The 7 Forgotten Letters of the Alphabet

The English alphabet contains 26 letters. These 26 letters represent all the sounds the English language has to offer. Or, does it? Thinking about it for a second, you probably realize that no, the English alphabet doesn't contain all the sounds of the English language. At one point, the alphabet had almost 30 letters. And so, in this video, we’ll go over the seven forgotten letters of the English alphabet.

Sources:
From Old English to Standard English by Dennis Freeborn

10 Letters That Didn't Make the Alphabet by M Asher Cantrell

Music:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

This video was sponsored by Brilliant.

[Aalborgian]

Æ is still very much alive in Danish. OE is now written as Ø, btw a noun in itself meaning ‘island’. The third non-standard letter is Å, used to be AA, but was changed in the 1940/50s. Å is also a noun in itself meaning ‘small stream’.

[Halli]

The letters "Þþ", "Ðð" and "Ææ" (directly available on my Icelandic keyboard) are still used in modern Icelandic, as Icelandic is the closest a modern language gets to Old Norse.

[tc]

Bringing back eth and thorn make the most sense. 1) it helps to differentiate 2) it helps learners of English as a second language to pronounce the language more accurately.

[infinitesimians]

My favorite is '&'.
What I've heard, and hope is true, is that this letter was taught to english school children and was listed at the very end of the alphabet after 'z'. So, when they sang their alphabet song, they ended it with 'x..y.. z... and, per se, &. Z was spoken ZED by the english and & simply called AND.
When it later fell off the tail end of the alphabet (being more a complete word symbol than a letter used in making words) its name was concatenated, changing from from 'and per se AND' to ampersand.
As I say, I hope this is true, because it's a cute story.

[MrBlueBurd]

In Dutch, and only Dutch, I and J combined, IJ, is considered a single character. It's only since quite recently, in the last 30-40 years or so, that not capitalizing both, if they start a sentence or proper noun, is considered correct grammar.

The constant evolution of spelling and grammar is interesting.

[Oldtanktapper]

Proud to be keeping Æ alive and well in the English language!

[JaelaOrdo]

As a history teacher this has quickly become one of my favorite channels on YouTube, great video as always 👍🏾

[litigioussociety]

I guess you could have mentioned eng 'ŋ.' Not really a separate letter on the same order, but it does show up in older writings. It's just ng, but in some dialects there is a slight variation in how ng is pronounced at times. Similar to the way T can be softened or dropped.

[DIOsNotDead]

Wikipedia says that long s (ſ), in typography, is a swashed lowercase s. this means it’s a letter with some lines being lengthened or exaggerated for style.

fun fact: it is also the first half of the letter Eszett (ß) used in German. the second half of “ß” is the Ezh, aka: “tailed z” (Ʒʒ).

[BritishBeachcomber]

Ash (AE æ) is still used in British English, for example, encyclopedia/encyclopædia. There are many others, particularly in printed text.

[josephmeldau]

Someone told me that the Irish alphabet had lots of other letters which got lost for the same reason, when printing presses from europe came over, and that's why irish spelling seems so odd to English speakers. I would love a video about this if possible as it would really help me understand the language of my ancestors better

[Bob]

In the Scandinavian countries we are very happy with our Æ, Ø and Å. (The Swedes write them a bit differently, though).
Æ makes us able to differentiate between the very different A sounds in "car" and "cat".
Ø makes us able to differentiate between the very different U sounds in "uniform" and "fur".
Å makes us able to differentiate between the very different O sounds in "two" and "for"

[jimmyfauth]

Hey, native French speaker here, it appears that you have made a confusion between ash and ethel. Ash ist NOT used in French today, ethel is, like in the word œil (eye) or œuf (egg). Today, it makes mostly an [ø] sound, sometimes é, and we name this grapheme (because it's not really a letter) “e dans l'o” or “e in the o”. Great video though!!

[georgebrown]

Wow, that is a thought-provoking video. It shows how much English has changed over the centuries, from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) to Modern English. Thank you for this eye-opening and educational video.

[edgeeffect]

The long S never died... ask a mathematician about integration and "hello, long S"

[MSSAg]

Thorn, æ and œ because in many Germanic languages, like English and Dutch, tons of everyday words do use these in spoken form. I’m pretty sure they would also be useful in simplifying certain grammar/spelling rules.

[robertholt]

Very cool. I'm over 60 years old and today I learned something new. I find all your videos fascinating. Keep it up and I'll keep watching.

[Gingeryv]

imagine if "w" was remplaced by "ɻ" "
imagine someone types:
"ɻhat are u wearing"

and u awnser
"bro wat"

and then this brother awnsers back:
"ɻhy are you using this lost letter ? u miss it ?"

[wayneyadams]

The integral sign in Calculus is a long s; since integration is a form of continuous summation using a long s makes sense.

[home]

I had questions a while ago about these old letters and no one would answer me. Now here is a video on these letters. I just had to wait for the answer, which took a time. Thankyou grateful.