Writing – How to Identify an ‘R’ in ‘Worship’ from a 1591 Text

early-modern-englishtransliterationwriting

I was trying to see how the Spanish word merced was translated into English in the 16th century, when I found this entry in a dictionary from 1591 by Richard Percyvall:

worship

I understand that the second English word is worship, but that "r" is written in a different way from the r's in curtesie and pleasure. In a dictionary of Medieval English I found that worship was indeed a valid form for the word by then, but there were also other forms such as wurðescipe and wrþsipe, so I wonder if I am properly transliterating the word.

So, is that really an r in worship or is it another different character?

Best Answer

That peculiarly written letter is called the R rotunda

an R rotunda with the appearance of the number 2

The r rotunda (ꝛ), "rounded r", is a historical calligraphic variant of the minuscule (lowercase) letter Latin r used in full script-like typefaces, especially blackletters.

Unlike other letter variants such as "long s" which originally were orthographically distinctive, r rotunda has always been a calligraphic variant, used when the letter r followed a letter with a rounded stroke towards the right side, such as o, b, p, h (and d in typefaces where this letter has no vertical stroke, as in ∂, ð). In this way, it is comparable to numerous other special types used for ligatures or conjoined letters in early modern typesetting.

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