# Yogh
**Yogh** (Ȝ ȝ) is a letter of the [Middle English](https://www.edgepedia.org/middle-english) and Middle Scots alphabets, derived from the insular form of the [Old English](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-english) letter g and used to represent a range of palatal and velar sounds, including /j/, /ɣ/, and /x/.[1](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yogh) It fell out of use in England in the later Middle English period, when it was replaced by y and gh, but it survived longer in Scotland, where its confusion with the letter z left permanent marks on Scottish surnames and place names.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh) • [3](https://www.evertype.com/alphabets/scots.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Character | Ȝ (capital, U+021C) and ȝ (small, U+021D), Latin Extended-B[4](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v3.0%20chart.pdf) |
| Origin | A development of the insular g of Old English script, which became a distinct letter in Middle English[1](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yogh) • [2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh) |
| Sound values | /j/ initially and medially, /ɣ/ medially, and /x/ medially and finally; Everson also lists /w/ among its velar-related values[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh) • [5](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html) |
| Replacement | In later Middle English, yogh was replaced by y and gh, as in niȝt becoming night[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh) |
| Scots legacy | Middle Scots scribes and printers confused yogh with z, producing spellings such as Mackenzie, Menzies, and Zetland[3](https://www.evertype.com/alphabets/scots.pdf) • [6](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh) |
| Unicode history | Unified with EZH in Unicode 1.0; the two characters were disambiguated in Unicode 3.0[7](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v2.0%20alpha.pdf) |
| Name | Recorded from Middle English, around 1300; the origin of the name is unknown[8](https://www.etymonline.com/word/yogh) |
## Origin and sound values
The letter descends from the insular g used in Old English script, a form the [Anglo-Saxons](https://www.edgepedia.org/anglo-saxons) had received from Irish scribes.[5](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html) In Old English this was simply a way of writing g; it became a distinct letter only in Middle English, after Norman scribes introduced the Carolingian g that survives in modern print.[1](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yogh) Once the two forms of g were used side by side, yogh took over the fricative and palatal values while the new g represented the stop /ɡ/.
In Middle English the letter's value depended largely on its position in the word. Encyclopedia.com's summary of the *Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language* gives /j/ initially and medially, as in ʒok (yoke) and beʒonde (beyond); /ɣ/ medially, as in oʒen (own) and eʒe (eye); and /x/, the sound of Scots loch or German Bach, medially and finally, as in riʒt (right) and plouʒ (plow).[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh) Michael Everson, a typographer and standards specialist who has documented the character for ISO/IEC working groups, lists its range as the velar and velar-related sounds /ɣ/, /j/, /w/, and /x/.[5](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html)
The name itself is recorded from Middle English, around 1300. The *Oxford English Dictionary* connects it with yoke, whose initial sound yogh represented, while the Middle English Compendium relates it instead to Old English eoh, "yew tree," and a rune name; the true origin is unknown.[8](https://www.etymonline.com/word/yogh)
## Decline in English, survival in Scots
From the early 1200s, French-trained scribes used y, and sometimes gh, to replace yogh, and by the later Middle English period the letter had disappeared from English writing: niȝt became night.[8](https://www.etymonline.com/word/yogh) The modern digraph gh in words such as night, light, and plow is the direct residue of the yogh.[2](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh)
In Scotland the letter lived on. In Middle Scots texts the glyphs ȝ and z fell together, and the combination was used to write both [j] and [z]; in the seventeenth century y was reintroduced from standard English usage to separate the two sounds.[3](https://www.evertype.com/alphabets/scots.pdf) Early Scots printers, lacking a yogh, substituted z, and pronunciation later shifted to match the new spelling.[6](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh) The results are still visible: the surname Mackenzie, the name Menzies, pronounced "Ming-is" in Scotland, and the place Lenzie, formerly "Lin-yay."[5](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html) • [6](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh) The form Zetland for Shetland arose as a misreading of a yogh and was the official county name from 1890 to 1975 before falling out of use.[6](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh) The *Concise Scots Dictionary* still devotes a page to words beginning with yogh, placed between the y and z sections.[6](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh)
## Yogh and ezh
Yogh is easily mistaken for ezh (ʒ), the tailed z of the [International Phonetic Alphabet](https://www.edgepedia.org/international-phonetic-alphabet), which represents the sound of the s in measure. The two characters have different histories: ezh derives from the letter z, while yogh derives from the Gaelic form of g.[5](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html) In typography they are kept apart by the top stroke: yogh is usually drawn with a rounded top, ezh with a flat, z-like angle.[4](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v3.0%20chart.pdf) The Oxford English Dictionary and the [Early English Text Society](https://www.edgepedia.org/early-english-text-society) have systematically distinguished the two characters, and the curvature of yogh's upper part was introduced in nineteenth-century fonts partly to make the distinction visible.[7](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v2.0%20alpha.pdf)
The distinction was briefly lost in computing. In Unicode version 1.0, YOGH was unified with EZH under a single code point; Everson's 1997 document to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, "On the derivation of YOGH and EZH," argued that the unification was an error, and the two characters were disambiguated in Unicode 3.0.[5](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html) • [7](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v2.0%20alpha.pdf) Working Group 2 formally accepted the four medieval English characters, including LATIN CAPITAL LETTER YOGH at 021C and LATIN SMALL LETTER YOGH at 021D, at its meeting in Redmond in March 1998.[9](https://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/02n3148.pdf) The characters now sit in the Latin Extended-B block, and the Unicode 1.0 naming error survives only as a note that ezh was "mistakenly named yogh in Unicode 1.0."[10](https://www.kurinto.com/pdf/Kurinto_CodeChart_UFI_Book.pdf)
## Practical use today
Yogh appears mainly in editions of Middle English and Older Scots texts, in dictionaries, and in discussions of medieval handwriting. Readers of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Scottish documents are warned to expect a letter that looks like the number 3, a z, or a y.[6](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh) [Editorial](https://www.edgepedia.org/editorial) conventions vary: Wiktionary's Middle English guidelines, for consistency and typeability, render yogh as y, gh, or w rather than ȝ, following modern general editions of Chaucer.[11](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary%3AAbout_Middle_English) The character is not on standard keyboards, and typing it requires a font and code point that support it.[12](https://www.startswithy.com/yogh-vs-letter-using-aprropriately/) Medievalists' fonts such as Junicode carry both yogh and ezh and caution against substituting the numeral 3 or the ezh glyph for a yogh.[13](https://ftp.icm.edu.pl/packages/CTAN/fonts/junicode/doc/JunicodeManual.pdf)
## References
1. [yogh, Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yogh)
2. [YOGH, Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, via Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/yogh)
3. [Scots alphabet, The Alphabets of Europe, Michael Everson (2001)](https://www.evertype.com/alphabets/scots.pdf)
4. [MUFI character recommendation, version 3.0, Part 2](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v3.0%20chart.pdf)
5. [On the derivation of YOGH and EZH, Michael Everson, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1549 (1997)](http://www.evertype.com/standards/wynnyogh/ezhyogh.html)
6. [Letter yogh, Scottish Handwriting, National Records of Scotland](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh)
7. [MUFI character recommendation, version 2.0, Part 1](https://mufi.info/mufi/pdfs/MUFI%20v2.0%20alpha.pdf)
8. [yogh, Online Etymology Dictionary](https://www.etymonline.com/word/yogh)
9. [Unconfirmed minutes, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 Meeting 34, Redmond, 1998](https://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/02n3148.pdf)
10. [Kurinto Font Folio UFI Book code chart](https://www.kurinto.com/pdf/Kurinto_CodeChart_UFI_Book.pdf)
11. [Wiktionary: Middle English entry guidelines](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary%3AAbout_Middle_English)
12. [Yogh vs Letter: Which One Should You Use?](https://www.startswithy.com/yogh-vs-letter-using-aprropriately/)
13. [Junicode manual](https://ftp.icm.edu.pl/packages/CTAN/fonts/junicode/doc/JunicodeManual.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Writing and notation systems › Latin script*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license