‘J’ and ‘Y’ replaced by ‘W’
‘ar’ replaced with ‘y’ or ‘i’
Jyles-Jiles
Variant: Earl (English)
UUyles-UUiles
Wyles-Wiles
Variant: UUyles = ‘Wallace’
The usage of a double ‘U’ (that is written as a ’UU’) as found within the Latin alphabet stems from between the 1st century BCE and 7th centuries CE, and emerged from a requirement for Latin speakers to represent a (Germanic) sound falling somewhere between ‘B’ and ‘V’ - at a time when ‘V’ and ‘U’ were not yet distinguished.
From the 4th centuries CE, ethnic (Gothic) Germanic speakers, however, used the Greek ‘Y’ (borrowed from the ‘Phoenician Y - or waw’. Named Upsilon (capital) and Ypsilon (lower-case) - represented as ‘Y’ (capital) and ‘u’ (lower-case) - to represent the ‘UU’ sound. When writing within classical Greek, ‘Upsilon’ is written as ‘ʌpsɪlɒn’ with ‘Ypsilon’ as ‘ύψιλον’. This is where a contradiction emerges within modern English but which is logical within ancient Greek. ‘Upsilon-ʌpsɪlɒn’ is represented as a capital ‘Y’ (correct in ancient Greek but visually ‘odd’ when written within modern English as U-ʌ change place) - as this is where an apparent ‘U’ is actually a ‘Y’ as two alphabets merge whilst retaining their distinctive meaning. Things are further confused when it is learned that ‘Ypsilon-ύψιλον’ is represented as lower-case ‘u’ - again, correct within ancient Greek but odd-looking within modern English when Y-ύ change place).
This ‘change of place or position’ takes place within a dominant alphabet when it expresses the meanings inherent in a subordinate alphabet. Modern English is comprised of ancient British-Celtic, Greek, Roman Latin, German and Scandinavian languages – hence the inherent (and apparent) diversity and complication. Here, ‘Y’ is a ‘capital’ version of the lower-case ‘u’ - whilst within modern English, a ‘Y’ is a ‘capital’ representation of the lower-case ‘y’ with its tale written below the line. By the time of the 8th century, however, Germany writers started to also use the Latin ‘UU’ to represent he sound between ‘V’ and ‘U’ - as the Romans had been using ‘VV’ and uu’ when writing Germanic names such as ‘Wamba’, etc. This ‘VV’ and ‘uu’ was also useful for translating Hebrew terms from the Bible into Latin, hence the development of its popularity throughout a Christianised Roman empire.
By the 8th century CE, there existed ‘Y’, ‘U’, ‘VV’, ‘uu’ and ‘u’ all representing what is now represented by ‘W’ and ‘w’. All these letters have been used within an ever evolving and highly idiosyncratic English language that never started to developed a ‘standard’ version until the 15th century onwards – with the development of the printing-press, and the expansion of English beyond the British shores into the world at large (during the process of imperialist expansion). As English-speakers encountered other speakers – natural challenges occurred to the hitherto foregone conclusion inherent with the English language. As English was continuously thrown-back upon itself, a number of ‘standardisations’ developed which saw language continuously evolving. Although much more stable today, British English comes under pressure from American and Canadian English, as well as the English spoken in non-European parts of the world.
As the majority of English-speakers in Britain were illiterate up until the advent of widespread ‘free’ education in the UK in the 20th century, the recording of ‘names’ relied upon local pronunciations rather than standardised spellings. Church-trained scholars, however, would write-down names when individuals were Christian, married or when being buried, whilst in the latter case stone-masons (a rare example of working-class literacy over the last four-hundred years – perhaps 1600s onwards) would ‘spell’ the name to the best of their ability. These Church records (that evolved out of Latin script and into the English script post-Reformation), have taken on the only legitimate ‘official’ records of the ‘proof’ of the existence of an individual. Genealogy today, when examining the ‘earliest’ records of an individual existence must begin with extant Church records. This is the case even for non-Christian (European) groups such as the Celts, Vikings, Germanics and Jews, etc.
The ‘Wyles’ surname is not ‘Christian’ and is not historically linked to the Christian religion. This is true despite the fact that the ‘Wyles’ people who settled in Duddington started to frequent what was probably the ‘Catholic Church’ which was then forcibly converted to the ‘Protestantism’ after 1539 CE. This is why the ‘Wyles’ genealogical records are recorded in St Mary’s Church in Duddington back to the early 1600s on surviving grave-stones – but is also recorded on two Duddington tax-returns for 1524 CE and 1581 CE of local Wyles people owing tax to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, but then expands outside the geographic boundaries of Duddington and into the surrounding area – with the earliest found so far dating to 1301 CE – but even this name is recorded in broader Church records. Whoever the Pagan ‘Wyles’ were – they became ‘Christianised’ by association. As Anglo-Saxons are known to have been occupying Duddington since at least 874 CE (according to discovered coins), it is probable that the Viking ‘Wyles’ people arrived in the area at some point around 874 CE or there abouts - and 1301 CE (a time period of just over four-hundred-years) – the earliest known ‘written’ recording of a ‘Wyles’ living in Oundle situated 14 miles South of Duddington.