Appendix:Early Modern English spellings

The spelling of Early Modern English—English as written from the end of the 15th to the mid- to late 17th century—was far less standardised than present-day English orthography. Early modern texts still retain many spellings from the Middle English period that were subsequently deemed non-standard. Since the early modern period corresponds to the beginnings of printing, these texts also often perpetuate practices inherited from medieval manuscript-writing. Together, these features can make understanding early modern texts difficult for contemporary readers.

Notable differences from contemporary English

Orthography

• aun may substitute for an in words or morphemes of French origin, corresponding to modern French /ɑ̃/.

  commaundment → commandment,    dalliaunce → dalliance

• c often substitutes for t in the endings -tion and -tious.

  compilacion → compilation,    vexacious → vexatious

• e is frequently found in final positions where it no longer appears in contemporary English. Less often, it may be dropped where it is now standard.

  sinne → sin,    againe → again,    toe → to,    els → else

• -our varies freely with -or and sometimes -er.

  sailour → sailor,    debtour → debtor,    soldiour → soldier

• y varies with ie in final positions. Particularly in earlier texts, y and i may be largely interchangeable, especially where now pronounced /aɪ/.

  Marie → Mary,    daie → day,    tyme → time,    kyndlie → kindly

• Doubling of postvocalic consonants is inconsistent and often varies from the present-day standard.

  tel → tell,    perhapps → perhaps

Genitive forms

Early Modern English marks a transitional period between the Middle English genitive -es and the present-day possessive clitic -'s, which was standardised by the Late Modern period in the 18th century. The apostrophe originally marked the absence of the e, which in early texts is still often spelled out even when no longer pronounced. In other cases the e is simply dropped without an apostrophe. (Thus kinges, kings → king’s or kings’.)

Particularly in the later part of the Early Modern period a form known as the his genitive was also in use primarily (though not exclusively) for singular nouns ending in sibilants, corresponding in such cases to the pronunciation /-ɪz/. In the his genitive the ending is spelled out as the full word “his”, as in the popular 1614 work Purchas His Pilgrimage. Kinge his would thus be an alternative spelling of king’s. This was at least partly the result of a folk etymology of the ending. In some rare cases the practice was extended by analogy, and beyond orthography, to female referents with her. Even in the period in which the his genitive was current, however, a zero suffix remained more common for nouns ending in sibilants (thus simply Atkins for present-day Atkins’ or Atkins’s).

Typography

Long s, u for medial v, ẽ for em, and capitalised nouns in the First Folio (1623)

• i and j are often treated as a single letter, with j appearing only in final positions and i elsewhere.

  iustly → justly,    iij → iii (Roman numeral)

• Postvocalic n and m can be represented by a tilde.

  reckõ → reckon,    thẽ → them,    cõpose → compose

• Long s (ſ) is used for s in lower case in initial and medial positions.

  aſſert → assert,    ſuppoſes → supposes

• u and v are treated as a single letter, with v used initially and in upper case, and u elsewhere irrespective of whether a consonant or vowel is meant.

  ouer → over,    euil → evil,    vnder → under,    vniuersal → universal

• w is often printed as vv, especially in upper case.

  vvorlde → world

• Particularly in earlier texts, y may represent th—originally a substitution made by printers for the older English letter thorn (þ). This is especially common in the ligatures ⟨yͭ⟩ for that and ⟨yͤ⟩ for the. This was a purely typographic substitution (see Wikipedia): the pronunciation of the words did not change.
• In the later part of the period and into the 18th century, the initials of common nouns are often capitalised in a similar manner to modern German, though with less consistency.
• In Roman type, italics are often used for proper nouns and proper adjectives. Blackletter texts may use Roman type to distinguish foreign words.

Example

The original sentence

From a book printed in blackletter:

1543, Diego de San Pedro, translated by John Clerk, A certayn treatye moste wyttely deuysed […] entytled, Lamant mal traicte de samye […], folio 9, recto:

Yet neuertheleſſe the more yͤ tyme paſſed, the more myne yll, vnder diſſymulacion approched and like as my dolour dyd augmẽt ſo my remedy decreaſſed I was ĩ a ſtraũge neceſſytie.

The same passage, normalised and with punctuation modernised:

Yet nevertheless, the more the time passed, the more mine ill under dissimulation approached, and like as my dolour did augment, so my remedy decreased; I was in a strange necessity.