, Pære, Lære, Sværge have a sound closer to the A in Ash. When you pronounce the Vowel on it's own tho (like when reciting the Alphabet), it is with the first mentioned vowel sound

this is a damn good video... you have a new follower,,,🙂

I’ve watched about 5 videos on letters dropped from the English language and this is the best one in every way but primarily because of your obvious research. Two or 3 of the others explained the reasons for why some letters were dropped with an answer that seems the most obvious and/or logical to someone from this century, but one bugged me: the letter that looks like a 3, YOGH, was dropped from WORDS because people kept mistaking it for the *number* 3 (really?). Your answers for the same letters were completely different, but you explained exactly why and you showed documentation! (YOGH was replaced because it looked too much like a capital Z in some typesets.) I greatly appreciate thorough research and proof when possible. My more personal appreciation for this video is for clearly pronouncing the difference between a soft and hard "th". Every video I watched did it but only yours didn’t sound (to me, anyway) like the two were exactly the same. I liked the previous video of yours on the origin of the uppercase letters of the English alphabet so much that I clicked on this one. I liked this one so much that I subscribed.

@RobWords

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching and welcome aboard!

1:10 Dude looks like he’s being held at gunpoint

@country.germany

Жыл бұрын

Yeah

@country.germany

Жыл бұрын

I thought it was just me who thought that

In Irish, the Tironian et (7) is also used in the Irish equivalent of etc. - 7rl. - short for "agus ar uile", loosely translated "and all/the rest". Love the vids Rob - so interesting!!!

@QeedVann_Official15

Жыл бұрын

You just used seven😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

@Error42279

Жыл бұрын

Đð

@Error42279

Жыл бұрын

Tironian et letter is to be like this (⁊)

@DavidSmith-vr1nb

Жыл бұрын

@@Error42279 That's so hard to access that most modern Irish typists just use "7". Of course this may be a hangover from typewriters that simply didn't have the symbol at all.

@DavidSmith-vr1nb

Жыл бұрын

@@QeedVann_Official15 Nearly impossible to do otherwise.

I really enjoy your videos. I wish you had a TV series.

Love this!

This is really interesting and helps explain a ton about why sounds GH like in night are pronounced the way they are, or why TH can be soft or hard. Especially for a bilingual like me whose vernacular comes from the Austronesian family of languages. Interestingly enough, the modern Filipino alphabet has Ng as a single letter, and instead of calling it "Eng" we call it "Nang". The Ng along with Ñ added to the current English alphabet make ours 28 letters instead of 26.

You, my fellow British linguist, deserve many more subscribers! Great job!

That was fantastic!

Wonderful video! I would love to see 'thorn', 'eth', and 'eng' make a comeback. And if the Gods of Language were feeling especially generous, perhaps 'long s' for good measure (I've always though it elegant looking). Cheers!

The phrase “sometimes in the same document” pops up a couple of times here. The thorn and eth could both be used “in the same document” because they stood for two different sounds, the “hard” (voiceless) th and the “soft” (voiced) th. The word “the” could have different pronunciations; in Chaucerian times it was almost always pronounced hard, but the softening happened in different phonological environments, not across the board and all at once. We hear different local pronunciations of it even today: hard and soft th, but also “d” and even “t” (reduced in Yorkshire speech - “goin to t’ pub”). That’s a relic of the hard pronunciation, which also survives in Lancashire and other places in the word “tha / thi” (thou / thee) among older people. As for the “long s,” it would always be used along with the familiar “s” in the same document because there was a rule for its use - the modern “s” was a final s, with the long s being used elsewhere. (The same is true with the letter sigma in Greek even today, with “σ” used initially and within a word, and “ς” only at the end of words. So “sas” is “σας”.) Also some of these letters weren’t abandoned by European printers simply because they looked like other letters; it was because they didn’t have those letters at hand, so they used what they did have. Nobody in England would have been confused by the handwritten thorn or wynn or yogh, only by printed material where actual other letters had been substituted.

@goodmaro

Жыл бұрын

The best example of such variation in "t" I can think of is in "mountain", where for some it's a T like T blowing it out with the tongue by the roots of the incisors, and for others just a glottal stop. almost like belching it thru the nose. And yet nobody (?) pronounces the very similar word "maintain" with a glottal stop. But add a little to either word, like "mountainous" and "maintenance", and the contrast between the T sounds exchanges between the words! It seems to be about how easy it is to put the desired stress on the following syllable.

@iangerahty3422

Жыл бұрын

If I recall accurately the printers were also responsible for the ff being used as a substitute for F because they quickly ran out of the capital form. No doubt there are opinions that might debunk that.

@kabouktli

Жыл бұрын

Actually the long s was final of syllables, not of words like the Greek ς.

The ghost of ash lives on in some spelling variations; grey in Old English was spelt with ash but as this died out neither "a" nor "e" became completely set in its place.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Love this. Great contribution as always.

@heavenlydusk

3 жыл бұрын

Æ

@stephencrompton4352

3 жыл бұрын

British: It's spelled 'grey'! Americans: No! It's spelled 'gray'! Intellectuals: *græy*

@hurlebatte

3 жыл бұрын

The Middle English Compendium says the West Saxon dialect of Old English had grǣg and Anglian had grēg. I think this could explain the two spellings.

@bigaspidistra

3 жыл бұрын

@@hurlebatte yes that matches Old Frisian as well. There is an interesting almost full spread variation of the vowel in this word from -au to -i across cognates and the spelling in Middle English was especially fluid. Grizzly is another one that made it into Modern English albeit somewhat specialised.

Came upon this video by complete accident. Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much.

Great to hear the old usage. Please bring back thorn - I also miss as 😊

It's so sad that eth turned into "th" instead of "dh". It even looked like a "d". While reading, it'd be a lot easier to get through: "Then, three thinking thimbles were thoroughly thrown through their thirty thin things."

1980s, spent a long time in Denmark. The "Þ" sounding like "th" has transmogrified to 'd' in Danish. Hence "bad" (dk), meaning "bath"(en), pron. "bath"(dk), slightly softer "th" sound. And there are loads of words like that.

@abaddon1371

Жыл бұрын

My last name is Madsen (from Denmark btw.) and english people pronounce it with a hard d, so it sounds like Mattsen, while in danish, it is a silent d but prolongs the s sound. In english it would be closer to Massen to get it correctly. It gets even weirder on the island I live on, as we have a habit of cutting the d's if at the end of a word and if short enough, like "ged" (meaning goat) the "e" disappers as well when we cut the d sound and it transforms into one word of "g" for goat lol! :D But yeah, you are correct that we have a lot of soft or silent d's in our language. Also bad has a couple of different meanings. Bath (as mentioned) past sentence of praying and past sentence of asking for something. Which it is, depends on how long or short the 'ad' sound is or the context of course. Jeg tog et bad - "I took a bath" Jeg bad om saltet - "I asked for the salt" Jeg bad om bedre vejr - "I (asked) prayed for better weather" Han bad til gud - "he prayed to god" Bad is also (rarely) used as a short form for bathroom (Badeværelse in danish) English people usually also gets a good laugh when they see the city sign for the danish city "Middelfart" which in danish is pronounced with soft d's, the english however... Or back in my youth when lifts/elevators had a small warning sign light up when using it, saying "I fart" which in danish means "In motion" :)

@griksrik1420

Жыл бұрын

You can blame the Hansa traders for that, and also a lack of education or perhaps arrogance of the native Norse, that didn't want to or didn't know the correct spellings of their words, so they just spelt it how ever they pronounced, which was again heavily influenced by German Hansa traders (hence 40% of Danish words aren't even Norse) This was for some reason avoided by Icelanders and some mountain boys in Sweden though barely for them, for Icelanders they always seemed to had healthy scholars, a lot of Sagas from there despite their low population, thus their language is much better kept than their sister ones. As for aforesaid Danish, too much beer influencing it, always mumbling about and dropping letters, barely a real language. That word's actual spelling by the way is Farth (Farþ) related to english Fare and Further. hence in Swedish I think it means race. Sorry if you took anything I said personally, I do not mean it as such.

@abaddon1371

Жыл бұрын

@@griksrik1420 Personally? Naaah, our language is a mess sometimes. Gets a good laugh out of foreigners though and a good laugh at them when trying to speak danish :D

@kogindogo7233

Жыл бұрын

Selvfølgelig. Old dansk og old tysk blandet med med keltisk blev til engelsk som vi kender det

Nice Information 👍

Thanku this was very interesting 😊

1:00 Me: Ah, like QWERTY Him: Like AlphaBeth Me: Ah, yes, that might be a better example.

Just found this channel, the quality of the animations feels like that of a channel with a couple ten thousand subscribers. Hopefully you will be there soon.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Here's hoping...

What an interestiŋ video! Þank you.

First time here, love your channel, very entertaining way of presenting the facts. Now on to the topic: It's time to resurrect the "Þ", the "ð" and the "ŋ" in English. The age of the printing press and mechanical typewriters is long gone and most of the writing today is done by computer interface, so I shoulðn't be much of a problem to briŋ þem back. Please do a video on the proposed Shavian alphabet for English too.

@andreafalconiero9089

Ай бұрын

I think you meant to write "briŋ ðem back." I guess we'll all need to practice! (except the Icelanders).

I grew up in mainland, China and started studying English when I was just able to speak my own native language, which is Mandarin. This video reminded me the way my teachers used to teach English pronunciations when I was in primary school. They would essentially use these letters from Old English as denotation of the pronunciation of a word. I had no idea where these letters came from until I moved to Canada haha. But they did help me understand the pronunciation system in English a lot, especially for words where the same vowels would have inconsistent pronunciations across different words that use these vowels lol.

@Laeiryn

Жыл бұрын

It was probably the international phonetic alphabet, or IPA

This is about to explode in the recommended and get millions of views... We are the pioneers! Great video! Its crazy how letters and rules can just be forgotten or removed!

Gracias. Very interesting.

Super interesting!

FYI: We still have the oe and ae in norwegian. Oe = Ø pronounsed as the i in sir. Ae = Æ, pronounced as the a in ash.

@TheSimon253

Жыл бұрын

Same with Swedish although Ö and Ä looks better imo

@gunnarbechTV

Жыл бұрын

By the way, Danish also has both Æ and Ø.

@markrossow6303

Жыл бұрын

just writing a check for tickets to Trollhsugen 50th Anniversary Lunch, a Stampede Pass lodge owned by Seattle Sons of Norway -- (the wife and I are involved with XC "Ski for Light" there)

@sarahgilbert8036

Жыл бұрын

And Å - and Iceland uses þ and đ

@Maksym_Ch

Жыл бұрын

@@sarahgilbert8036 ð*

Þy videos are þe greateſt! Ƿe ſhould keep all þe letters! Greetiŋs from Vienna

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Herzlichen Dank aus Berlin! Þe more letterſ, þe merrier!

@Perririri

Жыл бұрын

#Bécs (in Hungarian)

@locomotivetrainstation6053

Жыл бұрын

I don't like wynn, W is better

and so charming as well...I can imagine him (before KZread) chatting up a lovely with these ffun ffacts (as in Cymraeg (Welsh in Welsh), it's the ff that gives the Saesneg(English, in Cymraeg) , and the f is pronounced as Saesneg "v".. and ending with The MidsummerÄs night Dream quote...(when he charmed her to his apartment..) ! Many thorny 7nks.

@alyanahzoe

Ай бұрын

good joke 😂😂😂

wow! this info adds so much context. Having Indian origin, I always wondered why does English have no letter to distinguish a hard t from a soft t; and a hard d from a soft d - (you gotta know the Devanaagri letters to tell the difference). Now this makes sense.

Excellent - some of these I knew already, but I've learned things and I'm very glad that I invested 11 minutes in watching your video. I shall now check out some of your others. Thanks very much.

Fascinating.. I've been interested in etymology for years but my schools or university don't have courses in this... But I stumbled upon your page..

@GB-hj3xp

Жыл бұрын

I find insects fascinating as well

@billbauer9795

Жыл бұрын

@@GB-hj3xp I like turtles.

@SM-yb4dy

Жыл бұрын

@@GB-hj3xp etym not ento

@Youchubeswindon

3 күн бұрын

@@billbauer9795 I like Trains.

Wauu a great video. I really enjoyed it. As a funny remark, the letters ASH and ETHEL is still used in the Danish alphabet to this day. ASH actually as is Æ and with the same sound. We use it in words like the Danish word for apple - "Æble" and duckling - "Ælling". ETHEL have been changed a bit though. As it represents the sound of OI, the I is placed across the O like this Ø and is used for words like island - "Ø". Thanks again for an interesting video.

I adore this man and I wish that somebody would do this kind of content for my language... We had something similar on national TV, but it was boring as hell.

Daði isn’t pronounced as daddy? I feel lied to and misguided.

@countryland69

Жыл бұрын

dathi

@sorrybjoke450

Жыл бұрын

How did you paste that letter? Ia can only accessx đ

@countryland69

Жыл бұрын

@@sorrybjoke450 Get an england keyboard

@jojo.s_bekaar_adventures

Жыл бұрын

@@sorrybjoke450 đ ð

@thomaschoat9632

Жыл бұрын

Try making a vocalized "dth" through your nose: you will probably be close

This was entertaining and very well explained! I've been studying English for years and never knew these letters had existed at some point. Thanks!

As a learner of English language I am amazed. And (could not find the letter you used for and😪) wonder if phonetic alphabet letters comes from there as many of these letters matches. If so, these letters are living for the learners🙂. Thank you.

This was always the sort of stuff I wanted to know about our language especially in English class when I was young!