Yogh - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Origins

In the manuscripts in Old English (8th-11th century), the letter G traced itself as in the illustration (fig. 1). One recognizes the eye of a G in the insular C-W communication Onciale of Ireland: they are indeed Irish missionaries who, bringing the Christianisme and his texts, transmitted the Latin alphabet to the Anglo-Saxons, writing which replaced the Runic alphabet. The C-W communication, under the feather of the English scribes, became as Middle English a new letter, ȝ (fig. 2).

Here two examples of English texts old then as Middle English. Extract 1 is drawn from the Beowulf (date of drafting of the single manuscript: 10th century), extract 2 of a poem written at the 13th century, The Owl and the Nightingale . The first line shows the C-W communication of the manuscripts (the G uncial islander and the yogh are in red), the second line a version using only the usual Latin alphabet. To note the G uncial capital and the presence of other old letters like thorn or Wynn in the English text old:

Here, drawn from a photograph of the Handwritten of the Beowulf (even extracted), the Irish letter G uncial in its two Breakage S: ( GUARD '') and ( dagum ).

During the period of the Middle English (12th-15th century) yogh , like the others Germanic letters, disappears gradually, replaced by G , there or gh at the end of the word, partly because this letter was unknown written usages brought by the Anglo-Norman scribes. The ignorance of its specificity sometimes led the scribes to confuse yogh and Z and to use this last in the place of the particular letter (just as could there replace þ ). The advent of the Printing works mark the final disappearance of the old letters already dying.

Use

Note: the phonetic transcription is in API.

Former English does not know the yogh but a G come from the Irish C-W communication being used to note old a *g Proto-Germanic. However, this Phonème knows as old English of many Allophone S. It can be carried out:

( there in yurt ) in front of or after the letters I , æ , E and there (except if has , O or U follow it directly);
( J in John ) after N or in the Digraph cg ;
between vowels if has , O or U follow it or after consonant and in front of these vowels;
at the beginning of word in front of a consonant or the vowels has , O and U .

There exist exceptions of course.

As Middle English, the uncial letter is still used but with taken a new form (fig. 2), a kind of cursive Z which one names yogh . When it is worth the sound (and also), the Anglo-Norman scribes prefer to him the letter Caroline G which they thus used on the continent. Yogh is useful then only for sounds which the Anglo-Norman uses do not provide:

old resulting from G old English;
resulting from old (its which did not continue as Middle English). The orthography has in this case sometimes preserved by tradition a yogh where a Wynn (or '' uu '' or '' W '') would be awaited: fēolaga → felaȝ (E) → fellow “companion”;
the /x/ phoneme at the end of the word or in front of deaf consonant (realized or, according to the preceding vowel, like CH in the German Nacht or ich ), writes before preferably H : old English niht → Middle English niȝt , both being worth /nixt/ (currently) “night”.

In kind, the Middle English knows two alternatives of the letter G : the yogh (delivery, and) resulting from the G uncial old English and the G continental brought by the Norman scribes (and).

Between 13th and 15th centuries, there for and gh for replace gradually yogh in all its uses. The phoneme at the end of the word, moreover, amuït, except in some where it evolves/moves in. The orthography carries the trace from there: old English: þurh → average: þruȝ then through (to note the Métathèse consonants) → modern: through “through”. The current orthography testifies to the old presence of the yogh only by its digraph gh .

The letter yogh is only used in fact very little for the linguists: those will indeed prefer to use a less ambiguous symbol, like J or χ , etc On the other hand, it is in Philologie, in the Translittération of the manuscripts, which it finds all its direction.

Data-processing coding

The English C-W communication old of G is sometimes returned in the modern philological editions by a Ezh (or a buckled ezh : ʓ ); there exists a character more adapted than a truth ezh , it is ᴣ U+1D23, however seldom included in the font faces. Thus, one will be able to read ʒear / ʓear / ᴣear for GEAR , which one transcribes if not more simply gēar . The word became ȝere ( yere ) as Middle English, from there year “year”. One uses sometimes, always for former English, ȝ , although it is an anachronism.

The standard Unicode, in its beginnings, did not distinguish yogh ȝ from ezh ʒ , both being coded by ezh . They are however not the same characters. The error was corrected in the 3rd version of Unicode. Currently, one codes yogh by U+021C for the capital and U+021D for the tiny one, are:

capital Ȝ

UTF-8: 0xC8 0x9D;
UTF-8: \310\235 ;
decimal numerical entity HTML: & #541; ;

tiny ȝ

UTF-8: 0xC8 0x9C;
UTF-8: \ 310 \ 234
decimal numerical entity HTML: & #540; .

Bibiography

David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia off the English Language , Cambridge University Near, 1995;
The World' S Writing Systems , collective work under the direction of Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, Oxford University Near, 1996;
Michael Everson, One the derivation off YOGH and EZH , document presented to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1549, published in line, 1997.

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Origins

Use

Data-processing coding

Bibiography

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