Wynn 379183 224955436 2008-07-11T04:36:08Z ClueBot 4928500 Reverting possible vandalism by [[Special:Contributions/63.92.158.225|63.92.158.225]] to version by Muro Bot. False positive? [[User:ClueBot/FalsePositives|Report it]]. Thanks, [[User:ClueBot]]. (437569) (Bot) {{dablink|This article is on the letter. For other uses, see [[Wynn (disambiguation)]].}} {{RunicChars}} [[Image:Wynn.svg|125px|thumb|Capital ''wynn'' (left), lowercase ''wynn'' (right)]] '''Wynn''' ({{latinx|Ƿ&nbsp;ƿ}}) (also spelled Wen or {{unicode|ƿ}}en) was a letter of the Old [[English alphabet]]. It was used to represent the sound {{IPA|/w/}}. While the earliest [[Old English language|Old English]] texts represent this phoneme with the [[Digraph (orthography)|digraph]] <uu>, scribes soon borrowed the rune ''wynn'' [[Image:Runic letter wunjo.png|24px|w]]({{runic|ᚹ}}) for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use (perhaps under the influence of French orthography) during the [[Middle English]] period, circa 1300 (Freeborn 1992:25). It was replaced with <uu> once again, from which the modern <[[w]]> developed. The denotation of the rune is "[[:wikt:joy|joy]], [[:wikt:bliss|bliss]]" known from the Anglo-Saxon [[rune poem]]: :{{runic|ᚹ}} ''{{lang|ang|Ƿenne bruceþ, ðe can ƿeana lyt<br/>sares and sorge and him sylfa hæf<br/>blæd and blysse and eac byrga geniht.}}'' : Bliss he enjoys who knows not pain, : sorrow nor anxiety, and himself has : prosperity and bliss and a good enough house. <!-- see [[rune poem]] --> {{Wunjo infobox}} It is not continued in the [[Younger Futhark]], but in the [[Gothic alphabet]], the letter {{script|Goth|𐍅}} ''w'' is called ''winja'', allowing a [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]] reconstruction of the rune's name as '''*wunjô''' "joy". It is one of the two [[Runic alphabet|runes]] (along with [[Thorn (letter)|þ]]) to have been borrowed into the [[English alphabet]] (or any extension of the [[Latin alphabet]]). A modified version of the letter {{unicode|ƿ}}ynn called [[Vend (letter)|Vend]] was used briefly in [[Old Norse]] for the sounds {{IPA|/u/}}, {{IPA|/v/}}, and {{IPA|/w/}}. As with [[þ]], ƿynn was revived in modern times for the printing of Old English texts, but since the early 20th century the usual practice has been to substitute the modern <w> instead due to ƿynn's visual resemblance to [[P]]. === {{unicode|Ƿ}}ynn in Unicode and HTML Entities === {| | Latin Capital Letter Wynn | class="Unicode" | Ƿ | [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/01f7/ U+01F7] and &amp;#503; | |- | Latin Small Letter Wynn | class="Unicode" | ƿ | [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/01bf/ U+01BF] and &amp;#447; |- | Runic Letter Wynn | {{runic|ᚹ}} | [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/16b9/ U+16B9] and &amp;#5817; |} == References == {{reflist|2}} {{refbegin}} * Freeborn, Dennis (1992). ''From Old English to Standard English''. London: MacMillan. {{refend}} ==See also== *[[Meldorf fibula]] {{Runes}} [[Category:Old English language|Wynn]] [[Category:Runes]] [[Category:Palaeographic letter variants|Wynn]] [[als:ᚹ]] [[br:Wynn (lizherenn)]] [[cs:Wunjo]] [[de:Wunjo]] [[es:Wynn]] [[fr:Ƿ]] [[it:Wynn]] [[nl:Wunjo]] [[ja:Ƿ]] [[no:Ƿ]] [[pl:Ƿ]] [[ru:Вуньо]] [[zh:Ƿ]]