Why was f used instead of s in Old English?
Why in old English text was an ‘s’ written as an ‘f’? It wasn’t; it was just written differently according to its position in the word. The f-like s (like an f without the crossbar) was a tall variant used at the start or in the middle of a word, which the modern s was used at the end or after a tall s.
When did f Change to s English?
It rarely appears in good quality London printing after 1800, though it lingers provincially until 1824, and is found in handwriting into the second half of the nineteenth century” being sometimes seen later on in archaic or traditionalist printing such as printed collections of sermons.
When did s look like f?
The history of S is a twisting, turning path. Until around the 1100s or so, the medial S was the lowercase form of the letter, while the curvy line we use today was the uppercase form.
What letters were in Old English?
We used to have six more letters in the English alphabet
- Eth (ð) The y in ye actually comes from the letter eth, which slowly merged with y over time.
- Thorn (þ) Thorn is in many ways the counterpart to eth.
- Wynn (ƿ) Wynn was incorporated into our alphabet to represent today’s w sound.
- Yogh (ȝ)
- Ash (æ)
- Ethel (œ)
Why did some’s look like f?
Soon after, the English bookseller and publisher John Bell omitted the long s in his editions of Shakespeare’s texts, reasoning that it would prevent confusion with the letter f and keep the lines of the text more open visually.
What 4 letters did Old English have that we no longer use?
There are four letters which we don’t use any more (‘thorn’, ‘eth’, ‘ash’ and ‘wynn’) and two letters which we use but which the Anglo-Saxons didn’t (‘j’ and ‘v’). Until the late Old and early Middle English period, they also rarely used the letters ‘k’, ‘q’ and ‘z’.
When did f stop being an s?
In France, publisher and printer François-Ambroise Didot abandoned the long s in his new more modern typeface around 1782.
When did f stop being used for S?
The long s started to be seen as antiquated in the late 18th century, Overholt said, and it began disappearing. Different sources blame different people for the death of the long s. In France, publisher and printer François-Ambroise Didot abandoned the long s in his new more modern typeface around 1782.
Did Old English have K?
When did the long’s stop being used?
Printers in the United States stopped using the long s between 1795 and 1810: for example, acts of Congress were published with the long s throughout 1803, switching to the short s in 1804. In the US, a late use of the long s was in Low’s Encyclopaedia, which was published between 1805 and 1811.
When was the long’s used?
Long s was used in the vast majority of books published in English during the 17th and 18th centuries, but suddenly and dramatically falls out of fashion at the end of the 18th century, reflecting the widespread adoption of new, modern typefaces based on those developed by Bodini and Didot during the 1790s.