Old English phonology is necessarily somewhat speculative since
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
is preserved only as a
written language
A written language is the representation of a spoken or gestural language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will pick up spoken language or sign language by exposure even i ...
. Nevertheless, there is a very large
corpus
Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to:
Linguistics
* Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts
* Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files
* Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics
Music
* ...
of the language, and the orthography apparently indicates
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
alternations quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw certain conclusions about the nature of Old English phonology.
Old English had a distinction between short and long (doubled) consonants, at least between vowels (as seen in "sun" and "son", "to put" and "to steal"), and a distinction between short vowels and long vowels in stressed syllables. It had a larger number of
vowel qualities in stressed syllables – and in some dialects – than in unstressed ones – . It had diphthongs that no longer exist in Modern English, which were , with both short and long versions.
Phonology
Consonants
The inventory of consonant
surface sounds (whether
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s or
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s) of Old English is as shown below. Allophones are enclosed in parentheses.
Intervocalic voicing
The fricatives had voiced allophones , which occurred between
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s or a vowel and a
voiced consonant
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
when the preceding sound was stressed.
* ('letter') :
* ('letters') >
* ('blacksmith') :
* ('blacksmiths') >
* ('house' noun) :
* ('to house') >
* ('forth') :
* compare ('earth') >
* ('fathom') >
Proto-Germanic (a fricative allophone of ) developed into the OE stop , but Proto-Germanic (a fricative allophone of ) developed into the OE fricative (either its voiced allophone or its voiceless allophone
.
* PG > OE
* PG > OE ''stæf''
** PG > OE , , '(to) have, had'
Dorsal consonants
Old English had a fairly large set of
dorsal
Dorsal (from Latin ''dorsum'' ‘back’) may refer to:
* Dorsal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location referring to the back or upper side of an organism or parts of an organism
* Dorsal, positioned on top of an aircraft's fuselage
* Dorsal co ...
(postalveolar, palatal, velar) and glottal consonants: . Typically only are analyzed as separate phonemes; is considered an allophone of , an allophone of , and and allophones of .
Historically, developed from by
palatalization, and some cases of developed from palatalization of , while others developed from Proto-Germanic . (Although this palatalization occurred as a regular sound change, later vowel changes and
borrowings meant that the occurrence of the palatal forms was no longer predictable, that is, the palatals and the velars had become separate
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s.) Both the velars (including ) and the palatals (including ) are
spelled as , in Old English manuscripts.
In modern texts, the palatalized versions may be written with a
dot above the letter: , . (As just mentioned, it would otherwise not generally be possible to predict whether a palatal or velar is meant, although there are certain common patterns; for example, often has the palatalized sound before the front vowels , , . Note that Old English had palatalized in certain words that have
hard G
In the Latin-based orthographies of many European languages, the letter is used in different contexts to represent two distinct phonemes that in English are called hard and soft . The sound of a hard (which often precedes the non-front vowel ...
in Modern English due to
Old Norse influence, such as "give" and "gate".)
was pronounced as in most cases, but as the affricate after or when
geminated
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
(
fortition
Fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i.e. becomes or becomes ). Al ...
). The voiced velar fricative was pronounced as the stop after /n/ or when doubled. In late Old English, was
devoiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
to at the ends of words. Because of this, and the palatalization referred to above, the phonemes , , and came to
alternate
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film
* ''The Alternative ...
in the inflectional paradigms of some words.
* ('day')
* ()
* ()
* ('dawn')
* , ('castle') >
* ()
* ()
* ('to sing') > (from )
* ('bridge') > (from < )
In late Old English, appeared in initial position as well, and became an allophone of , occurring only after a vowel.
are allophones of occurring word-initially and after a front vowel respectively.
* ('dog') >
* ('boy') >
The evidence for the allophone after front vowels is indirect, as it is not indicated in the orthography. Nevertheless, the fact that there was historically a fronting of to and of to after front vowels makes it very likely. Moreover, in late
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
, sometimes became (e.g. ''tough'', ''cough''), but only after back vowels, never after front vowels. This is explained if we assume that the allophone sometimes became but the allophone never did.
Sonorants
is an allophone of occurring before and . Words that have
final in standard Modern English have the cluster in Old English.
* ('sink') >
* ('ring') >
The exact nature of Old English is not known. It may have been an
alveolar approximant
The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is , a lowercase letter ''r'' rotated 18 ...
, as in most Modern English accents, an
alveolar flap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental, alveolar, or postalveolar tap or flap is .
The terms ''tap'' and ''flap' ...
, or an
alveolar trill
The voiced alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. ...
.
were pronounced as
voiceless sonorants following .
* ('what')
* ('bread') (Modern English )
* ('nut')
* ('ring')
However, it is also commonly theorized that the ⟨h⟩ in these sequences was unpronounced, and only stood for the voicelessness of the following sonorant.
Velarization
apparently had
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four d ...
allophones and , or similar, when followed by another consonant or when geminated. This is suggested by the vowel shifts of
breaking and retraction before , which could be cases of
assimilation to a following velar consonant:
* > > ('learn')
* > >
* > ('to fall')
Due to
phonotactic constraints on initial clusters, ⟨wr⟩ and ⟨wl⟩ are thought by some to be
digraphs representing these velarized sounds, in which case the distinction was phonemic:
* : "to grow"
* : "to ride"
* : "to look"
* : "to bend"
However, this theory is inconsistent with orthoepic and orthographic evidence from the
Early Modern English
Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...
era, as well as borrowings into and from
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, which has and as genuine initial clusters.
Vowels
Old English had a moderately large vowel system. In
stressed syllables, both monophthongs and diphthongs had short and long versions, which were clearly distinguished in pronunciation. In unstressed syllables, vowels were
reduced or
elided
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
, though not as much as in Modern English.
Monophthongs
Old English had seven or eight
vowel qualities, depending on
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
, and each could appear as either a long or short
monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
. An example of a pair of words distinguished by vowel length is ('god') and ('good').
The front mid rounded vowel occurs in the
Anglian dialects, for instance, but merged into in the West Saxon dialect.
The long–short vowel pair developed into the Middle English vowels , with two different vowel qualities distinguished by height, so they may have had different qualities in Old English as well.
The short open back vowel before nasals was probably rounded to . This is suggested by the fact that the word for "person", for example, is spelled as or .
In unstressed syllables, only three vowels, , were distinguished. Here were reduced to ; were reduced to , and remained. Unstressed were sometimes pronounced as , as in and .
Diphthongs
All dialects of Old English had
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s. Like monophthongs, diphthongs appear to have had
short and long versions. In modern texts, long diphthongs are marked with a macron on the first letter. The short versions behave like short monophthongs, and the long versions like long monophthongs. Most Old English diphthongs consist of a front vowel followed by a back offglide; according to some analyses they were in fact front vowels followed by a velarized consonant.
The diphthongs tend to be
height-harmonic
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
, meaning that both parts of the diphthong had the same
vowel height
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
(high, mid or low).
The
Anglian dialects had the following diphthongs:
The high diphthongs and were not present in
West Saxon, having merged into and . Early West Saxon, however, had an additional pair of long and short diphthongs written (distinguished as and in modern editions), which developed from i-mutation or umlaut of or , or . Scholars do not agree on how they were pronounced; they may have been or . They were apparently monophothongized by
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
's time, to a vowel whose pronunciation is still uncertain, but is known as "unstable ''i''". This later went on to merge with , according to spellings such as , for earlier and ('to believe'). (According to another interpretation, however, the "unstable i" may simply have been , and the later can be explained by the fact that Late West Saxon was not a direct descendant of Early West Saxon. See
Old English dialects
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th cen ...
.) This produced additional instances of alongside those that developed from
i-mutation
I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is a type of sound change in which a back vowel is fronted or a front vowel is raised if the following syllable contains , or (a voiced palatal approxi ...
and from sporadic rounding of in certain circumstances (e.g. 'much' from earlier , with rounding perhaps triggered by the rounded ). All instances of were normally unrounded next to , and , hence from earlier 'to give'.
Origin of diphthongs
Old English diphthongs have several origins, either from Proto-Germanic or from Old English vowel shifts. Long diphthongs developed partly from the Proto-Germanic diphthongs and partly from the Old English vowel shifts, while the short diphthongs developed only from Old English vowel shifts. These are examples of diphthongs inherited from Proto-Germanic:
* PG > Early West Saxon , Late West Saxon 'devil'
* PG > OE 'animal' > Modern English
* PG > OE 'death'
There are three vowel shifts that resulted in diphthongs: breaking, palatal diphthongization, and back mutation. Through breaking, Anglo-Frisian short developed into the short diphthongs , , before or a consonant cluster beginning with , and Anglo-Frisian long developed into the diphthongs and before . Palatal diphthongization changed , and , , and , to the diphthongs , , , respectively after the palatalized consonants , , and (though this may have only been a spelling change). Back mutation changed , , and sometimes to , , and before a back vowel in the next syllable.
* PG > Anglo-Frisian > Anglian , West Saxon ''leornian'' 'learn' (breaking)
* PG > AF > Old English 'near' (breaking)
* PG > AF > 'give' (palatal diphthongization)
* PG > AF > OE 'seven' (back mutation)
Scholars disagree on whether short diphthongs are phonologically possible, and some say that Old English short diphthongs must actually have been centralized vowels. Hogg argues against this, saying that a length contrast in diphthongs exists in modern languages, such as
Scots, in which the short diphthong in ''tide'' contrasts with the long diphthong in ''tied'' .
Peter Schrijver
Peter Schrijver (; born 1963) is a Dutch linguist. He is a professor of Celtic languages at Utrecht University and a researcher of ancient Indo-European linguistics. He worked previously at Leiden University and the Ludwig Maximilian University o ...
has theorized that Old English breaking developed from language contact with Celtic. He says that two Celtic languages were spoken in Britain, Highland British Celtic, which was phonologically influenced by British
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and developed into
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
,
Cornish, and
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
, and Lowland British Celtic, which was brought to Ireland at the time of the
Roman conquest of Britain
The Roman conquest of Britain refers to the conquest of the island of Britain by occupying Roman forces. It began in earnest in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, and was largely completed in the southern half of Britain by 87 when the Staneg ...
and became
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...
. Lowland British Celtic had velarization like Old and
Modern Irish
Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the ...
, which gives preceding vowels a back offglide, and this feature was loaned by
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...
into Old English, resulting in backing diphthongs.
Phonotactics
Phonotactics
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
is the study of the sequences of phonemes that occur in languages and the sound structures that they form. In this study it is usual to represent consonants in general with the letter C and vowels with the letter V, so that a syllable such as 'be' is described as having CV structure. The
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
symbol used to show a division between syllables is the dot . Old English stressed
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
s were structured as (C)
3V(C)
3.
Onset
Onset
Onset may refer to:
*Onset (audio), the beginning of a musical note or sound
*Onset, Massachusetts, village in the United States
**Onset Island (Massachusetts), a small island located at the western end of the Cape Cod Canal
*Interonset interval, ...
clusters typically consist of a
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
and a
stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
, although is allowed as a third element before voiceless stops. The other onset consonants (and if these are accepted as existing) always occur alone. Alternatively, the voiceless sonorants can be analyzed as clusters of and a voiced sonorant: . Conversely, the clusters of and a voiceless stop- can be argued to be phonemic, although no analyses do so.
Nucleus
The
syllable nucleus
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
was always a vowel.
Coda
Sound changes
Like
Frisian, Old English underwent
palatalization of the velar consonants and
fronting of the open vowel to in certain cases. It also underwent vowel shifts that were not shared with
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
: smoothing, diphthong height harmonization, and breaking. Diphthong height harmonization and breaking resulted in the unique Old English
diphthongs
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
, , , .
Palatalization yielded some Modern English word-pairs in which one word has a velar and the other has a palatal or postalveolar. Some of these were inherited from Old English (''drink'' and ''drench'', ''day'' and ''dawn''), while others have an unpalatalized form
loaned from
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
( and ).
Dialects
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
had four major
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
groups:
Kentish,
West Saxon,
Mercian, and
Northumbrian. Kentish and West Saxon were the dialects spoken south of a line approximately following the course of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
: Kentish in the easternmost portion of that area and West Saxon everywhere else. Mercian was spoken in the middle part of the country, separated from the southern dialects by the Thames and from Northumbrian by the
River Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the ...
. Mercian and Northumbrian are often grouped together as "Anglian".
The biggest differences occurred between West Saxon and the other groups. The differences occurred mostly in the front vowels, and particularly the diphthongs. (However, Northumbrian was distinguished from the rest by much less
palatalization. Forms in Modern English with hard and where a palatalized sound would be expected from Old English are due either to Northumbrian influence or to direct borrowing from Scandinavian. Note that, in fact, the lack of palatalization in Northumbrian was probably due to heavy Scandinavian influence.)
The early history of Kentish was similar to Anglian, but sometime around the ninth century all of the front vowels , , (long and short) merged into (long and short). The further discussion concerns the differences between Anglian and West Saxon, with the understanding that Kentish, other than where noted, can be derived from Anglian by front-vowel merger. The primary differences were:
*Original (post
Anglo-Frisian brightening
The phonology, phonological system of the Old English language underwent many changes during the period of its existence. These included a number of vowel shifts, and the palatalization (sound change), palatalisation of velar consonants in ma ...
) was raised to in Anglian but remained in West Saxon. This occurred before other changes such as breaking, and did not affect caused by i-umlaut of . Hence, e.g., ('to divide') < appears the same in both dialects, but West Saxon ('to sleep') appears as ''slēpan'' in Anglian. (Note the corresponding vowel difference in the spelling of "deal" < vs. "sleep" < Anglian .)
*The West Saxon vowels /, caused by i-umlaut of long and short , , did not appear in Anglian. Instead, i-umlaut of and rare is spelled , and i-umlaut of remains as .
*Breaking of short to ''ea'' did not happen in Anglian before /l/+consonant; instead, the vowel was retracted to . When mutated by i-umlaut, it appears again as (vs. West Saxon ). Hence, Anglian ('cold') vs. West Saxon .
*Merger of and (long and short) occurred early in West Saxon, but much later in Anglian.
*Many instances of diphthongs in Anglian, including the majority of cases caused by breaking, were turned back into monophthongs again by the process of "Anglian smoothing", which occurred before , , , alone or preceded by or . This accounts for some of the most noticeable differences between standard (i.e. West Saxon) Old English and Modern English spelling. E.g. ('eye') became in Anglian; ('near') became Anglian , later raised to in the transition to Middle English by raising of before (hence in Modern English); ('nearest') become Anglian , shortened to in late Old English by vowel-shortening before three consonants (hence ''next'' in Modern English).
Modern English derives mostly from the Anglian dialect rather than the standard West Saxon dialect of Old English. However, since
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
sits on the Thames near the boundary of the Anglian, West Saxon, and Kentish dialects, some West Saxon and Kentish forms have entered Modern English. For example, ''bury'' has its spelling derived from West Saxon and its pronunciation from Kentish (see below).
Examples
The prologue to
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The ...
:
The
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
:
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Old English Phonology
English phonology
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...