Shapes and meanings

Sometimes trying to decipher old handwriting can be a real agony, not to mention the changes in the meanings and words. Here are some links to assist you to make sense of artistic, old handwriting:

UK National Archives:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/default.htm

Tips and interactive tutorials (and a great ducking stool game)

Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Service:

http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/alphabets.html

Alphabets (in the link – click on each letter and see alternative forms of writing)

Deciphering Old Handwriting by Sabina J. Murray:

http://amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html

Tips on abbreviations etc and commonsense advice.

Old English was used prior to the 12^th century and it was followed by Middle English, which was used until the late 15^th century. 

You can access a free online book: A Concise Dictionary of Middle English by Mayhew and Skeat on Project Gutenberg’s site at:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10625

Middle English was followed by Early Modern English (period of Shakespeare etc) that was used until the 18^th century.

University of Toronto houses an online Early Modern English dictionary, which, unfortunately, is not free. In case you are interested, you can find it here:

http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/

Google has digitised Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, 1768, which is accessible for free (it takes a while to download).:

http://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PT7#v=onepage&q&f=false

You may also find some very useful links in the following page:

http://www.lexilogos.com/english/english_modern_early.htm

Happy transcribing!