Do you ever think about how the “th” sound in the word “thick” and the “th” sound in the word “this” are written with the same two letters? How does that even make sense? Why would anyone decide that it should work that way?

Well, what if I told you that things didn’t always work like that? In the early Middle Ages, the English language had two ways of writing the “th” sound - the letters eth (ð) and thorn (þ). These letters were used because the Latin alphabet, originally used by the Romans, did not have the right letters for these unique Anglo-Saxon sounds.
What happened to these letters, then? When England was conquered by the Norman’s in 1066 AD, French became the dominant political language in England for a long time, and the then-unstandardized spelling conventions of the English language began to mimic that of Medieval French, which did not have the letters ð or þ, nor even the “th” sound, for that matter. It was then these beautiful letters began to become less and less common. The final nail in the coffin was upon the invention of the printing press in Germany. Because German, as well as most other languages in continental Europe, didn’t have ð or þ, the printing press was not designed to print ð or þ. Therefore, when it reached England, English printers adapted to the built-in printing press settings, eventually cementing the letters T and H’s use for both “th” sounds.

These letters should be brought back. Having a single letter for sounds found in some of the most common words in English is a basic necessity for clarity. You wouldn’t use the letter F to write the V sound, would you? There is a simple solution: use ð (uppercase: Ð) for the “th” like in the word “this,” and þ (uppercase Þ) for the “th” in “thick.”

Ignoring the letters of eth and thorn is ignoring the heritage of the English language. The reason these letters fell out of use is because of influence from other continental European languages, and while these languages all have their own unique conventions, they cannot and do not match up well with the English language. And using these letters is not impossible in the modern day - the modern Icelandic language still uses these in their own spelling.

In sum, English needs to re-adopt the letters of eth (ð) and thorn (þ) since it is better fit for clarity and the expression of the language. Every signature of support brings us one step closer to fixing our broken language. What’s more, the more people use these letters, the more likely they will become standard. Start using them in informal writing, and maybe one day it will be accepted in more formal forms as well. 

Overall, a return of the classic letters of eth and thorn is long overdue. We need to act, and we need to act NOW!