THE English alphabet used to have extra letters that have been lost as centuries went by. While today our alphabet consists of 26 letters, the people of Middle Age Britain had an additional six cha… ...

As it happens, that’s not a Y, or, at least, it wasn’t supposed to be. Originally, it was an entirely different letter called thorn, which derived from the Old English runic alphabet, Futhorc.

Nearly half a century after the project began, U of T scholars are halfway through the Old English alphabet. They recently completed the "H" entry after 10 years. Stephen Pelle, co-drafting editor ...