Wynn

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Wynn

Wynn (Ƿ, ƿ) was a letter in Old English used to write the /w/ sound. It came from the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc runic alphabet, an early writing system that preceded the Latin alphabet in Old English and is related to other Germanic runes.

In Old English, the /w/ sound was sometimes written with the digraph uu, but writers revived the wynn rune to represent the sound more directly. Wynn was used roughly from about 700 to 1100 AD and remained common during the Anglo-Saxon era.

Around the Middle English period, around the 13th century, Wynn fell out of use and was replaced by the Latin letter w (or by u or the uu ligature in some texts). The rune’s name and meaning come from runic poems, where Wynn signifies joy or bliss and prosperity.