946: Myneralls, and Inconsistent Spelling Jul 12, 2017

In many ways, Middle English spelling was a better indicator of the way in which people actually spoke than Modern English spelling, now standardized. Standards for spelling were only beginning to matter the way they do today, but even by a single author, there was not necessarily consistent spelling-habits. In The Charter of Massachusetts Bay: 1629 (link to the full text here), what would now be 'minerals' is spelt four different ways: in order of most common to least common 'Myneralls' (5 times), 'Mynerals' (2 times), 'Mineralls' (1 time), and 'Mvneralls' (1 time). Indeed, "and Myneralls...ind Mvneralls" which conceptually the same pair of two words is written two different ways in the same sentence. At this period in English, there had been some significant sound-shifts that had eventually resulted in Early Modern English, but the form of the language was still fairly new and fairly inconsistent for many people. The spelling, however, does give some insight into the manner people pronounced things, something not so easy determined with English currently. It should be noted that all of the nouns are capitalized, as is still the practice in Modern German.