(ii) OE. _ȳ̆_ (deriving from Germanic _ū̆_ followed by _i_) appears _normally_ in E. Midlands and the North as _ī̆_ (_ȳ̆_): e.g. _kȳn_, _hill_ (OE. _cȳ_, _hyll_). In the South-East, particularly Kent, it appears as _ẹ̆̄_: _kēn_, _hell_. In the South-West, and in W. Midlands, it commonly appears as _u_, _ui_ (_uy_), with the sound of short or long _ü_. London was apparently at a meeting point of the _u_, _i_, and _e_ boundaries, because all the forms appear in fourteenth-century London texts, though _ṻ̆_ and _ē̆_ gradually give place to _ī̆_. The extension of _ṻ̆_ forms to the North-West is shown by _Gawayne_, and a line drawn from London to Liverpool would give a rough idea of the boundary. But within this area unrounding of _ṻ̆_ to _ī̆_ seems to have been progressive during the century. N.B.—It is dangerous to jump to conclusions from isolated examples. Before _r_ + consonant _e_ is sometimes found in all dialects, e.g. _schert_ II 230. _Church_, spelt with _u_, _i_, or _e_, had by etymology OE. _i_, not _y_. And in Northern texts there are a number of _e_-spellings in open syllables, both for OE. _y_ and _i_. (_c_) #Consonants#: (i) _f_ > _v_ (initial): this change, which dates back to OE. times, is carried through in _Ayenbyte_: e.g. _uele uayre uorbisnen_ = Midland '_fele fayre forbisnes_'. In some degree it extended over the whole of the South. (ii) _s_ > _z_ (initial), parallel to the change of _f_ to _v_, is regularly represented in spelling in the _Ayenbyte_: _zome_ 'some', &c. Otherwise _z_ is rare in spelling, but the voiced initial sound probably extended to most of the Southern districts where it survives in modern dialect. § 8. PRONUNCIATION. One of the best ways of studying ME. pronunciation is to learn by heart a few lines of verse in a consistent dialect, and to correct their repetition as more precise knowledge is gained. The spelling can be relied on as very roughly phonetic if the exceptional usages noted in § 6 are kept in mind. Supplementary and controlling information is provided by the study of rimes, of alliteration, and of the history of English and French sounds.