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From: smryan@netcom.com (S M Ryan)
Subject: Re: English alphabet history?
Message-ID: <smryanCxzInn.Hu1@netcom.com>
Organization: Dawn Patrol on the Internet
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Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 18:42:59 GMT
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: Now for my real question.  In the German alphabet, there is the umlaut.  
: The French have a cedilla, accent grave, accent aigu and the vowels with 
: the funny hat that I can't remember what are called.  Just going from 
	accent circonflex = circumflex

: this I'd guess we got our alphabet from the Germans after they had been 
: Romanticized and not from the French.  Is this the case?  Why or why not?

OE got its alphabet directly from Latin, plus two letters thorn (for th) and
wynn (for w) derived from runes, and the the crossed d, eth (also th).

After the Norman Conquest OE was spelt by French scribes who refused to use
nonFrench letters wynn, thorn, eth, and ash (ae), and subsituted uu>w, th, 
th, and a. Also some OE combinations were respelt, sc->sh, cg->dg,
palatised c->ch or tch, palatised g->y, h [x]->gh. Nonpalatised c before
an e or i was spelt k. (The OE /y/ was becoming /i/ and spelt i.)

cerce -> church, cynn -> kin, 
niht -> night, daege -> day,
scip -> ship, ecg -> edge

We continue this system, more or less, using the OldFrench spelling of
OldEnglish for Modern English.

Centuries later, learned borrowings introduced ph, ch /k/, etc
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