Get mediæval
I have a very keen interest for typography, and by extension also phonetics and language history. So when a story about the origin of the English word “ye” (as in “ye olde shoppe”) appeared on Kuro5hin, I was merrily delighted. Much link-clicking ensued.
þe conclusion is þat þis whole “ye” history was a big misunderstanding. þe Olde English had letters þat were based on runes, including þ, pronounced “thorn,” and ð, pronounced “eth.” Wye did þis happen, þen? When þe printing presses appeared, þey were all based on þe Latin characters. þey didn’t have any letters based on runes. þhe letter “þ”, when hand-written, looks very much like a wye (þat would be a “Y”), so þe printers simply used a Y instead of carving a new letter. þe signs outside of þe olde shoppes didn’t change at once, however. So when people got used to seeing Y instead of þ, ðey simply assumed that þe signs said “ye”.
If it wasn’t for þe printed word, we would still be saying “thou” (or rather “þou”) instead of “you” to ðis very day.
Well. Enough with the runes, already.
Here are a bunch of articles on k5 that I’ve bookmarked. I found them interesting; perhaps you will too.
- Ye Is Not, And Never Was, an English Word; the one I just ranted about.
- Got parody? — about an ad campaign with a twist.
- Lord of the Swastika: Political Backgrounds in SF and Fantasy — what if Hitler wrote science fiction?
- The Man Who Invented God
- Entrenched Technology, from The Culture — Iain M. Banks’ excellent Culture series.
- Alternative Logic — impress your friends by not having them understand a word of what you say.