Yogh

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Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox grapheme

The letter yogh (ȝogh) (Template:Lang Template:Lang; Scots: Template:Lang; Middle English: Template:Lang) is a Latin script letter that was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing y (Template:IPA) and various velar phonemes. It descends from the Insular G, the form of the letter g in the medieval Insular script, ᵹ.

In Middle English writing, tailed z came to be indistinguishable from yogh.

In Middle Scots, the character yogh became confused with a cursive z and the early Scots printers often used z when yogh was not available in their fonts.<ref name="DSL">Template:Citation.</ref> Consequently, some Modern Scots words have a z in place of a yogh—the common surname Menzies was originally written Menȝies (nowadays pronounced mingis but originally menyers, from the French menieres).

Yogh is shaped similarly to the Cyrillic letter З and the Arabic numeral 3, which are sometimes substituted for the character in online reference works. There is some confusion about the letter in the literature, as the English language was far from standardised at the time. Capital Template:Lang is represented in Unicode by code point Template:Unichar, and lower case Template:Lang by code point Template:Unichar.

Pronunciation

Capital yogh (left), lowercase yogh (right)

In Modern English, "yogh" is pronounced Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en using short o<ref name = "OED">Template:OED</ref> or Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en, using long o.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref>

It stood for Template:IPAc-en and its various allophones—including Template:IPA and the voiced velar fricative Template:IPA—as well as the phoneme Template:IPAc-en (Template:Angle bracket in modern English orthography). In Middle English, it also stood for the phoneme Template:IPA and its allophone [ç] as in Template:Angle bracket Template:Gloss (Template:IPA), and also represented the phonemes /j/ and /dʒ/. Sometimes yogh stood for Template:IPA or Template:IPA, as in the word Template:Angle bracket Template:IPA Template:Gloss.

In Middle Scots, it represented the sound Template:IPA in the clusters Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA, written lTemplate:Lang and nTemplate:Lang.<ref name = "DOST">Template:Citation.</ref>

In medieval Cornish manuscripts, yogh was used to represent the voiced dental fricative Template:IPA, as in Template:Angle bracket, now written Template:Angle bracket, pronounced Template:IPA.

History

File:Ploughmen Fac simile of a Miniature in a very ancient Anglo Saxon Manuscript published by Shaw with legend God Spede ye Plough and send us Korne enow.png
Yogh used for Template:IPA in Middle English: Template:Lang ("God speed the plough and send us corn enough")

Old English

Template:Further The original Germanic g sound was expressed by the gyfu rune in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc (which is itself sometimes rendered as Template:Lang in modern transliteration). Following palatalization, both gyfu and Latin g in Old English expressed the Template:IPA sound before front vowels. For example, "year" was written as gear, even though the word had never had a g sound (deriving from Proto-Germanic *jērą).

With the re-introduced possibility of a Template:IPA sound before front vowels, notably in the form of loanwords from the Old Norse (such as gere from Norse gervi, Modern English gear), this orthographical state of affairs became a source of confusion, and a distinction of "real g" (Template:IPA) from "palatalized g" (Template:IPA) became desirable.

In the Old English period, ᵹ was simply the way Latin g was written in the Insular script introduced at the Christianisation of England by the Hiberno-Scottish mission. It only came to be used as a letter distinct from g in the Middle English period, where it evolved in appearance into ȝ, now considered a separate character.

Middle English

In the 14th century, the digraph gh arose as an alternative to yogh for /x/, and eventually overtook yogh in popularity; still, the variety of pronunciations persisted, as evidenced by cough, taught, and though.Template:Clarify The process of replacing the yogh with gh was slow, and was not completed until the arrival of printing presses (which lacked yogh) in England around the end of the fifteenth century. Not every English word that contains a gh was originally spelled with a yogh: for example, spaghetti is Italian, where the h makes the g hard (i.e., Template:IPA instead of Template:IPA); ghoul is Arabic, in which the gh was Template:IPA.

The medieval author Orm used this letter in three ways when writing Early Middle English. By itself, it represented Template:IPA, so he used this letter for the y in "yet". Doubled, it represented Template:IPA, so he ended his spelling of "may" with two yoghs. Finally, the digraph of ȝh represented Template:IPA.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the late Middle English period, yogh was no longer used: Template:Lang came to be spelled night. Middle English re-imported G in its French form for Template:IPA (As a further side note, French also used Template:Angle bracket to represent Template:IPA in words like voyage and yeux).

Scots

In words of French and Gaelic origin, the Early Scots palatal consonant Template:IPA had become Template:IPA or in some cases Template:IPA, and the palatal consonant Template:IPA had become Template:IPA by the Middle Scots period.<ref name = "DOST" /> Those were variously written Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang or Template:Lang, and Template:Lang, Template:Lang or Template:Lang (cf. gn and gli in Italian). By the Modern Scots period the yogh had been replaced by the character z, in particular for Template:IPA, Template:IPA (nTemplate:Lang) and Template:IPA (lTemplate:Lang), written nz and lz. The original Template:IPA and Template:IPA developed into Template:IPA in some words such as Template:Lang or Zetland for Shetland.<ref name = "DSL" /> Yogh was also used to represent Template:IPA in words such as Template:Lang, Template:Lang (yesterday) and Template:Lang but by the Modern Scots period y had replaced yogh.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref> The pronunciation of MacKenzie (and its variant spellings) (from Scottish Gaelic Template:Lang Template:IPA), originally pronounced Template:IPA in Scots,<ref name = "DSL" /> shows where yogh became z. Menzies Campbell is another example.

After the development of printing

In Middle Scots orthography, the use of yogh became confused with a cursive z and the early Scots printers often used z when yogh was not available in their fonts.

The yogh glyph can be found in surnames that start with a Y in Scotland and Ireland; for example the surname Yeoman, which would have been spelled Template:Lang. Sometimes, the yogh would be replaced by the letter z, because the shape of the yogh was identical to some forms of handwritten z.

In Unicode 1.0, the character yogh was mistakenly unified with the quite different character ezh (Ʒ ʒ), and yogh itself was not added to Unicode until version 3.0.

Examples of Middle English words containing a yogh

These are examples of Middle English words that contain the letter yogh in their spellings.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref> Template:Col-begin Template:Col-2

Template:Col-2

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Scots words with Template:Angle bracket for Template:Angbr

Placenames

See also:

Placenames standardised without Template:Angbr

  • Cu' Dheis – a township on Tiree previously found as Cowzeise;
  • Yieldshields – now written as pronounced although previously found as Zuildshields;
  • Yell – found archaically as Zell in early modern texts;
  • Shetland – known commonly as Zetland in the nineteenth century – Zetland County Council being the official name of the county from 1890 until 1975 resulting in Shetland postcodes beginning with the letters ZE.

Surnames

See also:

  • Gilhaize – a seemingly invented surname used for the eponymous protagonist of John Galt's Ringan Gilhaize
  • Layamon – now written as pronounced although frequently rendered with a yogh as Laȝamon up to the early 1900s in literary referents;<ref>Template:Citation.</ref>

Miscellaneous nouns

  • Assoilzie – pronounced with a silent z – in Scots law: acquittal or ruling in favour of the defender in a civil matter;
  • Brulzie – with a variety of spellings including bruilzie and broolzie – a commotion or noisy quarrel – possibly related to Brulyie to broil;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • Capercailzie – the Scots spelling of capercaillie (IPA Template:IPAc-en) from the Gaelic capall-coille (Template:IPA) meaning "forest horse";
  • Gaberlunzie – most correctly pronounced gaberlunyie (IPA Template:IPAc-en) but now often pronounced as written, a licensed beggar;
  • Spulzie — pronounced spooly with a variety of spellings including spuilzie and spulyie, both the taking of movable goods and the term for a process of restitution for such crimes;
  • Tailzie – pronounced Template:IPA in Scots law: a defunct since 2000 term for an entailed estate/interest in one;
  • Tuilzie – now standardised to Tulyie a struggle or fight, from the Old French 'toeillier' meaning to strive, dispute or struggle;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • Ulzie – pronounced ooly, oil. Found in reference to 'The Ulzie Ball' held by Longforgan weavers once daylight had returned sufficiently to allow work without the use of oil lamps.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In Egyptology

A Unicode-based transliteration system adopted by the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale<ref name=IFAO>Template:Cite web</ref> suggested the use of the yogh ȝ character as the transliteration of the Ancient Egyptian "aleph" glyph: <hiero>A</hiero>

The symbol actually used in Egyptology is File:Latin small letter egyptological Alef.svg, two half-rings opening to the left. Since Unicode 5.1, it has been assigned its own codepoints (uppercase U+A722 Ꜣ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF, lowercase U+A723 ꜣ LATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF); a fallback is the numeral 3.

See also

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References

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