English 312/History of the English Language

OLD ENGLISH ALPHABETS & PRONUNCIATION (UPDATED!!!)

Old English is written in two alphabets:

RUNES:

LATIN:

The Latin alphabet adapted to Old English has some characters not present in the modern English alphabet:

letter name pronunciation

ash [] can be long or short

edh []/[] often used interchangeably with

wynn [w] often used interchangeably with w

thorn []/[] often used interchangeably with

yogh various, see below often used interchangeably with g

-- [s]/[z] variant of s used when not at the end of the word

Old English Vowels:

Pronouncing Old English vowels is a lot simpler that Modern English (but it still takes a bit of getting
used to)
Have to un-do the Great Vowel Shift essentially pronounce the vowels like their IPA equivalents.
7 vowel system, though each can be long or short (so, maybe we should call this a 14-vowel system)

[i] [y] [u]

[e] [o]

[] [a]

Note: [y] is a high, front, rounded vowel (i.e., like a fronted [u] or a rounded [i]).
In some modern versions of texts, vowel length is marked (long vowels have a macron, e.g., = long i).
This is not seen in the original texts.
The characters i and u are pronounced [j] and [w], respectively, before another vowel.
Noted on Old English consonants:

FRICATIVES:

A phonological process voiced voiceless fricatives between two voiced sounds (usually two vowels).
Sometimes this is reflected in the orthography, but not always.

f [v] heofon
[] between two voiced sounds
broor
s [z] unresdg

PRONUNCIATION OF c:

camb clne
[] before or after a front vowel
cese cirice
[k] elsewhere
ic cu
hafoc cele

The digraph sc is generally pronounced as [] fersc englisc

(especially word-initially and word-finally) scip disc
sceafa scirgerefa

PRONUNCIATION OF g/:
hunig sagu
[j] before or after a front vowel
gos singan
[] after a back vowel or consonant fugol gear
[g] elsewhere gnat frigedg

PRONUNCIATION OF h:

cniht hlder
[x] after back vowels
hnutu leoht
[] after front vowels
ruh heorte
[h] word-initially broht eahta