Lietuva, Lithuania, and Chaucer's Lettow

ENThe medial consonant -th- in the word Lithuania requires an explanation. In Middle English, we find the form Lettow in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The word used in Modern English is based on Latin Lituania. It is therefore most likely that -th- in Lithuania is due to a secondary development. The replacement of -t- by -th- may be seen in the context of learned spellings: words written with 'th' acquired an appearance of higher learning, and in many cases the spelling 'th' led to a change in pronunciation because 'th' in English orthography regularly represents an interdentally spirant. Lithuania belongs to the, by no means small, number of words exhibiting this kind of learned influence in their pronunciation.