Ye

[Tyrn]

Hi,

What is it, really? To judge by more or less authentic examples, it's the. Sometimes it surfaces as you, but in all the cases I ever stumbled upon, it looks like an artificial mannerism created by innocent people. Is it really so?

[poli]

Ye is an archaic way of saying the. It is sometimes used currently to invoke the olden times. For example, you may see something like Ye Olde Millcreek Inn as
opposed to the more contemporary The Old Millcreek Inn. This is what I know of the word, ye. It is possible that in contemporary slang, it may mean other things.

[wrholt]

Several centuries ago the word "the" was commonly written as "þe", using a character called "thorn" (written Þ in uppercase and þ in lowercase). This letter is still in active use in some languages, particularly in Icelandic.* In script (rather than in type) it looked different, and to an extent it resembled script versions of the letter Y/y, although the script versions were still distinct at that time. Back in the day the letter was pronounced like the 'th' in English "thin" (similar to how many people in Spain pronounce the word "caza"). Signs for inns and other businesses often used a script Þ/þ instead of "th" when writing the word "The", as it looked "old fashioned" and suggested that the business had a long history and had a good reputation.

However, during the time that printing presses with moveable type started to be used to print written matter in English, type founders often made one character for Y/y and for Þ/þ.

In any case, with the passage of time common people forgot that the character Þ/þ was originally a way to spell the first sound of the word "the", and started to perceive the script thorn as the letter "y", and started pronouncing "Ye Olde Booke Shoppe" with the "y" sound rather than with the "th" sound.

*A longtime friend and one-time neighbor of mine is Icelandic: in the US he spells his name Hafthor, but in Iceland he spells it Hafþór; if he and his wife had had sons, their patronymic would have been Hafþórsson. However, they have 2 daughers, and their patronymic is Hafþórsdóttir.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

This is pretty interesting. Thank you for this explanation, Wrholt!