Английский Этимологический словарь - ye (article)

- old or quaintly archaic way of writing the, in which the -y- is a 16c. graphic alteration of ю, an O.E. character (generally called "thorn," originally a Gmc. rune) that represented the "hard" -th- sound at the beginning of the. Early printers, whose types were founded on the continent, did not have a ю, so they substituted y as the letter that looked most like it. But in such usages it was not pronounced "y." Ye for the (and yt for that) continued in manuscripts through 18c.