I should be obliged if any of your readers would give me the reason
for the transposition of certain letters, chiefly, but not
exclusively, in proper names, which has been effected in the course
of time.
The name of our Queen Bertha was, in the seventh century, written
Beorhte.
The Duke Brythnoth's name was frequently written Byrthnoth, in the
tenth century.
In Eardweard, we have dropped the _a_; in Ealdredesgate, the _e_. In
Aedwini, we have dropped the first letter (or have sometimes
transposed it), although, I think, we are wrong; for the given name
Adwin has existed in my own family for several centuries.
John was always written Jhon till about the end of the sixteenth
century; and in Chaucer's time, the word _third_, as every body
knows, was written _thridde_, or _thrydde_. I believe that the _h_
in Jhon was introduced, as it was in other words in German, to give
force to the following vowel. Certain letters were formerly used in
old French in like manner, which were dropped upon the introduction
of the accents.
B. WILLIAMS.
Hillingdon, Jan. 5.
* * * * *