A letter for the sound "th"

Orange Proximity · **#21** by **Orange Proximity** » Apr 28, 2010 2:29 pm

Very interesting, especially the Unifon. Also, did not realise English had 44 sounds.

Saim · **#22** by **Saim** » Apr 29, 2010 7:49 am

We don't really need complete one sound to one letter phonetic writing system. What we really need is a consistent writing system (i.e., a sound can be represented by a diagraph or can change based on the position in the word so long as you can always tell the pronunciation from the writing and vice versa).

Honestly, "ough" words like hiccough, through, trough, though, thought and bough are just ridiculous.

rJD · **#23** by **rJD** » Apr 29, 2010 10:50 am

Saim wrote:

Honestly, "ough" words like hiccough, through, trough, though, thought and bough are just ridiculous.

And lough (Irish of loch, itself a curious spelling), and chough (nowadays pronounced "chuff", though originally "chow"), a bird of the crow family in South Western England).

There are almost certainly even more variants of this spelling - is it the worst example of English spelling variability?

Berthold · **#24** by **Berthold** » May 08, 2010 12:52 pm

natselrox wrote:Th (as in Goethe) - থ

You really mean, "as in the heinous way how native speakers of English mispronounce Goethe". :mrgreen:

jeepyjay · **#25** by **jeepyjay** » May 13, 2010 10:29 pm

In my scheme of simplified spelling http://www.mayhematics.com/w/spelling.htm
I redefine j and x to represent the sounds of th in then and thin.

A completely opposite approach would be to expand the digraphs th, sh, ch to include ph (= f), dh (= voiced th), gh (= j), zh (as in azure), bh (= v). This would save a few letters from the alphabet but make some spellings rather longer.

Phul phadhom phaibh dhai phaadher laiz ...

There are whole forums on Yahoo devoted to spelling reforms, eg:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spellingreform/

RaspK · **#26** by **RaspK** » Dec 02, 2010 9:13 am

Paul1 wrote:So in our lovely language, called English, we have a few sounds formed by combining consonants. The first two that spring to mind are the, and thought. How t and h make these sounds is beyond me, and we, and five other western European languages (Danish, Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish: sometimes d; Welsh: dd) are the only languages retarded enough to borrow letters to form this sound.

It's time you Danish stop being lazy and start putting the cross back through the top of the d!

For example:
[thought||| the]
Icelandic: Þ, þ ||| Ð (upper), ð (lower)
Greek: Θ, θ/ϑ ||| N/A
Albania: θ ||| N/A
Hebrew: ט ||| N/A
Arabic: ث ||| ط

And then we have "ch" and "sh"...need I go on?

EDIT: Corrected the example

Should that post used as a good reason for anyone to tell you that should stop being lazy for not finding out anywhere near enough, when Wikipedia would have provided you with more of the most basic knowledge on the subject? :nono:

In case you don't get what I am talking about, you may wish to research delta/δέλτα (Δδ), and lots more besides... Such as where the Icelandic letters were received from! :snooty:

Anubis · **#27** by **Anubis** » Aug 06, 2011 9:08 pm

Paul1 wrote:Arabic: ث ||| ط

The Arabic letter ط is not a "th" sound, but an emphatic and pharyngealized "t" nonequivalent to any English phone (I'd say the AAVE "what-the" comes the closest). Even if you put a dot above it to make it a "th," ظ, it's still emphatic (and voiced). ث is the same "th" as in "thick," and ذ the "th" in "those."

I'm a little late with the correction, but hell.

MrFungus420 · **#28** by **MrFungus420** » Aug 07, 2011 7:46 pm

Saim wrote:We don't really need complete one sound to one letter phonetic writing system. What we really need is a consistent writing system (i.e., a sound can be represented by a diagraph or can change based on the position in the word so long as you can always tell the pronunciation from the writing and vice versa).

Honestly, "ough" words like hiccough, through, trough, though, thought and bough are just ridiculous.

Remember...you can't spell "slaughter" without "laughter"...

LucidFlight · **#29** by **LucidFlight** » Aug 07, 2011 8:26 pm

DoctorE wrote:Þ

Þeriouþly, guyþ. Þtop making fun of my liþp.

:Þ

A letter for the sound "th"

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