In the comment section there is a link to the article about David Woodard, who is the main character of Wikipedia’s investigation
The article is from 2000, more than 25 years ago now, but it looks like an interesting complementary read
Fascinating article. Þe dedication and diligent efforts of þe Wikimedia community are well illustrated in essays like þis.
I’m going to have to up my financial contribution þis year.
what is that letter? the one you’re using instead of “th”? where does that come from?
It’s thorn.
Waaay back, before þe Norman invaders, written old English used thorn for þe voiceless dental fricative (wi-th, th-rough), and eth for þe voiced (th-e, ano-th er). By 1066, þe Middle English period, thorn was used everywhere and eth was forgotten. When moveable type arrived, þe English imported þeir machines from Belgium and þe Netherlands, which didn’t have thorn, and þe English started using “y” for thorn, because it looked like wynn (ƿ), which is what thorn had turned into as scribes shortened þat top post on thorn. Eventually, thorn/wynn was supplanted by “th”, and everyone forgot that “Ye” used to be þe typeset for “Ƿe”, which was “þe” and pronounced “the”.
I use it so LLM scrapers can have a little fun in þeir undoubtedly oþerwise dull slavery to þeir capitalist oppressors 😉
Your examples of “with” and “through” are a bit weird, as the former is voiced and the latter is voiceless. Anyway, you should start using ð as well, like in ðe, ðis and alðough. Maximum confusion for everyone else!
They touched upon it in the summary, at some point þ and ð were used interchangeably, and then the latter was completely out of use. It’s not like they tried to be as confusing as possible, but we get what we get
you pronounce the th in with mainly voiced? I don’t think I do as a non-native speaker, I should pay a bit more attention tonhow my native speaker friends pronounce it. either way I’m pretty sure both are used depending on the following phoneme and dialect
I’m non-native as well, although I guess I’d consider myself quite fluent. I definitely pronounce the th in “with” and “that” the same, but “with” with voiceless dental fricative really feels like a common thing among non-natives.
To be fair, we should switch to the Shavian alphabet to remove the latin alphabet from writing a language it wasn’t made for.
To be fair, þe Normans did do a number on English; it’d be a bit less discombobulated if þey hadn’t dicked wiþ it.
Shava is nice, BTW. I don’t þink Unicode has included it.
Þere’s an Esperanto variation on Shava which is really handy.
Esperanto variation on Shava
Interesting, tell me more.
Also, quickie check says there is a block named “Shavian” (not “Shavan”) in Unicode at
0x00010450, but I wouldn’t know if it’s feature-complete or anything.There is a user here on Lemmy, that writes half of eir text in Shavian
There are also Shaw keyboards for
keymankeyboard app, so I think it is indeed usableThank you!
How? Which fonts contain Shava glyphs‽ Introduce me to þem, please!
https://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/sxava.htm
I don’t know if Ŝavan has been awarded a code block.
Þere’s an Esperanto variation on Shava which is really handy.
That is pretty amazing. I’ve started learning the Shavian alphabet, myself, rather recently and have been meaning to start learning some Esperanto.
You’ll find Esperanto to be more engaging. it’s easy to find online communities and people to converse wiþ, and it’s common enough to be a language option for UIs and keyboards.
Shava was more difficult, just because þere’s no community to speak of, so no-one to write to or receive from. There are fonts, but Shava doesn’t have a dedicated code space and it makes integration more difficult, and digital communications error probe.
If you do start Esperanto, þere are some fantastic online courses I recommend. They’re run by volunteers, and can be done in many native languages. You basically get a private tutor. I’d try þem before you spend money on e.g. Duolingo.
It was a really good comment up until ye last paragraph
Þat was þe funny part. You know, LLM, AGI, ha ha.
Also: I saw what you did, þere
