History of the English Language

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OE Spelling.
Old English had six simple vowels, spelled <a, æ, e, i, o, u> and <y>. It
also had two diphthongs, spelled <ea> and <eo>. Each of these sounds
came in short and long versions. Long vowels are always marked with
macrons (e.g. <ā>) in modern editions for students, and also in some
scholarly editions. However, vowels are never so marked in Old English
manuscripts. Simple vowels
The following list of vowels deals with quality only; you may assume that
the short and long vowels sound alike except for a difference in duration.
<a> is pronounced /ɑ/ or /ɑ:/. macian ‘make’, bāt ‘boat’.
<æ> is pronounced /æ/ or /æ:/. Bæc ‘back’, rǣdan ‘read’.
<e> is pronounced /e/ or /e:/. Helpan ‘help’, fēdan ‘feed’.
<i> is pronounced /i/ or /i:/. Sittan ‘sit’, līf ‘life’.
<o> is pronounced /o/ or /o:/. God ‘God’, gōd ‘good’.
<u> is pronounced /u/ or /u:/. It is never pronounced [ʌ] as in Modern English
but. Full ‘full’, fūl ‘foul’.
<y> is pronounced /ü/ or /ü:/, like the ü in German über, or like the u in
French tu or dur. Make it by positioning the tongue as you do to say feet
while rounding the lips as you do to say tool. Cyning ‘king’, brȳd ‘bride’.
<ie> which appears mainly in early West Saxon, is difficult to interpret. It
was probably approximately [ɪ], like the i of Modern English sit. In late West
Saxon, words that contained this vowel are rarely spelled with ie, but rather
with i or y. Ieldesta ‘eldest’, hīeran ‘hear’.
Diphthongs
Old English has two digraphs (pairs of letters) that are commonly interpreted
as diphthongs: <ea> and <eo>. Both <ea> and <eo> can represent short or
long sounds, equivalent in length to the short and long vowels. Beyond this
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generally agreed fact, there is controversy about what sound these digraphs

represent.
<eo> represents /eo/ or /e:o/. Examples: ċeorl ‘freeman’ (Modern English
churl), dēop ‘deep’.
<ea> represents/æɑ/ or /æ:ɑ/. Feallan ‘fall’, rēad ‘red’.
Consonants
Most Old English consonants are pronounced as in Modern English, and
most of the differences from Modern English are straightforward.
a. There are no silent consonants. Old English cniht (which comes to Modern
English as knight) actually begins with [k]: [kniçt]. Similarly hlāf [hlɑ:f]
(Modern English loaf) and hring (ring) begin with [h]: [hring], gnæt (gnat)
with [g]: [gnæt], and wrīþan (writhe) with [w]: [wri:ðɑn].
b. When written double, consonants must be pronounced double, or held
longer. We pronounce consonants long in Modern English phrases like “big
gun” and “hat trick. In Old English, wile ‘he will’ must be distinguished from
wille ‘I will’, and freme ‘do’ (imperative) from fremme ‘I do’.
1. Old English scribes wrote the letters <þ> (“thorn”) and <ð> (“eth”)
interchangeably to represent [θ] and [ð], the sounds spelled <th> in Modern
English. Examples: ðing ‘thing’, brōþor ‘brother’.
2. The consonants spelled <f>, <s> and <þ>/<ð> are pronounced as - voiced
[v], [z] and [ð] (as in then) when they fall between vowels or other voiced
sounds. For example, the f of heofon [heovon] ‘heaven’, hæfde [hævde]‘had’
and wulfas ‘wolves’ is voiced. So are the <s> of ċēosan [ʧe:ozɑn] ‘choose’
and the <þ> of feþer [feðer] ‘feather’. This distinction remains not only in
such Modern English singular/plural pairs as wolf/wolves, but also in such
pairs as noun bath and verb bathe, noun cloth and derivative clothes. -
unvoiced [f], [s], and [θ] (as in thin) when they came at the beginning or end
of a word or adjacent to at least one unvoiced sound. So f is unvoiced in ful
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[ful] ‘full’, cræft [kræft] ‘craft’ and wulf [wulf] ‘wolf’. Similarly s is

unvoiced in settan [settɑn] ‘set’, frost [frost] ‘frost’, and wulfas [wulvɑs]
‘wolves’, and <þ/ð> is unvoiced in þencan [θenkɑn] ‘think’ and strengð
[strengθ] ‘strength’.
3. In early MSS we only find <c> for both voiceless velar plosive and
voiceless palato-alveolar affricate. However, most OE handbooks, Baker’s
among them, sometimes print c with a dot (<ċ>) and sometimes without.
Undotted <c> is pronounced [k] with back vowels; dotted <ċ> is pronounced
[ʧ] with front vowels, like the ch in Modern English chin. This letter is never
pronounced [s] in Old English.
4. The letter <g>, like <c>, is sometimes printed with a dot and sometimes
without.
- Dotless <g> is pronounced [ɡ] (before back vowels and [ü]), as in good,
when it comes at the beginning of a word or syllable: <god> [god] ‘god’,
<gylden> [gülden] ‘golden’, <frogga> [froggɑ] ‘frog’.
- Dotless <g> is pronounced [ɣ], a voiced velar spirant between back vowels.
This sound became [w] in Middle English, so English no longer has it:
<dagas> [dɑɣɑs] ‘days’.
- Dotted <ġ> is usually pronounced [j] (before/after front vowels), as in
Modern English yes: <dæġ> [dæj] ‘day’, <ġear> [jeɑr] ‘year’; but when it
follows an n it is pronounced [ʤ], as in Modern English angel.
5. The combination cg is pronounced [ʤ], like the dge of Modern English
sedge. Examples: hrycg ‘ridge, back’, brycg ‘bridge’, ecg ‘edge’.
6. Old English <h> is pronounced [h], as in Modern English, at the
beginnings of syllables, but elsewhere it is pronounced approximately like
German ch in Nacht or ich—that is, as a velar [x] or palatal [ç] unvoiced
spirant (pronounced with the tongue against the velum [soft palate] or, after
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front vowels, against the hard palate). Examples: nēah ‘near’, niht ‘night’,

þēah ‘though’, dweorh ‘dwarf’.

7. The combination <sc> is usually pronounced [ʃ], like Modern English
<sh>: scip ‘ship’, æsc ‘ash (wood)’, wȳscan ‘wish’. But within a word, if sc
occurs before a back vowel (a, o, u), or if it occurs after a back vowel at the
end of a word, it is pronounced [sk]: ascian ‘ask’ (where sc was formerly
followed by a back vowel), tūsc ‘tusk’. When sc was pronounced [sk] it
sometimes underwent metathesis (the sounds got reversed to [ks]) and was
written x: axian for ascian, tux for tusc. Sometimes sc is pronounced [ʃ] in
one form.