Split digraph/magic E

[ItsIcyOutsideIThinkINeedThorin]

Are there any split digraphs other than 'magic E' or are they one and the same?

OK, but I don't know precisely which texts those are.

I suppose it depends upon what type of mine we're talking about! mwyn is Welsh for a mine (coal mine) and similarly mijn is Dutch for the same kind of hole in the ground. I was referring to mine (and yours) which comes from Old English min.

Tullay mijn lyking is a middle English poem/carol (and they aren't singing about a pit)

There is a sound file of Old English to listen to here, along with a transcription. It's noticeable that in ancient Anglo-Saxon the final e is stressed.

www.abdn.ac.uk/english/beowulf/olink.htm

It's much more complicated than that learnandsay ...Old English varied depending where you were Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish were the main forms. Words were written as they sounded reflecting the writer's origins and obviously the alphabet used differed from ours.

Well, yes and no. It's rather the way you were describing the standardisation of Modern English in the 18thC. Old English was actually deliberately standardised by Alfred the Great from Winchester when he sent Latin translated into English to all parts of his kingdom (the parts of England not controlled by the Danes.) And he sent them with instructions that all the youth of the nation such that had no other purpose should learn to read them well.

but Alfred rule didn't extend to large areas of England and the youth of the nation only included specific and important parts of the population while the majority continued as before.

The number of people who could write, or had the requisite materials for doing so, would have been absolutely minuscules in Alfred's time, and not many more would have had access to books, but Alfred certainly helped to standardise the written English of his day.

But the centuries of Norman rule after 1066 almost snuffed out written English entirely and changed the language dramatically too. Modern written English restarts around 1350. It was spelt much more consistently (e.g. by Chaucer).

By that time -e endings were already often silent, but also sometimes already used for lengthening the preceeding vowel. Our main problem is that even Chaucer's scribe changed many of his spellings. Printers then did much more so. So we can't be totally certain about earlier pronunciations or spellings. The notion of 'correct' spelling did not become firmly established until 1755.

'seide/seyde', 'shal/shul', 'wys/wyse' (Chaucer)

That depends on what written English means. Few people had been writing English before 1350. Even before then Latin had been the language of the church. But after the Norman conquest French and Latin became the official languages of state, government and church. The Black Death brought the beginning of the end to that with its decimation of the clergy and its corresponding diminution of the reach of Latin. Also after the plague court cases could be pleaded in English.

In 1350 approx 80% of adults in England were unable to write their own name. In the 15th C approx 70% of Europe was illiterate ...

sorry learnandsay but I'm completely lost as to what point you are now trying to make.

I was just trying to make Masha's date of 1350 seem less arbitrary. It's not true to say that there was no standardisation of English before 1755. In fact there were a couple (or more.) But Chaucer wasn't part of one. Two of the most influential were the one used by followers of Wyclif, the Lollards, and the other developed by the Chancery in Chancery Lane, known as Chancery Standard. It was Chancery Standard which was most readily accepted by printers when they came along, owing to the fact that it was easy for them to follow.

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