Draft:Middle English Alphabet

• Comment: The Middle English article has a section on the alphabet. I recommend using your work here to improve that section, if possible, rather than making a redundant article.
  My other difficulty is that large chunks of this one are not about the Middle English Alphabet, but are about other aspects of Middle English that are off-topic for an Alphabet article. For example the whole section on the Great Vowel Shift does not mention the alphabet at all. M kuhner (talk) 02:40, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

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A page from The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century; roughly in the midst of Middle English.

Example of a text written in Middle English

The Middle English Alphabet was a Latin based alphabet that included up to about 24 to 26 letters and was used from the 13th century to the 16th century. Evolving from Old English, a few letters were able to be kept like Thorn (Þ þ) and Wynn (Ƿ ƿ), but others like Eth (Ð ð), Ash (Æ æ), and Ethel (Œ œ) fell out of use. The letters J and U did not technically exist at the time since they were just stylized variations of the letters I and V at first; however, scribes slowly separated them into different letters over time. The Long S (ſ) was accidentally brought over from sloppy Roman Cursive handwriting into Old English; and while it was used by some writers, it was neglected for a long time until the Early Modern English period. French and Latin had now heavily influenced the language; these influences tried to latinize the alphabet in order to make a more latinate alphabet, and eventually remove all letters that came from Anglo-Saxon runes.

Letter	Name	Sound	IPA
A a	a	ah	/aː/, /ɑː/, /ɒː/, /æː/
B b	be	b	/b/
C c	ce	k, s	/k/, /s/
D d	de	d	/d/
E e	e	eh	/eː/, /ɛ:/
F f	eff	f	/f/
G g	ge	g	/g/, /dʒ/
Ȝ ȝ	yogh	w, y, gh	/w/, /j/, /g/, /x/~/ɣ/
H h	ach	h	/h/~/x/, (silent)
I i / J j	i / je	i, ee	/iː/, /ɪː/
K k	ke	k	/k/
L l	ell	l	/l/
M m	emm	m	/m/
N n	enn	n	/n/
O o	o	oh, oi	/oː/, /ɔː/
P p	pe	p	/p/
Q q	qu	kw	/k/, /kw/
R r	arre	r	/r/
S s ſ	ess	s	/s/, /z/
T t	te	t	/t/
U u / V v	u / ve	uh, oo	/uː/, /əː/, /ʌː/, "/v/"
W w / Ƿ ƿ	doble-u / wynn	w	/w/
X x	ix	ks	/ks/
Y y	wiye / i-grec	i	/ɪː/, /iː/
Z z	zed	z	/z/
Þ þ	thorn	th	/θ/, /ð/

Letters	Sound	IPA
ch / tch	ch	/t͡ʃ/
dg	j	/d͡ʒ/
gh (rare)	g, gh	/g/, /x/, /ɣ/
sch / sh	sh	/ʃ/
th (rare)	th	/θ/, /ð/
uu / vv (rare)	w	/w/
wh / hw	hw	/hw/
ee	ee	/i/, /e/
oo	oo	/u/, /ʌ/

History

See also: History of English