Hello, Ben! I'm really enjoying your column. Glad I found it, after all these years. :-)
I have a question that's been bothering me since I've started deep-diving into medieval paleography. I have a hunch you might be exactly the person to ask.
Why did medieval scribes start dotting the letter Y?
Hello, Ben! I'm really enjoying your column. Glad I found it, after all these years. :-)
I have a question that's been bothering me since I've started deep-diving into medieval paleography. I have a hunch you might be exactly the person to ask.
Why did medieval scribes start dotting the letter Y?
It seems -- based on what've been able to find -- to have started around the Carolingian Renaissance, or not very long before it (certainly before the practice of dotting the letter I). The sources I've found either say nothing about it, or claim it was to discriminate Y from thorn, which I have reasons to doubt. I have my own hypothesis, but it better to ask an expert before getting carried away ;-)
Hello, Ben! I'm really enjoying your column. Glad I found it, after all these years. :-)
I have a question that's been bothering me since I've started deep-diving into medieval paleography. I have a hunch you might be exactly the person to ask.
Why did medieval scribes start dotting the letter Y?
It seems -- based on what've been able to find -- to have started around the Carolingian Renaissance, or not very long before it (certainly before the practice of dotting the letter I). The sources I've found either say nothing about it, or claim it was to discriminate Y from thorn, which I have reasons to doubt. I have my own hypothesis, but it better to ask an expert before getting carried away ;-)