§ 5. SPECIAL LETTERS. Two letters now obsolete are common in fourteenth-century MSS.: þ and ȝ.
þ : 'thorn', is a rune, and stands for the voiced and voiceless sounds now represented by th in this, thin. The gradual displacement of þ by th, which had quite a different sound in classical Latin (note to VIII a 23), may be traced in the MSS. printed (except X, XII). þ remained longest in the initial position, but by the end of the fifteenth century was used chiefly in compendia like þe 'the', þt 'that'.
ȝ : called 'ȝoȝ' or 'yogh', derives from <g>, the OE. script form of the letter g. It was retained in ME. after the Caroline form g had become established in vernacular texts, to represent a group of spirant sounds:
(i) The initial spirant in ȝoked IX 253 (OE. geoc-), ȝere I 151 (OE. gēar), where the sound was approximately the same as in our yoke, year. Except in texts specially influenced by the tradition of French spelling, y (which is ambiguous owing to its common use as a vowel = i) is less frequent than ȝ initially. Medially the palatal spirant is represented either by ȝ or y : eȝe (OE. ē(a)ȝ-) XV c 14 beside eyen VIII a 168; iseȝe (OE. gesegen) XIV c 88 beside iseye XIV c 16. The medial guttural spirant more commonly develops to w in the fourteenth century: awe (ON. agi) I 83, felawe (ON. félagi) XIV d 7, halwes (OE. halg-), beside aȝ- V 267, felaȝ- V 83, halȝ- V 54.
(ii) The medial or final spirant, guttural or palatal, which is lost in standard English, but still spelt in nought, through, night, high : ME. noȝt, þurȝ, nyȝt, hyȝ : OE. noht, þurh, niht, hēh. The ME. sound was probably like that in German ich, ach. The older spelling with h is occasionally found; more often ch as in mycht X 17; but the French spelling gh gains ground throughout the century. Abnormal are write for wrighte XVI 230, wytes, nytes for wyȝtes, nyȝtes XV i 19 f.
(iii) As these sounds weakened in late Southern ME., ȝ was sometimes used without phonetic value, or at the most to reinforce a long i: e.g. Engliȝsch XI a 28, 37, &c.; kyȝn 'kine' IX 256.
N.B.—Entirely distinct in origin and sound value, but identical in script form, is ȝ, the minuscule form of z, in Aȝone (=Azone) I 105, clyffeȝ 'cliffs' V 10, &c. It would probably be better to print z in such words.
§ 6. SPELLING. Modern English spelling, which tolerates almost any inconsistency in the representation of sounds provided the same word is always spelt in the approved way, is the creation of printers, schools, and dictionaries. A Middle English writer was bound by no such arbitrary rules. Michael of Northgate, whose autograph MS. survives, writes diaknen III 5 and dyacne 9; vyf 22, uif 23, vif 37; þouzond 30 and þousend 34. Yet his spelling is not irrational. The comparative regularity of his own speech, which he reproduced directly, had a normalizing influence; and by natural habit he more often than not solved the same problem of representation in the same way. Scribes, too, like printers in later times, found a measure of consistency convenient, and the spelling of some transcripts, e.g. I and X, is very regular. If at first ME. spelling appears lawless to a modern reader, it is because of the variety of dialects represented in literature, the widely differing dates of the MSS. printed, and the tendency of copyists to mix their own spellings with those of their original.
The following points must be kept in mind:
(i) i : y as vowels are interchangeable. In some MSS. (for instance, I) y is used almost exclusively; in others (VIII a) it is preferred for distinctness in the neighbourhood of u, n, m, so that the scribe writes hym, but his.