[Sca-cooks] alphabets

[Stefan li Rous]

Jane Williams commented:
> > Having recently had occasion to play with writing in Middle English, it is
> > my observation that there are a great many words which now have 'w' in them
> > that previously had 'u', and the other way around. Other letters too, but
> > that one was the most obvious.
>
> I suppose the letter "w" is probably called "double-yew" for a reason. Maybe that's it: they're the same letter originally? Come to think of it, in Welsh "w" is a vowel and pronounced a lot like "u".

I believe this is correct. The study of the evolution of alphabets
can be interesting. It also gets into various scripts and why some
changed.

For those who might be interested in following this up further, I can
recommend these files in the SCRIBAL ARTS section of the Florilegium:
alphabets-msg     (36K)  4/26/99    Alphabets and how they've changed.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/SCRIBAL-ARTS/alphabets-msg.html
scrpt-develop-art (57K)  6/20/00    "Societal Influences on Script Development"
                                       by Mistress Aquilanne Grace.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/SCRIBAL-ARTS/scrpt-develop-art.html

And this one in the NICOLAA'S ARTICLES section:
Paleo-Scribes-art (25K)  9/ 5/97    "An Introduction to Palaeography for
                                       Scribes"
http://www.florilegium.org/files/NICOLAA/Paleo-Scribes-art.html

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****