So I’m trying to transcribe a text from a scan and I have 98% percent of it but I’m tripped up on the words 持って and 限った, on the scan the っ is not written smaller than the other hiragana so it looks pretty clearly written as 持つて and 限つた, are these supposed to be 持って and 限った? Or is it a completely different grammar thing?
ALSO there is a word that looks like it should be 半面 but the two dots radical 丷 is flipped upside down, is this just a style thing or a character that is not 半?
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It’s called 旧仮名遣い, or [Historical kana orthography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_kana_orthography). 待って used to be conjugated like 待ちて, 限って like 限りて. These changed over time to the て form we use nowadays. By the 1930’s they were definitely saying 待って, it’s just the way of writing wasn’t updated like it is today.
You’ll also see things like 言ふ (いう), しう (しゅう), てう (ちょう) in pre-war texts.
These texts also use the 旧字体 of kanji (pre-reform kanji), which explains the dots being upside down on 半.
In pre-reform ortography っ didn’t exist and instead つ was used.
半󠄁 is a variant character (異体字) of 半.
If you want to read pre-ortography reform texts then I recommend you read on 歴史的仮名遣い.
Before the cabinet instituted the modern Japanese orthography in 1946, small っ didn’t exist and it was written as normal つ. (Small っ did exist before that, but it wasn’t common.) So you have to guess the pronunciation depending on the context when you read classical Japanese.
Check [Historical kana orthography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_kana_orthography).
>examples:
>
>縁側のはづれの処へ忍び寄つて… 金貨 by 森鴎外 1909
>
>人知れない野心を持つてゐる。 好色 by 芥川龍之介 1921
>
>やつぱり星だとジヨバンニは思ひましたが… 銀河鉄道の夜 by 宮沢賢治 1934
​
The Kanji 半 came from 牛 + 八, so some fonts use the original way to write it. Some Kanji (non-Joyo Kanji in most cases) are still commonly written with 八, even in the digital fonts. [絆 for example.](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E7%B5%86&rlz=1C1FQRR_enJP981JP981&sxsrf=APwXEdfaAAEhpS23zLYXoBG0FtL8eJfWNw:1683495768511&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw_4y6luT-AhXYslYBHUhVCGgQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1307&bih=919&dpr=1)
Before kana usage reforms after WWII, kana usage differed in several ways from the spoken language. The reason is that many sound and pronounciation changes occurred over centuries of history, but spellings lagged comparatively behind. One of the differences is that “small つ” was not a thing, and words with a double consonants were quite literally written out with a regular sized つ. Others include usage of を, は (wa), and へ (e) (with those pronounciations) in actual words instead of just particles, the usage of kana ゐ/ヰ and ゑ/ヱ, irregular spellings like 言ふ (still pronounced いう though), etc.