Eth 10216 218706536 2008-06-11T20:35:57Z 131.215.123.98 It never represents a simple partial derivative; just a *spin-weighted* partial {{otheruses}} {{for|a list of letters that look similar to '''Ð''' in uppercase|D with stroke (disambiguation)}} {{wiktionary}} [[Image:Latin letter Ð.svg|right|200px]] '''Eth''' ('''Ð''', '''ð'''; also spelled '''edh''' or '''eð''') is a [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]] used in [[Old English language|Old English]], [[Icelandic alphabet|Icelandic]], [[Faroese language#alphabet|Faroese]] (in which it is called ''edd''), and [[Dalecarlian language|Dalecarlian]]. It was also used in [[Scandinavia]] during the [[Middle Ages]], but was subsequently replaced with ''[[dh (digraph)|dh]]'' and later ''[[d]]''. The capital eth resembles a d with a line partially through the vertical stroke. The lowercase resembles an [[Gaelic script#Characteristics|insular d]] with a line through the top. The letter originated in Irish writing (Freeborn 1992, 24) as a ''d'' with a cross-stroke added. The lowercase version has retained the curved shape of a [[medieval]] scribe's ''d'', which ''d'' itself in general has not (but see for instance the [[Audi]] logo). In Icelandic, ''ð'' represents a [[voiced dental fricative]] like ''th'' in English "them"; however, the name of the letter is pronounced ''eþ'', i.e., ''voiceless'', unless followed by a vowel. It is never the first letter of a word. It has also been labeled an "interdental fricative."<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=eth American Heritage Dictionary]</ref> In Faroese, ''ð'' isn't assigned to any particular phoneme and appears mostly for etymological reasons; however, it does show where most of the Faroese [[Semivowel|glides]] are, and when the ''ð'' is before ''r'' it is in a few words pronounced as {{IPA|[g]}}. In the Icelandic and Faroese [[alphabet]]s, ''ð'' follows ''d''. In [[Olav Jakobsen Høyem]]'s version of [[Nynorsk]] based on [[Trøndersk]], the ''ð'' is always silent and is introduced for etymological reasons. In the orthography for [[Elfdalian]], the ''ð'' represents a [[voiced dental fricative]] like ''th'' in English "them", and it follows ''d'' in the alphabet. In [[Old English language|Old English]], ''ð'' (referred to as ''ðæt'' by the Anglo-Saxons) was used interchangeably with [[Thorn (letter)|þ]] (thorn) to represent either voiced or voiceless dental fricatives. The letter ''ð'' was used throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, but gradually fell out of use in [[Middle English]], disappearing altogether by about 1300{{Fact|date=July 2007}}; ''þ'' survived longer, ultimately being replaced by the modern digraph ''th'' by about 1500. The ''ð'' is also used by some in written Welsh to represent the letter 'dd' (the voiced dental fricative). Lower-case eth is used as a symbol in the [[help:IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA), again for a [[voiced dental fricative]], and in IPA usage, the name of the symbol is pronounced with the same voiced sound, as {{IPA|/ɛð/}}. (The IPA symbol for the voiceless dental fricative is [[θ]].) == Computer encoding == *In the [[Unicode]] universal character encoding standard, upper and lower case eth are represented by U+00D0 and U+00F0, respectively. These code points are inherited from the older [[ISO 8859-1]] standard. In [[HTML]], eth is represented by the Latin character entities <code>&amp;ETH;</code> and <code>&amp;eth;</code>. *On [[UNIX]]-like systems such as [[Linux]] it can be entered with the [[Compose key]] plus d and - or D and - for the uppercase version when using [[ISO8859]]-based locales or [[Compose key]] plus d and h or D and h for uppercase version when using [[UTF-8]]-based locales. *Using [[Microsoft Windows]], one can hold [[Alt key|Alt]] while typing 0208 or 0240 on the numeric keypad to produce the uppercase and lowercase forms, respectively. == Miscellaneous == * The letter ''ð'' is sometimes used in [[mathematics]] and [[engineering]] textbooks as a symbol for a spin-weighted partial derivative. This operator gives rise to [[spin-weighted spherical harmonics]]. * The modern [[Greek language|Greek]] letter [[Delta (letter)|delta]] ([[Δ]], [[δ]]) has, in general, the same phonetic value, and ''ð'' is the only [[Latin alphabet]] letter faithfully representing delta's phonetic value. (In Ancient Greek delta represented a d sound). * The symbol is mentioned in the [[Rush (band)|Rush]] song ''By-Tor and the Snow Dog'' in the first verse: <blockquote> <i>Prince By-Tor takes the cavern to the North light,<br /> The sign of Eth is rising in the air.</i> </blockquote> {{commons|Ð}} == References == {{reflist}} * Freeborn, Dennis (1992). ''From Old English to Standard English''. London: MacMillan. == See also == *[[D with stroke]] *[[African D]] *[[Insular script]] {{Latin alphabet}} ==External links== * [http://briem.ismennt.is/2/2.11/2.1.3.eth.cap.htm How to make the Eth] * [http://www.alvdalen.se/alvdalska/alvdalsk_ortografi.pdf Förslag till en enhetlig stavning för älvdalska (March, 2005)] {{sv icon}} [[Category:Faroese language]] [[Category:Icelandic language]] [[Category:Middle English language]] [[Category:Old English language]] [[Category:Uncommon Latin letters|D]] [[Category:Phonetic transcription symbols|D stroke]] [[Category:Palaeographic letter variants|D stroke]] [[als:Ð]] [[ang:Ð]] [[br:Eth (lizherenn)]] [[da:Ð]] [[de:Ð]] [[es:Ð]] [[eo:Ð]] [[fr:Ð]] [[is:Ð]] [[it:Ð]] [[nl:Ð]] [[ja:Ð]] [[no:Edd]] [[nn:Ð]] [[pl:Ð]] [[pt:Eth]] [[ru:Ð (латиница)]] [[fi:Ð]] [[sv:Ð]] [[zh:Ð]]