@sentientdessert
In Old English and its precursors, these sounds were represented by different characters.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth
@sentientdessert It was.
For example
Printers, rather than make a type piece for the "thorn" used the letter Y as a "close enough".
Which is where we get the confusion of the pronunciation of "ye" as in "Ye olde pie shoppe"
Which is correctly pronounced "The Old Pie Shop".
People at the time understood this perfectly well but as language and printing developed, it went out of use altogether, replaced by "th".
@voltronic