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from the æ-þƿ-is-the-name-of-the-spy-in-my-novel dept.
Along quaint New England streets, you'll probably spot a sign or two declaring itself "Ye Olde Tavern" or "Ye Old Soda Shoppe." But before you adopt a British accent and order a pint of ale inside, there's a bit of history you should know.
Phrases like ye olde are actually just some of the late 19th century's first marketing ploys, meant to evoke a sentimental connection to older times. And ye has its own complicated story—based in the history of the alphabet.
English has always been a living language, changing and evolving with use. But before our modern alphabet was established, the language used many more characters we've since removed from our 26-letter lineup.
The six letters described in the article are: ð, þ, ƿ, ȝ, æ, and œ. Orthographic history is fun!
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:35PM
I don't think so; I think you mean either the really uncommon ancient letter yogh (U+021D, ȝ) [wikipedia.org] or more probably the long s [wikipedia.org] that looks like an f : U+017F, ſ , and you can still find that one in books only 1-200 years old.
It's quite difficult to get uſed to reading texts wiþ ðose long eſſes, I find.
Maybe you just invented the Lovecraftian ligature sgh, though :-)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:23PM
I assume based on its appearance in some typefaces that the German ß was originally simply a ligature of a long s followed by a regular s. It therefore seems possible that English-language typesetters may have used a similar ligature in the past.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:06PM
You're right. I half-remembered seeing it in the Declaration of Independence and other documents of the period and thought of it as ß.
Either way there's a seventh letter to add to obsolete English orthography.
I wonder if we'll ever see OMG or BFF or the like become ligatures the way et became &.
Washington DC delenda est.