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==== Middle and Early Modern English ====
[[File:The Book of Margery Kempe, Chapter 18 (clip).png|thumb|"... hir the grace that god put ..." (Extract from the ''[[The Book of Margery Kempe|The Boke of Margery Kempe]]'')]]
The modern digraph ''[[DigraphTh (orthographydigraph)|digraphth]] ''th'' began to grow in popularity during the 14th century; at the same time, the shape of {{angbr|Þ}} grew less distinctive, with the letter losing its ascender (becoming similar in appearance to the old [[wynn]] ({{angbr|Ƿ}}, {{angbr|ƿ}}), which had fallen out of use by 1300, and to ancient through modern {{angbr|[[P]]}}, {{angbr|p}}). By this stage, ''th'' was predominant and the use of {{angbr|Þ}} was largely restricted to certain common words and abbreviations. This was the longest-lived use, though with the arrival of [[movable type]] printing, the substitution of {{angbr|y}} for {{angbr|Þ}} became ubiquitous, leading to the common "''ye''", as in '[[Ye Olde]] Curiositie Shoppe'. One major reason for this was that {{angbr|Y}} existed in the printer's [[Movable type|types]] that were imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while {{angbr|Þ}} did not.<ref name=Hill>{{cite book | title= The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System |isbn=9780367581565 |chapter=Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text |first=Will |last=Hill |date=30 June 2020 |chapter-url=https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710022857/https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |archive-date=2022-07-10 |url-status=live |page=6 |quote=The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood ‘ye’ occurs through a habit of printer’s usage that originates in Caxton’s time, when printers would substitute the <y> (often accompanied by a superscript <e>) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169)}}</ref> The word was never pronounced as /j/, as in ⟨'''''y'''es''⟩, though, even when so written.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/ye-olde|title=ye-olde - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes {{!}} Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com|website=www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com|access-date=2019-12-13}}</ref> The first printing of the [[King James Version of the Bible]] in 1611 used ''y<sup>e</sup>'' for "''the''" in places such as Job 1:9, John 15:1, and Romans 15:29.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/1611TheAuthorizedKingJamesBible/page/n1399/mode/1up|website=archive.org|title=1611 The Authorized King James Bible|page=1400|accessdate=August 14, 2022}}</ref> It also used ''y<sup>t</sup>'' as an abbreviation for "''that''", in places such as 2 Corinthians 13:7. All were replaced in later printings by ''the'' or ''that'', respectively.
===== Abbreviations =====
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