Shetland or Zetland ?

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.X (copied c. 1400).

The letter yogh, Ȝ, was a distinctive feature of the Scots language, but it has long since fallen out of use in modern orthography. The yogh represented a voiced palatal approximate, which would have sounded similar to the “i” in the word “million” when pronounced with two syllables. During the Middle Scots period, the written yogh was often indistinguishable from a cursive Z, and early Scots printers frequently replaced it with a Z character as yogh was not available in printing type.

Over time, due to the transition to the printed word, the yogh became less common in written Scots, and by the start of the Modern Scots period (around 1700 AD), it had largely been replaced by a Y character. However, the Z stuck around as an orthographic artifact in certain words, such as Menzies (pronounced Mingus) and Culzean (pronounced Cull-ain).

A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World: Pinkerton, John (1809)

For the better part of the 1700s, Shetland was rendered Zetland in Scots and in English. While by the middle of the 1800s Shetland was consistently spelled with the digraph SH, the variant Zetland remained in use in certain varieties of English for longer. Even when the Shetland spelling became standardized, the Zetland spelling did not disappear entirely, as it had become entrenched in certain orthographic corners, such as the ZE post code for the Shetland Islands. The archaic spelling was also exported to places across the empire, such as Zetland in New South Wales, and as a title in the peerage which then seeped out into a number of eponymous entities.

The Zetland lifeboat, named for the Marquess of Zetland. Image credit; Britain Express

Yogh is often described as “a defunct letter”, along with the wynn (ƿ ) and the thorn (þ), but a better description would be “archaic. These letters may not be in wide circulation today, but their history and how speakers have interpreted what sounds they represent definitely still effect language as it is written today.

@mathewssonya

Replying to @Currawong oh absolutely! This is one of my favorite corners of language history. The evolution of orthography and defunct letters. Since we have resurrected the ash (æ) and the ethel (œ), I propose we bring back the letters yogh, wynn and thorn too! Whom do we see about this? #shetland #zetland #historylesson #orthography #lingtok #learnontiktok #yogh #englishspelling #scotsleid #printingpress #spelling #linguistiktok #themoreyouknow #scottishtiktok #nerdtok #middleenglish #oldenglish

♬ original sound – Sonya