Pronunciation and Word Stress

12/15/2017 Lesson 0: Alphabet and Pronunciation | Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog
Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog
Lesson 0: Alphabet and Pronunciation

Alphabet:
The earliest appearances of the Old English language are found in

inscriptions written using the runic Futhoric alphabet. The letters, their
names, and the meaning of the names can be viewed in the image on the
left. There is in fact a mnemonic poem in Old English for the Anglo-Saxon
runes.
Once Old English started to be used more commonly for writing, the
Roman alphabet was adopted and adapted. The grapheme Æ/æ (called
‘ash’), earlier used by scribes to represent the Latin diphthong ae, came to
stand as a full letter on its own. Two runes – Þ/þ (called ‘thorn’) and Ƿ/ƿ (called ‘wynn’) – from Futhoric were
retained to represent sounds with no corresponding letters in the Roman alphabet. The letter Ð/ð (called ‘eth’),
developed first in Irish writing, was also employed, being generally interchangeable with Þ/þ.
In the image below are the letters of the Old English alphabet in their manuscript form, along with the most
common abbreviations found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.
Note above that the lower case f and r

actually drop below the line rather than
riding on the line as they do in modern
writing. Note too how s can take various
forms, the second of which can easily be
confused with the lower case r. Also mark
how the letters p, wynn, and thorn are all
quite similar to one another. Pay special
attention when you come across any of these
characters.
Pronunciation:
As no native-speakers of Old English are currently living, there is no way to be absolutely certain how Old English
was pronounced. However, thanks to the sciences of phonology, comparative linguistics, and historical linguistics,
there is a well-educated idea of how Old English most likely sounded. Of course, there are some points of dispute
between linguists.
The following table provides links to audio files which give the approximate sound values of the Old English
language. Note that while the aim is to be accurate as possible, there will undoubtedly be numerous instances
when the pronunciation is off, to a lesser or greater degree, due to interference from the speakers’ native
languages*.
Letters of the Anglo-Saxon Alphabet
https://ealdaenglisc.wordpress.com/old-english-lessons/lesson-0-alphabet-and-pronunciation/ 1/12
Letter IPA O.E. word: Mn.E. word w/ sound

meaning:
A a /ɑ/ lacu sea (lake) farm but shorter
Ā ā /ɑː/ stān stone farm
Æ æ /æ/ fæder father cat
Ǣ ǣ /æː/ dǣd deed cat but longer
B b /b/ brōðor brother
C1 c /k/ cyning king
/ʧ/ cild child
D d /d/ dohtor daughter
Ð2,3 ð /θ/ eorð earth
/ð/ feðer feather
E e /e/ ende end first sound in

eight
Ē ē /eː/ cwēn queen eight but longer
F3 f /f/ feld field
/v/ heofon heaven
G4 g /g/ gōs goose
/γ/ sorga sorrows sagen (German)
/j/ gēar year
H5 h /h/ hūs house
/x/ eahta eight loch (Scottish)
/ç/ niht night ich (German)
I i /i/ clif cliff feet but shorter
Ī ī /iː/ wīf wife feet
L l /l/ lufu love
M m /m/ mōdor mother
N n /n/ nosu nose
O o /o/ folc folk first sound in oat
Ō ō /oː/ mōna moon oat but longer
P p /p/ pere pear
R6 r /r/ (?) heorte heart
S3 s /s/ sunne sun
/z/ rīsan rise
T t /t/ tōð tooth
U u /u/ tunge tongue mood but shorter
Ū ū /uː/ mūs mouse mood
W w /w/ wulf wolf
X x /ks/ oxa ox
Y y /y/ wyrm worm tu (French)
Ȳ ȳ /yː/ fȳr fire tu (Fr.) but longer
Þ2,3 þ /θ/ þing thing
/ð/ hwæþer whether
Diphthongs and Digraphs
Ea7 ea /æa/ weall wall
/a/ sēcean seek
Ēa ēa /æːa/ ēare ear
Eo7 eo /eo/ geoc yoke
/u/ sceolan shall
Ēo ēo /eːo/ frēodōm freedom
Ie8 ie /ı/(?) scieppan create (shape) sit
Īe8 īe /ıː/(?) hīeran hear sit but longer
cg /ʤ/ ecg edge
ng /ŋ/ sang song
/nʤ/ engel angel
Sc9 sc /ʃ/ scip ship
/sk/ ascian ask
Notes
1 a When word initial and followed by a back vowel (a, o, u) or y, or when

word final and preceded by a back vowel, c is pronounced /k/.
b When followed by a front vowel (æ, e, i) or the diphthongs ea or eo, or

when preceded by the letter i AND not followed by a back vowel, c is
pronounced /ʧ/.
2 Ð/ð and Þ/þ are interchangeable, with no difference in pronunciation

or meaning caused.
3 a When at the beginning or end of a word, or when adjacent to an

unvoiced consonant, f, ð/þ, and s are unvoiced: /f/, /θ/, /s/,
respectively.
b When falling between two vowels or adjacent to a voiced consonant,

these letters are voiced: /v/, /ð/, /z/.
4 a When syllable initial and followed by a back vowel or word final and
preceded by a back vowel, g is pronounced /g/.
b When falling between two voiced sounds, g is pronounced /γ/. If you

are unable to make this sound, simply say the approximant /w/
instead.
c When followed by a front vowel or the diphthongs ea or eo, or when

preceded by a front vowel AND not followed by a back vowel, g is
pronounced /j/, like the ‘y’ sound in Mn.E. yes.
5 a When syllable initial, h is pronounced /h/.
b When preceded by a back vowel, h is pronounced /x/.
c When preceded by a front vowel, h is pronounced /ç/.
6 The exact pronunciation cannot be known for sure. In most recordings

of Old English readings you will hear this letter trilled, which may or
may not have been the way Anglo-Saxons would have produced this
sound. The best approach is to pronounce the letter whatever way you
find easiest and/or most pleasing.
7 a When preceded by c, g, and sc, the graphemes ea or eo may not be

diphthongs, but rather the initial e may act as an orthographical way of
showing that the preceding sound should be softened; i.e., c = /ʧ/, g =
/j/, and sc = /ʃ/.
b Because the grapheme eu was not allowed in Old English orthography

(for unknown reasons), on such occasions eo is used instead. In these
cases, the initial e shows softening of the preceding sound (see note 7a
above), and o = /u/, ō = /uː/. For example, Geōl, alternatively written
as Iūl, is equivalent in sound and meaning to Mn.E. Yule.
8 This is another example of a phoneme whose exact nature isn’t known.

It could represent the diphthong /ie/ and /iːe/, or alternatively it may
simply represent the sound /ı/ and /ıː/.
9 a When followed or preceded by a front vowel (æ, e, i, y) or the

diphthongs ea or eo, sc is usually pronounced /ʃ/.
b When followed or preceded by a back vowel, sc is sometimes

pronounced /sk/.
A few points should be made. First off, all letters – with the occasional exception of e, see note 7b above –
are pronounced in any given Old English word. For example, the h in words such as hring (ring) or mearh (mare)
should be clearly articulated. Also, doubled consonants are distinguished from singular consonants. A word like
scieppan, therefore, should be pronounced as sciep-pan, NOT as scie-pan; likewise, the word sunne is said as sun-
ne, not su-ne. And in a word such as weall, the ‘l’ sound should be held longer than in a word like engel.
Secondly, as the above table may have made apparent, at times there will be some doubt as to the exact
pronunciation of a word, with eo, g and sc being the most notorious troublemakers. For example, the sc is
pronounced as /ʃ/ in wȳscan (to wish) but /sk/ in fiscas (fish, pl.) despite the fact that in both words the
digraph is preceded by a front vowel and followed by a back vowel.
Lastly, while manuscripts have various [not very well understood, and quite possibly superfluous] marks over
some letters, vowels with macrons over them (e.g., ā, ē, etc.) are a modern, not Anglo-Saxon, convention designed
to help with accurate pronunciation and with making distinctions between words that are homographs in the
manuscripts.
Word-Stress:
Word-stress is relatively simple in Old English. As a general rule, the first syllable of a word receives the stress.
However, verbs with prefixes are never stressed on the prefixes, but rather on the first syllable falling after the
prefix (i.e., on the verb root). Take for example the Old English words for “[an] answer” and “to answer”: the noun
answaru, stressed ANswaru, and the verb answarian, stressed anSWARian – this is because the ‘an-‘ is actually a
prefix. Modern English still occasionally follows similar patterns – compare for example the noun “a PREsent”
which has the stress on the first syllable (the prefix ‘pre-‘), versus the verb “to preSENT” which has the stress on
the first syllable after the prefix.
In compound words – that is, two separate words which are compounded together to form a new word – the main
stress falls on the first syllable of the first element of the compound word, and a secondary stress falls on the first
syllable of the second element. So in dēofolwītga (soothsayer, from dēofol “devil” + wītega “wise man”) the
primary stress is on the syllable ‘dēo’ and a secondary stress falls on ‘wīt’.
Syllabification and Syllable-Length:
This final point is extremely important both for Old English grammar as well as for Old English poetical meter. It
is therefore necessary that you fully grasp how syllable length works in Old English. Luckily, it isn’t difficult to
understand and learn.
When a single consonant is followed by a vowel, it belongs to the following syllable; otherwise it belongs to the
preceding syllable. So the word scipu has two syllables (sci-pu) because the p is followed by a vowel, while the
word scip has only one (scip) as no vowel follows p. When two consonants are flanked on each side by a vowel, the
first consonant belongs to the preceding syllable while the second consonant belongs to the following syllable;
otherwise, both consonants belong to the preceding syllable. The word ende thus breaks down into two syllables
as en-de, but weall is a single syllable.
Long syllables are those which end with a consonant (thus forming a so-called ‘closed syllable’) and/or include a
long vowel/long diphthong – ā, ǣ, ē, ī, ō, ū, ȳ, ēa, ēo, īe. The verb rīsan has two long syllables: rī-san; ‘rī’ has a long
vowel and ‘san’ is closed. Short syllables are those which end with no consonant (a so-called ‘open syllable’) and
contain a short vowel/short diphthong – a, æ, e, i, o, u, y, ea, eo, ie. The word lacu, for example, has two short
syllables: la-cu; both syllables are open and contain short vowels.
Note that changes can occur that will cause syllables to change length. For example the Old English word for
“whale” in the nominative singular is hwæl, a single long syllable because it is closed, but in the nominative plural
it is hwalas, whose first syllable is now short – ‘hwa’ contains a short vowel and is open – and which has acquired
a second syllable that is long – ‘las’ contains a short vowel but is closed.
A couple final points important for poetical meter concerns disyllable words. In a disyllable word containing two
short syllables, those two syllables may, for the purposes of meter, be taken together to count as a single long
syllable. A word like spere (spear), with the two short syllables spe-re, can be employed as a single long syllable
when needed by the poet. In a disyllable word whose first syllable is long, the second syllable is counted as being
short even if it is long due to its being a closed syllable. Wǣpen (weapon), for example, has two long syllables, but
if required by meter it could be counted as long syllable + short syllable.
Exercises:
1) Practise your recognition of manuscript letters by reading the text in the left column below. The
modernized letters are in the right column for the sake of comparison. For those who might not realize it, these
are the opening lines of Beowulf.
2) Determine the syllabification of the following words and the syllable lengths, and explain why each syllable is
either short or long:
a) dohtor f) hwæþer
b) eahta g) lufu
c) folc h) oððe (or)
d) fȳr i) sǣ (sea)
e) hīeran j) sorga
Click to listen to a dramatic reading of the opening lines of Beowulf from Exercise 1 and click to download the
answer-key for Exercise 2.
Further Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog Resources:
Downloadable audio guide to Old English pronunciation

A video guide to Old English pronunciation (forthcoming)
Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog on YouTube – a collection of videos with readings and other recordings of people
speaking Old English
Additional Online Resources on Old English Pronunciation:
Wikipedia: International Phonetic Alphabet – most of the IPA audio files were taken from there
Omniglot: Old English – the images of the alphabet and of the Beowulf text were modified from the original
images on the Omniglot site
The Electronic Introduction to Old English: Pronunciation by Peter S. Baker – the pronunciation guide was
constantly referenced in the writing of my own guide.
Anglo-Saxon Aloud by Michael D.C. Drout: a great resource for listening to texts being read aloud in the
original Old English
Print Resources for Learning Old English:
Here are a few books to help you along your Old English adventure. The first two are introductions to Old English
(grammar, syntax, vocabulary). The third book is a good resource for building up your Old English word bank.
The final book is particularly good for those with an interest in how Old English compares with the other old
Germanic languages.
The Old English Blog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn
advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com
*Special thanks to Endevide (the female voice) for the hours of recording she suffered through for
the sake of this guide, and for her Midas touch in editing the images on this page.
Advertisements
Share this:
     145
 Like
11 bloggers like this.
28 Responses to Lesson 0: Alphabet and Pronunciation
AnWulf says:
August 7, 2011 at 2:56 am
Excellent! I learned more about pronunciation here than I have at other sites. Thanks Endevide!
That dramatic reading was great! Where can I get the whole thing? I listened to Michael Drout read but it doesn’t sound like
the same person.
Reply
amerikanaki says:
August 7, 2011 at 11:34 am
Endevide is the female voice, and I (Christopher) am the male voice of the short sound clips. The dramatic reading
was done by Benjamin Bagby – you can find videos of his work on YouTube. Drout is a professor who is
responsible for the Anglo-Saxon Aloud page.
All of the individual sound files from the page are gathered into one audio file at http://tindeck.com/listen/zlec .
Thank you very much for your compliment – I really appreciate the feedback, and it’s great knowing that
somebody has actually found the page of some use Eventually I will finally get around to making some actual
lessons for Old English grammar…
Reply
Arev T. Stevens says:

March 5, 2013 at 12:52 am
I, as an Ancient Languages researcher, find your page extremly usefull. Keep up the good work.
Reply
Susan Peckitt says:

April 3, 2013 at 1:32 pm
This introduction is most useful! My high school students’ eyes have been opened wide. Thank you.
Reply
Ealhswith says:
August 26, 2013 at 11:09 am
Very nice work. Can anyone supply guidance on the pronunciation of FINAL “c”. when I studied OE, we were told to
pronounce “ic” (= “I”) as “itch” (palatalized). Surely it’s “ick” (hard c), cf the ModGerman “ich” = I, On the other hand we
have words like swylc, hwylc, and even eac (such, which, also/”each?”) in which maybe the c is palatalized? (Predictably, and
maybe under Viking influence, Northern forms kept the hard c, e.g., Scots “ilk” .) Is it possible that final c is HARD C (= “K”)
unless it’s preceded by a liquid consonant? (L or R) Any thoughts?
Then there is also the problem of suffix -lic in adverbs. “Luflic” – surely not “loov-LITCH?” Can’t be palatalized. The meaning
of -lic is “like”, so wouldn’t “loov-lick” be more logical? And then the “ck” bit drops away more easily to give the ModEnglish
“-ly”, as in “lovely.”
Reply
amerikanaki says:
August 27, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Okay, we’d need a better expert in Germanic linguistics and phonology than I am in order to give a thorough,
scientific answer. Due to my lack of knowledge, I often have the same sort of inquiries. How, for example, does the
word lician give us ‘like’. Seems that under the flanking of the i’s that the c should have been palatalized, even if we
take into consideration that it’s a verbal infinitive form; perhaps it stayed /k/ through analogy with over verbs like
secan? (Never underestimate the power of analogy in language). Maybe two competing forms formed, one with
and another without palatalization, and the non-palatalized form won the day?
I’d point out that ‘ich’ in standard High German isn’t pronounced as /ik/ but as /iç/, and in certain dialects it’s
even /iː/. So, in fact, that gives a perfect example of the process of palatalization leading to complete loss of a
consonant. I’d imagine in English the word went from /ik/ to /iʧ/, due to the palatalizing effect of the preceding i.
The eventual disappearance of the final consonant resulted in compensatory vowel lengthening to /iː/, a common
phenomenon in language development. After the Great Vowel Shift this got diphthongized to /aɪ/.
We see nearly the same thing in the example you gave with words ending in -lic, minus just the final
diphthonization. I’d say that most likely the c is palatalized in at least late Old English – although it was quite
possibly a hard /k/ at an earlier stage of the language – and given that English stress falls on the first syllable, over
time the palatalized consonant was completely lost. Words that have tended to keep the palatalized c’s are those
which are monosyllabic. I don’t think it is directly connected to liquid consonants as the palatalization can be seen
in words totally lacking liquids.
If you know Irish in its various stages, you can see similar processes are in play. I’d say in language you rarely have
a straight disappearance of a final /k/ (without some middle step), but you can frequently find loss of palatalized
consonants.
Concerning some regions having kept a hard /k/ sound, as you’ve mentioned this may be a result of language
contact with Old Norse and/or simply divergent linguistic changes. Interestingly, Scots has retained the hard /k/
in places where it has become palatalized in modern Scandinavian languages.
Reply
Renée says:
October 6, 2013 at 8:05 pm
Thank you very much for all the hard work! I will definitely be visiting and revisiting this page for many weeks to come as I
learn to pronounce the alphabet. It is very helpful!
Reply
amerikanaki says:
October 7, 2013 at 6:36 pm
Thank you for the comment. I’m sure that after a few weeks of study you’ll be able to come here and tell me how to
pronounce Old English better :-p Best of luck!
Reply
Pingback: Medieval Midwifery, Medicine, Magic : Cari Ferraro
Pingback: Teach Your (Bloggers) Well | Willow's Corner
Sapiosexual says:
May 27, 2014 at 3:14 am
Reblogged this in my OE learning journal. Really appreciate the amazing work you have done, and sincerely hope there
would be more follow-up lessons posted online.
Reply
Pingback: Old English: An Unexpected Journey (Part I) | shortbread
Veronica-Mae Soar says:

March 16, 2015 at 11:55 am
Here I was, just trying to get the feel of some pronunciation to support my enquiries into the derivations of some words
connected with roads – and I find this site !! I am blown away (and mindbefoggled) If only I could take this all in and actually
remember it.
You have already helped so far by explaining why some letters have a short dash above them – I now need to work out, or
find out, what dots and crescents do to a letter. Basically, I shall also be looking for an explanation of whether a vowel “says
its own name” or some other sound.
In modern English I remember as a small infant learning that if a word had an “E” at the end the vowel in the middle “said its
own name” I wonder if there is a rule for Anglo Saxon ?
I do have a smattering of German left in my remaining brain cells and that can help a little I think.
Reply
Bill says:
May 16, 2015 at 9:28 am
Fantastic discovery – I’ll be back !

Thanks.
Reply
Pingback: Old English: An Unexpected Journey (Part I) | shortbread
beoshewulf says:
December 15, 2015 at 11:48 am
This is such a useful post – thank you! I was wondering, though, what about when “w” appears at the end of a word, e.g.
snāw? How would you pronounce that? Thanks!
Reply
amerikanaki says:
August 13, 2016 at 12:10 pm
Oh sorry, I was just going back through the comments and realized I never responded to yours! :-s I imagine final
‘w’ theoretically would have been pronounced as /w/ but probably in a number of cases ended up realized as
something akin to a light /u/ with corresponding vowel breaking. What’s your opinion?
Reply
Hana Videen says:

August 14, 2016 at 7:45 pm
I wasn’t sure, that’s why I asked! I thought it probably would add something of a /u/ sound when following a
vowel, as you say.
amerikanaki says:
August 15, 2016 at 1:48 pm
Old Saxon had “sneu” and Old High German “sneo”, so I think we’re probably right, hahaha!
Karen Merritt says:

December 26, 2015 at 2:32 pm
Hello! I am recording an audiobook and there is an Old English quote in the epigram. The quote is from Alfred the Great’s
preface to his translation of Pope Gregory the Great’s “Pastoral Care.”
Here it is: “Geðenc hwelc witu us ða be comon for ðisse worulde, ða ða we hit nohwæðer ne selfe ne lufodon be eac oðrum
monnum ne lefdon!”
I’m looking for an audio version of the pronunciation so that I can be as accurate as possible in my emphasis of words, etc. I
would greatly appreciate any help!
Reply
mybookfile says:
May 17, 2016 at 5:13 pm
I am so unbelievably glad that I found your blog! This is so awesome and I do hope that my classmates will check this blog
out ^_^
Reply
Pingback: Medieval England: History, Society and the Old English Language #5 – Mybookfile
Marcos says:
August 8, 2016 at 2:45 pm
Excellent website! Congrats!

I have one doubt: do the elements of compounds and suffixed and prefixed words have to be transcribed as independent
elements or as a single one?
For example: wiþ- drifan
If the transcription goes independent it would be: wiθ- drivan (more or less). But if it goes as a single word it would be:
wiðdrivan.
I don’t know if you get the point. I don’t understand this and would appreciate any help.
Thanks Christopher!
Reply
amerikanaki says:
August 8, 2016 at 9:35 pm
Hi Marcos, I see no reason for there not to have been internal sandhi (so in other words, I suppose native AS
speakers would have said “wiðdrivan”, using your example). As linguists we tend to break down words into their
individual elements for analysis; a typical person on a typical day engaged in typical conversation wouldn’t
overthink language in that way, and his/her pronunciation would most certainly include both internal and
external sandhi as occurs naturally in speech. Great question though, and I definitely invite anybody more
knowledgeable or with more background to chime in!
Reply
Timbo says:
August 26, 2016 at 10:33 am
I wish had this site back when i was at Uni rather than trying to figure out the pronunciation of words for Sweet’s Primer
where the pronunciation was often give through an example in some other language that I didn’t speak!
Reply
amerikanaki says:
August 30, 2016 at 7:53 am
I feel your pain! Pronounce ___ like Swahili ___ with a slight twinge of Urdu ___. Hahaha!
Reply
Matthew T. Scarbrough says:

October 16, 2016 at 8:27 am
How old is this?

How do you pronounce two consonants that are the same without a vowel: I’m from Louisiana, myself, so I find it hard — I
natively want to pronounce, say, “-pp-” as: [p̆̚p] a short silent “p” position, that is barely held, and then finished with [p].
When will there be other lessons up? Or will they be purchaseable — either is fine.
As lessons progress, will old English writing be compared to the words written in what Futhork inscriptions we have: Stone
or Handwriting, because I would like to indipendantly find out when Kalk was used and when Cen was used, also the same
for Gar and the Gyfu wer used. I am of the mind that Cen was Palatal, /C/, and kalk was /k/, but that’s because I’ve always,
since little, pronounce “C” as /C/ and “K” as /k/. Personally I think it was what ever was easiest to pronounce.
For instance: [Cen] is easier to say than: [ken] and preserve the vowel /e/, do to the articulation of: /e/ then having to force
your tongue into: /k/ is too hard. The same, [ak] is easier to say than: [aC] but [aCi] is easier than [aki]… of course those
weren’t real words there, save for [aCi], and that’s Spanish LoL and the vowel is wrong.
I have this strange desire to not only read Beowulf for the First time in AEnglisc, but transliterate it into the Futhorc.
As you can probably guess by my logic, I am pronouncing “Futhorc” as: [fuθork], but I am not. I am struggling to pronounce
it as: [fuθoɹC], as I naturally want to pronounce it as any of: [fyˑθ̺oɻk],
̪ [fyˑθoɹc], or [fyˑθ̺̪oɽc].
On the “R” I am of the mind that, say “-yr-” should’ve appeared it would’ve been pronounced: [y˞] slightly rhoticized, in
between to certain sounds, like say if: “-ere-” would’ve appeared, then it’d be: [eɾe] or [ere]. From my mind, say: “-rr-” then
that might’ve been: /ɹ/, because /rː/ is stupid, but then again, when reading Early Modern English, I want to pronounce
“Rock” as either: [ɻŏq] or: /ɹŏq/, but acknowledge it meant it was pronounced: /ɻok/, probably.
As you can tell, I am speaking from the point of view who has never studied the subject, but I like to give my 3 and a half
cents, because I am the kind of person who goes: “How do you know ‘Dog’ was pronounced: [dɑg] back in the 1800’s, I think
it was pronounced: ‘[ura]’. I don’t care if everylanguage in the world pronounces it ‘[dɑg]’ with no deviation, that proves
nothing. Atheists say everything is proof there is no God, Theists say everything is proof there is a God(which it is,) there are
seldom absolutes, there are always exceptions.”
Y’all get what I mean? I’m a skeptical person, what can I say I took Joshua 24:15, Thessalonians 5:21, and Proverbs 18:13
as my life verses. What I mean is, we can’t be sure, absolutely, in linguistics, unless we have things like what a man from
Shakespeare’s day wrote: “‘R’ makes a doggy-sound.”
I have rambled, and gone off-topic
P.S. Sorry if this was submitted twice

Reply
Wouter says:
March 21, 2017 at 5:05 pm
Maybe it is good to listen to Flemish(also Franco-Flemisch) and Dutch, as well as Low German, Saxonian and Scandinavian
regional tongues, since they reveal much about the pronunciation of the old English(which by itself didn’t have a unified
talking yet). It is known that especially seamen didn’t need a dictionary, be it some sounded ‘stif’ to one another.
Reply
Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog

Blog at WordPress.com.

Pronunciation and Word Stress

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Pronunciation and Word Stress

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

12/15/2017 Lesson 0: Alphabet and Pronunciation | Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog

Þæt Eald-Ænglisce Blog

Lesson 0: Alphabet and Pronunciation

The earliest appearances of the Old English language are found in

Note above that the lower case f and r

Letters of the Anglo-Saxon Alphabet

Letter IPA O.E. word: Mn.E. word w/ sound

A a /ɑ/ lacu sea (lake) farm but shorter

Ā ā /ɑː/ stān stone farm

Æ æ /æ/ fæder father cat

Ǣ ǣ /æː/ dǣd deed cat but longer

B b /b/ brōðor brother

C1 c /k/ cyning king

/ʧ/ cild child

D d /d/ dohtor daughter

Ð2,3 ð /θ/ eorð earth

/ð/ feðer feather

E e /e/ ende end first sound in

Ē ē /eː/ cwēn queen eight but longer

F3 f /f/ feld field

/v/ heofon heaven

G4 g /g/ gōs goose

/γ/ sorga sorrows sagen (German)

/j/ gēar year

H5 h /h/ hūs house

/x/ eahta eight loch (Scottish)

/ç/ niht night ich (German)

I i /i/ clif cliff feet but shorter

Ī ī /iː/ wīf wife feet

L l /l/ lufu love

M m /m/ mōdor mother

N n /n/ nosu nose

O o /o/ folc folk first sound in oat

Ō ō /oː/ mōna moon oat but longer

P p /p/ pere pear

R6 r /r/ (?) heorte heart

S3 s /s/ sunne sun

/z/ rīsan rise

T t /t/ tōð tooth

U u /u/ tunge tongue mood but shorter

Ū ū /uː/ mūs mouse mood

W w /w/ wulf wolf

Y y /y/ wyrm worm tu (French)

Ȳ ȳ /yː/ fȳr fire tu (Fr.) but longer

Þ2,3 þ /θ/ þing thing

/ð/ hwæþer whether

Diphthongs and Digraphs

Ea7 ea /æa/ weall wall

/a/ sēcean seek

Ēa ēa /æːa/ ēare ear

Eo7 eo /eo/ geoc yoke

/u/ sceolan shall

Ēo ēo /eːo/ frēodōm freedom

Ie8 ie /ı/(?) scieppan create (shape) sit

Īe8 īe /ıː/(?) hīeran hear sit but longer

cg /ʤ/ ecg edge

ng /ŋ/ sang song

/nʤ/ engel angel

Sc9 sc /ʃ/ scip ship

/sk/ ascian ask

1 a When word initial and followed by a back vowel (a, o, u) or y, or when

b When followed by a front vowel (æ, e, i) or the diphthongs ea or eo, or

2 Ð/ð and Þ/þ are interchangeable, with no difference in pronunciation

3 a When at the beginning or end of a word, or when adjacent to an