# Word-initial ff > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Word-initial_ff > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Word-initial_ff.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word-initial_ff > Source revision: 1346819986 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{short description|Origin and use of double "f" at the beginning of a word}} '''Word-initial ff''' is the [digraph](/source/Digraph_(orthography)) {{angbr|[ff](/source/digraph_ff)}} occurring at the beginning of a word. It is sometimes occurs [capitalized](/source/capitalized) as {{angbr|Ff}}, and sometimes occurs as the [lowercase](/source/lowercase) {{angbr|ff}}. In some languages, such as [Welsh](/source/Welsh_(language)), {{angbr|ff}} is a perfectly normal digraph to begin a word, and this phenomenon is not notable. In [English](/source/the_English_language), however, it is quite unusual for this digraph to occur in this position (excluding such things as [acronyms](/source/acronyms) and words or names borrowed from a language like Welsh). Its most striking occurrence is as an feature of a few [proper name](/source/proper_name)s descended from [Middle English](/source/Middle_English), such as ''[Ffoulkes](/source/Ffoulkes)''. There it may even occur completely uncapitalized, as in the surname of British historian [Charles ffoulkes](/source/Charles_ffoulkes), in violation of the typical English language convention of capitalizing proper names. In this setting, {{angbr|Ff}} and {{angbr|ff}} have no phonetic difference from {{angbr|F}}, and the spelling has been explained as a misunderstanding of [palaeography](/source/palaeography): the symbol later interpreted as two lowercase {{angbr|f}}s simply represented, in certain traditional handwriting styles, the upper case {{angbr|F}}. In historical [Spanish orthography](/source/Spanish_orthography), word-initial {{angbr|ff}} had a phonetic meaning for several centuries. ==In English== [[File:Court hand alphabet and abbreviations.png|thumb|Early modern [court hand](/source/court_hand) alphabet, showing "ff" used as the equivalent of a capital F]] In English, [proper names](/source/proper_names) are conventionally [capitalized](/source/capitalized), which makes the appearance of a [lowercase](/source/lowercase) letter at the beginning of one unusual. Furthermore, {{angbr|ff}} (no matter the capitalization) is an extremely rare digraph to find at the beginning of English words otherwise, only occurring in [loanwords](/source/loanwords), [neologisms](/source/neologisms), [acronyms](/source/acronyms), and the like.{{r|Lower}}https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-that-start-with-ff{{Synthesis inline|date=April 2026|reason=The Lower source flatly states "double-f never did and never will begin an English word" (even though he's discussing names that do start with double-f). The dictionary webpage is a listing of English words that start with ff, and their corresponding entries do conform to this claim about loanwords etc, but it does not explicitly make this claim. Nor does it make any of the other claims in this paragraph.}} [Mark Antony Lower](/source/Mark_Antony_Lower) in his ''Patronymica Brittanica'' (1860) called this spelling "needless", "ridiculous", and "originat[ing] in a foolish mistake":{{cite book |last1=Lower |first1=Mark Antony |title=Patronymica Britannica: A Dictionary of the Family Names of the United Kingdom |date=1860 |publisher=J. R. Smith |page=112 |url=https://archive.org/details/patronymicabrita00lowerich/page/112/mode/1up&q=ff |language=en}} {{blockquote| ☛ FF. The double-f is used in some surnames, quite needlessly, in {{wikt-lang|en|italic=no|affectation}} of {{wikt-lang|en|italic=no|antiquity}}: e. g., Ffrench, Ffarington, Ffoulkes, Ffooks, Ffolliott. Now as double-f never did and never will begin an English word, this is ridiculous, and originates in a foolish mistake respecting the '''ff''' of old manuscripts, which is no duplication, but simply a capital f. }} Later in the 19th century the palaeographer [Edward Maunde Thompson](/source/Edward_Maunde_Thompson) wrote from the [British Museum](/source/British_Museum):{{cite book |last1=New England Historic Genealogical Society Staff |title=The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 47, 1893 |date=2016 |publisher=Heritage Books |isbn=978-0-7884-0652-2 |page=212 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E7LMFLDeNU0C&pg=PA212 |language=en}} {{blockquote|The English legal handwriting of the Middle Ages has no capital ''F''. A double ''f'' (''ff'') was used to represent the capital letter. In transcribing, I should write ''F'', not ''ff''; e. g. Fiske, not ffiske.}} The replacement of manuscript word-initial {{angbr|ff}} by {{angbr|F}} is now a scholarly convention.{{cite book |last1=Freidel |first1=Frank Burt |last2=Showman |first2=Richard K. |title=Harvard Guide to American History |date=1974 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-37560-4 |page=29 note 7|volume=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4raksrLitUAC&pg=PA29}} Usage in names such as [Charles ffoulkes](/source/Charles_ffoulkes) and [Richard ffrench-Constant](/source/Richard_ffrench-Constant) persists. The initial {{angbr|Ff}} in Welsh spelling of imported proper names has been attributed to the standing of {{angbr|ff}} as part of normal [Welsh orthography](/source/Welsh_orthography).{{cite book |title=Notes and Queries |date=1879 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=391 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UOY4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA391 |language=en}} Citing Trevor Davenport-Ffoulkes, [H. L. Mencken](/source/H._L._Mencken) wrote in a supplement to ''[The American Language](/source/The_American_Language)'' that "The initial ''Ff'' is sometimes written ''ff'', but this is an error."{{cite book |last1=Mencken |first1=H. L. |title=The American Language, Supplement II |url=https://archive.org/details/americanlanguag00menc |url-access=registration |date=1962 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanlanguag00menc/page/460 460] note 2 |language=en}} [David Crystal](/source/David_Crystal) cites both Welsh-derived proper names, such as [Ffion](/source/Ffion) (where single {{angbr|F}} would sound like English ''v'' in Welsh phonetics, IPA {{IPAblink|v}}), and English-derived names such as [Ffoulkes](/source/Ffoulkes).{{cite book |last1=Crystal |first1=David |title=Spell It Out: The singular story of English spelling |date=2012 |publisher=Profile |isbn=978-1-84765-822-7 |page=171 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XBZKMSX8MggC&pg=PT171 |language=en}} ==In Spanish== It has been argued that word-initial {{angbr|ff}} was used in written Spanish around 1500, to indicate the phonetic difference between an ''f''-sound and an aspirated ''h''.{{cite book |last1=Dworkin |first1=Steven N. |title=A Guide to Old Spanish |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-151098-4 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h45lDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 |language=en}} It was used in [medieval Spanish](/source/medieval_Spanish) and, less frequently, in [Early Modern Spanish](/source/Early_Modern_Spanish).{{r|Kania|p=296}} It can be observed to have come in strongly for Spanish spelling during the 13th century.William B. Hawkins, ''Flight from Assimilation and Trial and Error in Spanish Linguistics'', Hispanic Review Vol. 10, No. 4 (Oct., 1942), pp. 273–284, at p. 277. {{JSTOR|469896}} Unlike the English digraph, the first f of the digraph was capitalized when it occurred in proper nouns.{{Synthesis inline|date=April 2026 |reason=This source lists many examples along these lines, beginning on page 277, such as ''Fferdinando'' and ''ffecha'', but does not actually state this rule explicitly.}} The actual pronunciation was dynamic, with the aspiration being dropped from the time when [Madrid](/source/Madrid) became the Spanish capital (1561). The word-initial {{angbr|ff}} spelling convention lagged behind current phonetics, providing a way of tracking pronunciations after they had become obsolete.Sonia Kania, ''The Probanza de méritos of Vicente de Zaldívar: Edition and Notes to Part 4'', Romance Philology Vol. 67, No. 2 (Fall 2013), pp. 261–316, at p. 268. Published by: Brepols; University of California Press {{JSTOR|44742013}} ==Similar Unicode character== {{main article|Ligature (writing)}} {{unichar2|ff}} is a [stylistic ligature](/source/stylistic_ligature) from [Unicode](/source/Unicode), and is widely available in most modern fonts. ==Notes== {{reflist}} Category:Latin-script orthographies --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Word-initial ff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word-initial_ff) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word-initial_ff?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.