THE OLD ENGLISH ALPHABET

Old English texts were copied in manuscripts by scribes. These scribes used an
alphabet based on the Latin alphabet, but with some native additions and occasionally
runes.
The most important of these additions were:

 þ (thorn) and ð (eth), both of which were used to spell the sounds we now write using
the Norman-influenced spelling th;
 ƿ (wynn), a runic character used for the sound we spell using w;
 æ (æsc, pronounced as Modern English ash), a vowel used to indicate the sound we
now spell with a in words like bat and mat (the Anglo-Saxons also use the letter a, but
only for sounds like that spelled using a in father and au in many non-Canadian
pronunciations of aunt).
Otherwise the Old English alphabet contained more or less the same
letters as the Modern English alphabet, though as we’ll see, several
looked somewhat different. The main exceptions are our
letters k, v, z, w, the Norman-derived spellings wh, th, sh, and
also dg (as in edge), and some differences in the sounds associated
with the letters c, g, f, s, and y.
• In Old English k, and z were rarely used: c was used for sounds we now often spell
with ch (e.g. church, OE ciric) and k (e.g. king, OE cyning);
In many Old English text books, the distinction between the sounds in church and king are
indicated by a dot: with a dot (ċ), the letter is to be pronounced as in church (OE ċyriċ);
without it, it is pronounced as the k in king (OE cyning).
You should know, however, that this convention is a modern invention and is not used in
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The scribes themselves wrote c for all three sounds.

• z shows up mostly in foreign words like the biblical name Azarias. Otherwise s was used
for both the sound we spell with s (or ss or c) in words like chess and rice and the sound
we spell with z (or s) in words like seize and cheese.

• u and v were graphic variants of each other. Both were used for sounds we now often
spell with a u. The letter f was used in Old English for both the sounds we now spell
as f (as in wife) and those we spell using v (as in wives).

• The letter g was used for sounds like the g in God (OE god), the y in yard (OE geard),

and a sound no longer found in modern English, but common in Dutch words
like dragen (OE dragan). As with the letter c, textbooks commonly put a dot
above g when it is used in words like ġeard (yard). They do not distinguish between
the g in God and in words like dragan. However most examples of the latter turn up
as w in Modern English (e.g. the Modern English equivalent of OE dragan and
Dutch dragen is draw in the sense of ‘to pull’ as in British expressions such as ‘to draw a
cart’ or even ‘to draw a bath’).
• The letter y is found often in Old English but never as a (semi-)consonant (e.g as
in yard): In Old English it was used for a type of sound we no longer have in
Modern English, a kind of umlauted u as in French tu; in later Old English it came to
be essentially interchangeable with i. You can say this sound by making the sound
spelled by ea in cheat and then rounding your lips. Interestingly, y was very
commonly written with a dot above it by Anglo-Saxon scribes, though this is not
found in modern textbooks.
• Modern English sh (like th and ch) is derived from Norman spelling conventions. In
Old English, the sound is represented by sc (e.g. ship, OE scip). sc is also used for
the sound we spell using sk (e.g. ask, OE ascian).
• cg is used for the sound we now usually spell using dg (e.g. edge, OE ecg).
• Modern English words beginning with wh are commonly spelled using hw in Old
English: what, OE hwæt.
 Although Old and Modern English have a large number of letters in common, the forms of
these letter were not always the same. Some of the differences can be seen if you compare
the image below, a detail from the late tenth/early eleventh century manuscript Winchester
Cathedral I folio 81r showing the text of Cædmon’s Hymn, with its transcription in a modern
computer font:

Nuƿe sculon heria

heri heofon rices ƿ
metoddes mihte ⁊h
mod ge þanc ƿeorc ƿ
Computers and the Anglo-Saxon alphabet
Thank you for your attention!