The Origins of Early English Spellings

In Old English when the J sound appeared at the end of a word it was usually because the sound is shifted from an original hard G sound. We use the DGE spelling today because that J sound appears at the ends of those words. One word in English perfectly illustrates how English developed different ways of representing the J sound over time. It actually has two J sounds, one at the beginning and one at the end. But notice that we spell the first J sound with a J and the second J sound with DGE. And that's because the word was borrowed into English from Latin via French. The letter J at the beginning represents the influence of French and Middle English where the letter J developed