Letter yogh
When reading sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century documents written in Scotland expect to come across a letter of Anglo-Saxon origin which is now defunct, and which, confusingly, looks like the number 3 or the letters z or y. This was the archaic letter yogh.
![yogh](/sites/default/files/styles/maximum_size/public/2024-02/letter_yogh_1.gif?itok=FBwebhAC)
The yogh, if formed correctly, looked like the letter z with an extra loop descending below the line, or the number 3 with a flat top-stroke and the lower half below the line. It represented a guttural 'yh' sound. It crops up in words such as Tailzie and an example appears in the word sonze (meaning excuse or delay) below.
![sonze](/sites/default/files/styles/maximum_size/public/2024-02/letter_yogh_2.gif?itok=g1ERm9QE)
Other words and place names contained the yogh, such as the place Lenzie (which used to be pronounced 'Lin-yay'), and the surname Mackenzie.
It was often used where we would expect to find the letter y, as in the word yeir[is] below.
![yeir[is]](/sites/default/files/styles/maximum_size/public/2024-02/letter_y_02_0.gif?itok=cOx07cCn)
The form Zetland (for Shetland) was originally an error, based on a misreading of the yogh. The name was adopted as the official title of Zetland County Council from 1890-1975. However, many Shetlanders and scholars detested it, and the form Zetland is now obsolete. The Concise Scots Dictionary devotes a page to words beginning with the yogh, between the sections devoted to words beginning with the y and the z.
Printers used z or y instead of yogh, and, over the years, pronunciation has changed to match the spelling. An exception is the name Menzies, which in Scotland is pronounced 'Ming-is' (the z like the gh in Genghis Khan).