Early Modern English - Orthography

Orthography

The orthography of Early Modern English was fairly similar to that of today, but spelling was unstable. Early Modern English as well as Modern English had inherited orthographical conventions predating the Great Vowel Shift.

Early Modern English orthography had a number of features of spelling that have not been retained:

• The letter had two distinct lowercase forms: (short s) as used today, and <ſ> (long s). The short s was used at the end of a word, and the long s everywhere else, except that the double lowercase S was variously written <ſſ> or <ſs> (cf. the German ß ligature). This is similar to the alternation between medial (σ) and final lower case sigma (ς) in Greek.
• and were not yet considered two distinct letters, but different forms of the same letter. Typographically, was used at the start of a word and elsewhere; hence vnmoued (for modern unmoved) and loue (for love).
• and were also not yet considered two distinct letters, but different forms of the same letter, hence "ioy" for "joy" and "iust" for "just".
• The letter <Þ> (thorn) was still in use during the Early Modern English period, though increasingly limited to hand-written texts. In print, <Þ> was often represented by .
• A silent was often appended to words. The last consonant was sometimes doubled when this was appended; hence ſpeake, cowarde, manne (for man), runne (for run).
• The sound /ʊ/ was often written (as in son); hence ſommer, plombe (for modern summer, plumb).