The is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers or speakers. It is the only definite article in English. The is the most commonly used word in the English language, accounting for seven percent of all words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of either genders. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers.
Pronunciation
In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as when followed by a consonant sound, and as when followed by a vowel sound or used as an emphatic form. In modern American English, however, there is an increasing tendency to limit the usage of the latter pronunciation to emphatic purposes and use the former even before a vowel. The same change is happening in New Zealand English. In some Northern England dialects of English, the is pronounced or as a glottal stop, usually written in eye dialect as ; in some dialects it reduces to nothing. This is known as definite article reduction. In dialects that do not have the voiced dental fricative, the is pronounced with the voiced dental plosive, as in or ).
Etymology
The and that are common developments from the same Old English system. Old English had a definite article :wikt:se#Old English|se, :wikt:seo#Old English|sēo, and þæt. In Middle English, these had all merged into þe, the ancestor of the Modern English word the.
Usage
The principles of the use of the definite article in English are described under "Use of articles". The word the as in phrases like "the more the better", has a distinct origin and etymology and by chance has evolved to be identical to the definite article.
Geographical names
An area in which the use or non-use of the is sometimes problematic is with geographic names. Names of rivers, seas, mountain ranges, deserts, island groups and the like are generally used with the definite article. Names of continents, individual islands, countries, regions, administrative units, cities and towns mostly do not take the article, Scandinavia, Yorkshire. However, there are certain exceptions:
Countries and territories the names of which derive from "island" or "land", however, only take the definite article if they represent a plural noun: the Netherlands, the Falkland Islands, the Faroe Islands, and the Cayman Islands, even the Philippines or the Comoros do, though the plural noun "islands" is omitted there. The Greenlandon the other hand does not take the definite article, and neither does Christmas Island or Norfolk Island. Exceptions include "the North Island".
Certain countries and regions the names of which derive from mountain ranges, rivers, deserts, etc., are sometimes used with an article even though in the singular, but this usage is declining, although the Gambia remains the recommended name of that country. Since the independence of Ukraine, most style guides have advised dropping the article. Use of the Argentine for Argentina is considered old-fashioned.
Since "the" is one of the most frequently used words in English, at various times short abbreviations for it have been found:
Barred thorn: the earliest abbreviation, it is used in manuscripts in the Old English language. It is the letter þ with a bold horizontal stroke through the ascender, and it represents the wordþæt, meaning "the" or "that".
þͤ and þͭ appear in Middle English manuscripts for "þe" and "þat" respectively.
yͤ and yͭ are developed from þͤ and þͭ and appear in Early Modern manuscripts and in print.
Occasional proposals have been made by individuals for an abbreviation. In 1916, Legros & Grant included in their classic printers' handbook Typographical Printing-Surfaces, a proposal for a letter similar to Ħ to represent "Th", thus abbreviating "the" to ħe. In Middle English, the was frequently abbreviated as a þ with a small e above it, similar to the abbreviation for that, which was a þ with a small t above it. During the latter Middle English and Early Modern English periods, the letter thorn in its common script, or cursive form, came to resemble a y shape. As a result, the use of a y with an e above it as an abbreviation became common. This can still be seen in reprints of the 1611 edition of the King James Version of the Bible in places such as Romans 15:29, or in the Mayflower Compact. Historically, the article was never pronounced with a y sound, even when so written.
