you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I disagree that these two letters would be much help for English learners. E.g., though, through, thought, tough. Adding thorn and eth wouldn't fix the bigger problem there.

Also curious what you mean by saying we don't even use voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives consistently. As far as I'm aware, I've never heard an accent use an unvoiced one for the word "the".

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    huh? adding thorn and eth makes those way clearer, even to me who speaks it at a native level.
    ðough, þrough, þought, tough
    Immediately a significant part of the ambiguity is gone, because the first letter isn't the same for all the words.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    The point isn’t related to “th”, it’s related to the inconsistent pronunciation of “ough” and being 4 distinct vowels. Eth and thorn don’t fix that. And arguably, inconsistent vowel pronunciation is much more difficult to learn than the two pronunciations of “th”.

  • source
  • parent