The use of the letter æ in the KJV

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chuckd

Puritan Board Junior
I see this letter every now and then. Some editions have it, some don't and spell it ae. I recognize it because I use to teach spoken English and it is an IPA letter.

For example, John 3:23
23 And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3:23&version=AKJV

Was this formally an English letter?
 
The article is about the phoneme /æ/ rather than the letter. <æ> was indeed used orthographically in Old English for that phoneme.

But the <æ> retained in later English has its origins in the Latin diphthong /ae/, often spelt using the ligature <æ> (simply a combination of two printed letters).


Formerly, there were various ligatures used in printing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature
 
In John 3:23, the Greek is Αἰνὼν (Ainon). The Greek diphthong /ai/ (pronounced like in the word 'mine') was rendered by the Latin /ae/ in borrowed words (a very similar, possibly identical, pronunciation to the Greek). English convention, as I understand, is based on the Latin Vulgate.
 
In John 3:23, the Greek is Αἰνὼν (Ainon). The Greek diphthong /ai/ (pronounced like in the word 'mine') was rendered by the Latin /ae/ in borrowed words (a very similar, possibly identical, pronunciation to the Greek). English convention, as I understand, is based on the Latin Vulgate.

Thanks for the lesson. So I should pronounce æ as /ai/ when I see it?
 
In John 3:23, the Greek is Αἰνὼν (Ainon). The Greek diphthong /ai/ (pronounced like in the word 'mine') was rendered by the Latin /ae/ in borrowed words (a very similar, possibly identical, pronunciation to the Greek). English convention, as I understand, is based on the Latin Vulgate.

Thanks for the lesson. So I should pronounce æ as /ai/ when I see it?

Not usually when reading an English text. The word 'aeon' (or 'eon'), according to the OED, can be pronounced in these ways, for example: Brit. /ˈiːən/ , /ˈiːɒn/ , U.S. /ˈiən/ , /ˈiˌɑn/ - in spite of its origins in the Greek word αἰών, which had the diphthong.
 
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