I have been researching the history of the Japanese language for some time. The h sounds (ha hi fu he ho) started off as p sounds and it evolved into the f sounds (fa fi fu fe fo) and then evolved into the h sounds (except fu) sometime during the Edo period.
Would “hai” been pronounced as “fai” before Edo period or was there another word for yes?
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はい didn’t exist before Edo period (the earliest usage examples are from late XVIII century) so there are obviously no examples where it could have been pronounced as “fai”.
As for other earlier words meaning “yes”, Japanese wiki has some examples:
>それ以前は「おお」、「を」 (ウォ)、「う」、「せ」、そうであるの意味の「しかり」を用いていた。