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Wynn

This article is about the letter. For other uses, see Wynn (disambiguation).
Wynn
Ƿ ƿ
(See below)
Writing cursive forms of Ƿ
Usage
Writing systemAdapted from Futhorc into Latin script
TypeAlphabetic and logographic
Language of originOld English
Sound values[w]
/wɪn/
In UnicodeU+01F7, U+01BF
History
Development
ᚹ
  • Ƿ ƿ
Time period~700 to ~1100
DescendantsꝨ ꝩ
SistersꝨ ꝩ
Transliterationsw
Variations(See below)
Other
Associated graphsw
Writing directionLeft-to-right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
This article contains runic characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of runes.
NameProto-GermanicOld English
*WunjōWynn
"joy"
ShapeElder FutharkFuthorc
Unicodeᚹ
U+16B9
Transliterationw
Transcriptionw
IPA[w]
Position in
rune-row		8
Wynn in the Hildebrandslied manuscript (830s): the text reads ƿiges ƿarne.
Capital wynn appears twice in this 10th century inscription in Breamore: her sƿutelað seo gecƿydrædnes ðe (Here is manifested the Word to thee).

Wynn or wyn[1] (Ƿ ƿ; also spelled wen, win, ƿynn, ƿyn, ƿen, and ƿin) is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound /w/. It was a continued use of the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc runes. Futhorc was the native alphabet of Old English before the Latin alphabet was adopted, and it was a sibling alphabet to the Younger Futhark alphabet that Old Norse used. Both alphabets come from Elder Futhark.

History

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The letter "W"

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While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph ⟨uu⟩, scribes soon revived the rune wynn ᚹ from Old English's native alphabet, Anglo-Frisian Futhorc, for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use during the Middle English period, circa 1300.[2] In post-wynn texts, it was sometimes replaced with ⟨u⟩ but often replaced with a ligature form of ⟨uu⟩, which the modern letter ⟨w⟩ developed from.

Meaning

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The denotation of the rune is "joy, bliss", known from the Anglo-Saxon rune poems:[3]

ᚹ Ƿenne brūceþ, þe can ƿēana lẏt
sāres and sorge and him sẏlfa hæf
blǣd and blẏsse and eac bẏrga geniht.

— Lines 22–24 in the Anglo-Saxon runic poem

Who uses it knows no pain,
sorrow nor anxiety, and he himself has
prosperity and bliss, and also enough shelter.

— Translation slightly modified from Dickins (1915)

Unicode

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Capital wynn (left), lowercase wynn (right)

The following wynn and wynn-related characters are in Unicode:[4]

  • U+01F7 Ƿ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN
  • U+01BF ƿ LATIN LETTER WYNN
  • U+16B9 ᚹ RUNIC LETTER WUNJO WYNN W
  • U+A768 Ꝩ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER VEND
  • U+A769 ꝩ LATIN SMALL LETTER VEND
  • U+A7D4 ꟔ <reserved-A7D4>[5]
  • U+A7D5 ꟕ LATIN SMALL LETTER DOUBLE WYNN[6]

Computing codes

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Character information
Preview Ƿ ƿ
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN LATIN SMALL LETTER WYNN
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 503 U+01F7 447 U+01BF
UTF-8 199 183 C7 B7 198 191 C6 BF
Numeric character reference &#503; &#x1F7; &#447; &#x1BF;

References

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  1. ^ "wyn". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ^ Freeborn, Dennis (1992). From Old English to Standard English. London: MacMillan. p. 25. ISBN 9780776604695.
  3. ^ Dickins, Bruce (1915). Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 14–15.
  4. ^ "UCD: UnicodeData.txt". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
  5. ^ This character has been approved to be encoded as LATIN CAPITAL LETTER DOUBLE WYNN in Unicode 17.0. See here.
  6. ^ Everson, Michael; West, Andrew (October 5, 2020). "L2/20-268: Revised proposal to add ten characters for Middle English to the UCS" (PDF).

See also

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