I didn't know about the pronunciation of "ȝ", and the examples in the article about the silent "gh" helps explain some modern German/English cognates: "daughter/Tochter", "thought/gedacht", etc.
The northern dialect of Middle English that the Pearl poet wrote in ("The Pearl", "Gwain and the Green Knight") makes use of this letter, much more so than Chaucer's more southern English. It's actually possible to read Chaucer with the help of some vocabulary tips -- the Pearl poet, at least in my experience, is way harder.
Wait, what? Do you have a cite for that, because everything I've seen calls the meat the dog. This use is from maybe the 1880s when any sausage was called a dog.
The northern dialect of Middle English that the Pearl poet wrote in ("The Pearl", "Gwain and the Green Knight") makes use of this letter, much more so than Chaucer's more southern English. It's actually possible to read Chaucer with the help of some vocabulary tips -- the Pearl poet, at least in my experience, is way harder.