"ye": "the" vs. "thee"?

[Herb Stahlke]

Pretty much so.  The form of the thorn changed over time so that the
ascender shortened and disappeared, leaving a symbol that looked a lot
like a <y>.  I haven't seen a study suggesting that the pronunciation
changed.

Herb

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "ye":  "the" vs. "thee"?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It appears, then, that part of my recent confusion is irrelevant to
> what I was concerned about:  I had conflated "ye" (you) with "thee",
> when they were/are separate.  It's only "ye" (the) and "ye" (you), as
> printed in the 18th century, that I had assumed -- apparently
> incorrectly -- had once been spelled with thorn, and wanted to distinguish.
>
> In writings I am transcribing, I decided to change "ye" to "the" when
> it was, and to leave "ye" unaltered when it was "you", so that my
> readers wouldn't be confused about the pronunciation and meaning of
> the two.  Am I on safe ground?
>
> Joel
>
> At 9/30/2008 10:24 PM, Paul A Johnston, Jr. wrote:
>>Joel,
>>Both the and thee were spelled with thorn, and in Middle English
>>texts, not infrequently with one e.  Northern scribes were the ones
>>who wrote their thorns and y's identically or nearly so.  Now, ye is
>>a separate word, the old second person PLURAL pronoun, nominative
>>case < Old English ge = /je:/.  Since thee is objective case, the
>>two generally don't get confused, particularly in the
>>North.  Furthermore, thou and you can look alike (you or yow), but
>>thou is nominative and you, objective.
>>
>>The confusion is potentially more likely in Early Modern English,
>>once ye and you get confused.  Northern Middle English and Older
>>Scots also frequently write the plural pronouns as <3e, 3he, 3ou,
>>3ow, 3hou, 3how) where 3 =  the letter yogh.  Again, they can be
>>disambiguated this way.
>>
>>Paul Johnston
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 9:23 pm
>>Subject: "ye":  "the" vs. "thee"?
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------
>> > ------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> > Subject:      "ye":  "the" vs. "thee"?
>> > -------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > ------------
>> >
>> > I have managed to confuse myself about "ye" in 18th-century
>> > writings.  I have understood the Y to stand for thorn.  But were both
>> > "the" and "thee" spelled with thorn, and the latter became the "ye"
>> > meaning "you" (in addition to the "ye" meaning "the")?
>> >
>> > Joel
>> >
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