Monday, October 8, 2012

Elizabethan Alphabet

Greetings,

With the history of the language investigated, it is time to move on to the language itself. The alphabet of the language is the building blocks of the language. This is the first part of the investigation of the language.

Introduction

            Why is it important to discuss the alphabet of the language? This would be the first question that is asked about this particular part of the investigation into Elizabethan English. The letters form the building blocks of the words which form the language and some of the spelling idiosyncrasies which appear in the printed words of the Elizabethan period are due to the changes in the letters rather than a difference in spelling and this needs to be taken into account.

            This part of the overall investigation is to discover the way in which the letters in the alphabet were used and also how they were not used as both elements of this equation are important. The results give a clearer overall understanding of how the letters were or were not used and also give some information about the language which is useful to the overall investigation. Further, the information presented by the investigation of the alphabet lays the foundation upon which the formation of the words is based.

            Many of the specifics which will be related will seem to be more appropriate to printers rather than authors. This is due to the simple fact that not much that was hand-written has survived, whereas much more of the printed texts have. The printed texts are also easier to deal with as they have less of an issue with author preferences. In the end the product which is to be produced by this investigation is the recreation of a printed work and thus the printed works are actually more appropriate to the investigation overall.

            What also needs to be revealed before a real discussion of the alphabet and spelling is possible is that there is a difference between the language and typesetting. This will be revealed in this investigation and will also reveal the large impact which printers had upon the language with regard to alphabet use and the resulting spelling and orthography. Hence this investigation will be divided into two areas the first being general rules and the second addressing typesetting.

General Rules

            Before a detailed discussion is possible it is necessary to find out the general rules of the alphabet as it stood in the period. It is helpful to relate this to the modern alphabet as this gives a foundation of commonality. This foundation allows for comparison and thus understanding of the alphabet of the period.

The alphabet much like that of present with some archaic forms present, “-th” replaced thorn though “y” was still present for closed words “ye” as “the” becomes less common in the later period (Smith, 2005:125). The period being referred to here is the Early Modern period, thus as the Elizabethan period is toward the end of this period, such considerations need to be acknowledged. While it is difficult to isolate the differences to a particular date an overall picture is possible. The easiest way to look at this is through an examination of the letters themselves.

To begin with, “i” and “j” interchangeable, the “j” form was rare in English, and was only used in Latin words, and numerals in the final position (Crystal, 2008:46). For the most part it could be accounted that the forms of these two letters were so much the same that to discern between the two in general correspondence would have been difficult. The same could be said also for “u” and “v”. The “v” used initial and “u” elsewhere (Smith, 2005:126). Once again this could be seen as a result of the similarity in the forms of the letters themselves.

Other letters used could also be seen to be interchangeable due to their phonetic nature. The “y” was still used in some, where “i” in modern (Smith, 2005:126), this is a hangover from the older language and could be argued to be different from the “j”. Further, “-ie” used for “y” frequently (Smith, 2005:126). Once again a phonetic argument of similarity could be argued. The phonetic argument is one which is still used and argued.

Even today there is still the question of whether a word should be spelled with a “c” or “s” as in “defence” or “defense”, this is an argument which extends back to the Elizabethan period where “c” and “s” were sometimes changed (Smith, 2005:126). The general rules were based on the phonetic nature of the letter influenced by previous rules established. For phonetics, “-ic” appears as “–ick” (Smith, 2005:126), there being no real difference in pronunciation of the words resulting. Of course in special cases such as, the use of “- ph” for “f” in quasi-learned words (Smith, 2005:126), the idea was to emphasise the word by the spelling as important. These issues and differences in the use of the letters of the alphabet make spelling from the period interesting and often this was not assisted, and in some instances made more confusing by the printers of the period.

Printer’s Influence

            One of the first things that need to be noted is that many of the printers in England in the Elizabethan period were imported from other countries and as such English was not their native language, this created problems in and of itself. However, when examining the impact that they had on the language and the alphabet and how it was presented they were the primary presentation of the language to the world at large and our biggest resource. Most of the rules presented above were established or reinforced by the printers of the period.

            Just as with many of the rules above there was some confusion as to when certain letters were to be used and when others should be used. “Printers made no progress, however, in establishing the use of <j> and <v> to represent consonants, <u> and <i> vowels.” (Lass, 1999:28). As a result just as above in the general rules established the two sets of letters remained interchangeable. Of course it was not just these two sets of letters where the use of the letters was reflected by the printers of the period. “They [printers] did not distinguish the uses of <i> and <y> either, although there was a preference for <y> or <ie> in final position.” (Lass, 1999:28). Of course being a preference this was not always adhered to. The point is that the letters use is reflected by the printers as much the same in general as the rules reflected above. However, there were also typesetting considerations that need to be made.

            Typesetting is the process by which a printer constructs the text for printing. In this process a printer may make alterations to the words in order that they are presented better or to suit the type which is being used. Combine this with the use of the letters as described, and it is of little surprise that there were spelling issues in the Elizabethan period.

            To relate this process back to the rules established, there are those rare times where a “v” will be positioned next to a “u”, thus resulting in “uu”, this was unpalatable unless in original word (Crystal, 2008:46). In this case it was unpalatable for presentation’s sake and ease of reading the text. Thus spellings could be changed for appearance. A similar case is with “s”. There were three forms of “s” present; standard, capital and long (ſ) (Crystal, 2008:43), the use of the form was dependent on the word and the fit in the typesetting. This idea of the fit in the typesetting resulted in changes in spelling.

            There are several typesetting tools which were used in order that letters did not have to be used too many times as there was a limited supply of the letters. An example of this letter-saving are ligatures (“joined letters”), a single piece of typeset for two letters such as ct, ff, ſ i, ſ t (Crystal, 2008:44). This was designed not only to save letters but also to save space so that the type lined up. Another example of a typesetting tool used in this way are the logograms which are symbols standing for words, “&” for and, &c for et cetera or for things which are assumed knowledge (Crystal, 2008:55). As stated before these tools were used in order to ensure that the type lined up at the end of the line to make things neat in the printing. Two more tools for the same purpose were to omit letters and use superscript letters, omitted letters were marked by placement of tilde (~) over letter to show following missing, most commonly “m” or “n” especially when doubled (Crystal, 2008:56). In the doubled cases, it was the second letter that was omitted. Superscript letters were used in a similar vein to shorten common words, “y” with “u” for thou, “t” for that, “e” for the (Crystal, 2008:57), once again for typesetting purposes. Another example of this which was to affect spelling was the addition of a final “-e” on words (Mugglestone, 2006:150) in order to fill in a space for typesetting purposes. These typesetting elements alone make it difficult for the modern reader and also made spelling in the period problematical.

Conclusion

            While an alphabet may be standardised and commonly used, it is the use of this alphabet which can affect the orthography of words and change their spellings. This can lead to confusion and misrepresentation of words. The modern reader who picks up an Elizabethan text is confronted by an alphabet which is for the most part the same as his own but has variations which affect the readability of the document which has been accessed. This is especially the case with regard to spelling which, while phonetic in most cases will jar the modern reader.

            The situation with the variations in use in the alphabet were not established firmly in the Elizabethan period, though it is possible to lay down some useful guidelines as to how it was used and these can assist the modern reader in understanding texts from the period. What should be noted is that these general uses were not universal and printers also had their own ideas about how the texts should be printed and this does affect the spelling of words and the presentation of what was written. This is especially the case where typesetting tools were used in order to present the text in a more professional manner, ensuring that the ends of the lines all lined up properly.

            The alphabet forms the building blocks for the words which form a language and thus it is important that this is taken into account before even considering looking at the words themselves, little less the language. This is especially the case for the modern reader attempting to make his way through a period text. In the study of a language especially of a previous period, the alphabet and its use gives clues as to how the words, and thus the language will be formed and thus a key to understanding the language overall.

Bibliography

Crystal, D. (2008) ‘Think on my Words’: Exploring Shakespeare’s Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

Lass, R. (ed.)(1999) The Cambridge History of the English Language: Volume III: 1476 – 1776, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

Mugglestone, L. (ed) (2006) The Oxford History of English, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK

Smith, J. (2005) Essentials of Early English, Routledge, New York, USA

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