[acknowledged]BUG: Tyndale Newe Testament character processing incorrectly (but coded correctly)

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH ... the first place I opened was filled with a typographical convention for the that is not recognized in processing:

which comes across in a right click menu as a simple y or worse:

However, the Logos resource appears to correctly reflect the manuscript ... well maybe as the right click treats the thorn as a y ... the system simply doesn't handle it correctly

Edit 1: to add manuscript

Edit 2: to account for the thorn (see below)

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Comments

David Wilson

This is the olde English character thorn "þ", same as the current day Icelandic, pronounced "th" and in most cases here when used as a stand alone means "the" (as is reasonably obvious from the context shown in your illustration". Actually if you look closely it is a thorn with an e over it, which is the way "the" used to be written

Thorn is often confused with the similar character "y" so that some people think the olde English "ye" is something other than "the".

Actually it is not a Y but a thorn and what looks like "ye" is actually pronounced "the".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_Latin_alphabet where thorn is that strange looking letter after T before U.

In written form and in several early fonts the top of the loop was left open, making the letter look like a left handed y but starting with a straight downward stroke.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/703660#Comment_703660

Thank you - I (obviously) did not recognize it as a thorn in this context.

David Wilson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/703665#Comment_703665

Actually not a simple thorn but a thorn with an e over it, which seems to be getting shown as if it were a y with an e over it, which is a character which cannot be copied and pasted to this forum apparently....

One reason given for using this special notation of a thorn with an e over it was to avoid confusion with the other similar word with which it is most often confused these days, the plural of thee (or perhaps originally written as þee (that's a thorn not a p), as in "God rest ye merry, gentlemen...".

As we can all see from this 1536 edition of the Tyndale Bible, consistent spelling was not something that was of great concern, but pronunciation was considered important, so it would be important for Tyndale and contemporaries to clearly distinguish between þe and ye as they have quite different pronunciations but in some of those early fonts often appeared to be very similar.

I do not have a printed copy of the Tyndale Bible and suspect few of us do, so detecting and correcting typos in the Logos version is going to be quite a challenge !!

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/703684#Comment_703684

From what I've found online, there are substantial spelling differences between the early edition and this ... unfortunately I can find more plates of the former.

Thomas Ball

I know we are able to print thorns correctly in other books (ex. consistently throughout "The English Works of Wyclif: Hitherto Unprinted.", but as David already pointed out, this isn't that same sort of Thorn.

I don't think we have the character for the more "y" looking thorn let alone the shorthand form of the word "the" in this context. I'm checking about this.

David Wilson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/704614#Comment_704614

The character that is needed is

David Wilson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/704679#Comment_704679

If you have the original handy it may look closer to rather than in early middle English

There may be occasional superscripts of t or u rather than just e so care may need to be taken in some contexts:

that, sometimes written with the ascender crossed as Ꝥ

thou

How the English was represented depended a lot on what letters the printer had available which in turn depended on where they had purchased their supplies as many printers fonts from Europe did not have the letter thorn included.

Apparently the first printing of the 1611 King James Version of the Bible used for the and for that.

(Information courtesy of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter) )

David Wilson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/704760#Comment_704760

Looks like there is quite extensive use in the preface of (or in a more modern font ) for "that" although this is currently being shown as a y with a t superscript.

Not seen this before but the preface also seems to show a thorn with a c superscript which I take to be an s with a small tail which is a way of writing "this"

Also seeing used in the preface w with c or t superscript which might at first appear to be used as abbreviations for "which" and "with".

Suggest this needs another closer look at the original as they are likely all intended to be "with" using w and t superscript

Veli Voipio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/704885#Comment_704885

For the optimal case, shouldn't we have different fonts for the old versions, and also some gothic (fraktur) fonts for the old German editions?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/706493#Comment_706493

Any resolution on this yet. It should be difficult to correct so that the character is recognized everywhere in the program. It's already fine many places.

Thomas Ball

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708268#Comment_708268

Any resolution on this yet. It should be difficult to correct so that the character is recognized everywhere in the program. It's already fine many places.

This was a deliberate decision. My guess is we don't have the character(s) that match what the wiki page has. That being said, I sent this over to Content Production. They initially responded that it is the correct character. I did some digging and it seems how to represent the thorn and the contractions including the early modern version is considered mostly an editorial decision. I even found an academic blog that italicizes Latin characters to represent the thorn character to make the text both readable and accurate. I showed them what I found and it seems they are discussing what they would like to do about it. I included this thread in my email so they know where to come to report what is decided when a decision is made.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/708554#Comment_708554

The Content people did this correctly and I don't want them to change it - it would misrepresent the manuscript. I want the program to recognize it as a valid character in the context menu. PLEASE don't have them mess with the text.