were to become the Ulster Scots dialects with them. Later in the period southern influence on the language increased, owing to the new political and social relations with England prior to and following the accession of James VI to the English throne. By the Union of Parliaments in 1707 southern Modern English was generally adopted as the literary language though Modern Scots remained the vernacular. Orthography On the whole Middle Scots scribes never managed to establish a single standardised spelling for every word, but operated a system of free variation based on a number of spelling variants. Some scribes used their own variants, but this was relatively rare. The least variation occurred in the later 16th century as printers moved towards fixed spellings. This ended in the 17th century when printers began to adopt imported English conventions. Middle Scots used a number of now obsolete letters and letter combinations: þ (thorn) was equivalent to the modern th as in thae. þ was often indistinguishable from the letter y and often written so. (yogh) in was as in the French Bretagne. It later changed to or leading to the modern spellings with z and y as in Menzies and Cunyie . (yogh) in initial position was as in ȝear 'year'. quh was equivalent to the modern wh. sch was equivalent to the modern sh. A ligature of long s and short s (ſs, italic ſs), similar to German ß, is sometimes used for s (with variant readings like sis). Encoded in Unicode as and . The initial ff was a stylised single f. The inflection -ys, -is was realised after sibilate and affricate consonants and other voiced consonants, and after other voiceless consonants, later contracted to and as in Modern Scots -s. The spelling -ys or -is also occurred in other words such as Inglis and Scottis . The older Scots spelling surviving in place names such as Fowlis , Glamis and Wemyss . d after an n was often (and still is) silent i.e. barrand is = barren. i and j were often interchanged. h was often silent. l after a and o had become vocalised and remained in use as an orthographic device to indicate vowel length. Hence the place names Balmalcolm , Falkirk , Kirkcaldy , Culross and Culter . i after a vowel was also used to denote vowel length, e.g. ai , ei oi and ui