Page:An elementary middle English grammar (IA elementarymiddle00wrig).pdf/25

 § 6. The following brief sketch of ME. orthography is merely intended to draw the student's attention to the subject in a connected manner. To enter into it here with any degree of completeness would necessitate the repetition of much that properly belongs to other chapters. Long vowels were, of course, not marked as such in ME. manuscripts, but in order to avoid confusion they are here generally marked long.

§ 7. The ordinary ME. orthography is based partly on the traditional OE. orthography and partly on the Anglo-Norman (AN.). OE. æ̆, ē̆a, and ē̆o continued to be written in early ME. long after they had changed in sound. æ had become a over a large area of the country in the early part of the twelfth century (cp. § 43), but it often continued to be written æ and by AN. scribes e until well on into the second half of the thirteenth century. ea became æ in Late OE., but the ea often continued to be written until a much later date. And then the æ had the same further fate as the ordinary OE. æ above. The old traditional spelling with ǣ was preserved in the Ormulum (c. 1200), Laȝamon (c. 1205), and the Proclamation of London (1258), but in other monuments it, as also ǣ from older ēa, was generally written ę̄ from about the end of the twelfth century, ēa had also become ǣ, except in Kentish, by about the beginning of the eleventh century, although the ēa often continued to be written until a much later period. This change of ǣ to ę̄