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I've seen the thread on voiced/unvoiced "thither," but it doesn't quite answer the question.

It seems like maybe the word began falling out of regular speech right around the time initial "th" was becoming voiced in "function words" (term used in that thread), so maybe the pronunciation was simply unstable for a while.

Or maybe it wasn't. Does anyone know how, say, Shakespeare would've pronounced it?

herisson
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Marc Adler
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  • The accepted answer on the linked question says the "voiced" pronunciation (as in today's this and that) arose in early Middle English times. That's 1150 to 1500 (according to OED), which means it would have happened well before Shakespeare's time. So he and his contemporaries probably pronounced *thither* the same way we would today if we still used it. – FumbleFingers Mar 19 '18 at 13:56
  • Possible duplicate of Is there a rule for pronouncing “th” at the beginning of a word? – KarlG Mar 19 '18 at 14:09
  • Possibly the more interesting question is how the AmE pronunciation shifted back to θiðr when it had been ðiðr for so many centuries (and other equally obsolete words, like thence and thou, didn't similarly back-slide). – 1006a Mar 19 '18 at 14:42
  • I was unclear. In the US it's θiðr, whereas in the UK it's ðiðr, so I was wondering which is "more original." 1500 isn't well before Shakespeare's time (he was writing ~100 years later), and there's no reference given in that wiki entry, so it's hard to gauge how accurate it is anyway. My guess is we can't really know how Shakespeare or his troupe might've pronounced it. – Marc Adler Mar 19 '18 at 19:29
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    I'm an American English speaker and I've always used /ðɪðr̩/, like /ðer/. /θɪðr̩/ sounds odd to me. – herisson Mar 20 '18 at 04:01
  • Interesting. Most dictionaries give θɪðr̩ as the US pronunciation. The only time I've heard it spoken was "thither and yon," and it was θɪðr̩. But given 1) how the vocalization happened and 2) the fact that the word itself fell out of use around the same time, it might very well be that the US pronunciation is more original. – Marc Adler Mar 20 '18 at 18:24
  • "Possibly the more interesting question is how the AmE pronunciation shifted back to θiðr..." Do you have evidence for a change in the US pronunciation? – Marc Adler Mar 20 '18 at 18:25
  • I was thinking of it occuring in the phrase "hither and thither", parallel to "here and there". – herisson Mar 21 '18 at 06:04
  • @MarcAdler The OED dates the pronunciation shift from θiðr to ðiðr to the Middle English period, which it dates "from about 1100–50 until about 1450–1500". Since the shift likely predates Columbus and certainly predates both Jamestown and the Plymouth Rock landing, I'd say the earliest American English speakers used ðiðr. – 1006a Mar 21 '18 at 18:15

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The Wikipedia article "Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩" suggests that using /θ/ at the start of thither is a feature of Scottish English pronunciation, although I don't see a citation, and it doesn't mention how old this might be.

In Scottish English, /θ/ is found in many words which have /ð/ further south. The phenomenon of nouns terminating in /θ/ taking plurals in /ðz/ does not occur in the north. [...] Scottish English also has /θ/ in with, booth, thence etc., and the Scottish pronunciation of thither, almost uniquely, has both /θ/ and /ð/ in the same word. Where there is an American-British difference, the North of Britain generally agrees with the United States on this phoneme pair.

herisson
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