Wynn

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Ƿ
Ƿ ƿ
(See below)
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin	Old English language
Phonetic usage	[w] /wɪn/
Unicode codepoint	U+01F7, U+01BF
History
Development	ᚹ Ƿ ƿ
Time period	~700 to ~1100
Descendants	Ꝩ ꝩ
Sisters	None
Transliteration equivalents	w
Variations	(See below)
Other
Other letters commonly used with	w
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.

Name	Proto-Germanic	Old English
	*Wunjō	Wynn
	"joy"
Shape	Elder Futhark	Futhorc
Unicode	ᚹ U+16B9
Transliteration	w
Transcription	w
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

Wynn or wyn^[1] (Ƿ ƿ; also spelled wen, ƿynn, and ƿen) is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound /w/.

History[]

The letter "W"[]

While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph ⟨uu⟩, scribes soon borrowed the rune wynn ᚹ for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use (perhaps under the influence of French orthography) during the Middle English period, circa 1300.^[2] It was replaced with ⟨uu⟩ once again, from which the modern <w> developed.

Meaning[]

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

ᚹ Ƿenne brūceþ, þe can ƿēana lyt
sāres and sorge and him sylfa hæf
blǣd and blysse and eac byrga 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)]

Miscellaneous[]

It is not continued in the Younger Futhark, but in the Gothic alphabet the letter