Old English Phonetics and Alphabet

Contents

 

Old English Alphabet and Pronunciation

 

OE scribes used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The bulk of the OE material – OE manuscripts – is written in the Latin script. The use of Latin letters in English differed in some points from their use in Latin, for the scribes made certain modifications and additions in order to indicate OE sounds.

 

     

 

Depending of size and shape of the letter modern philologists distinguish between several scripts which superseded one another during the Middle Ages. Throughout the Roman period and in the Early Middle Ages capitals and uncial letters were used reaching almost an inch in height, so  that only a few letters could find place on a large page; in the 5th-7th c. The uncial became smaller and cursive script, minuscule, was employed. The variety used in Britain is known as the Irish, or insular, minuscule. Out of the altered shapes of letters used in this script – d, f, g, and others – only a peculiar shape of g, ʒ is preserved in modern publications . In the OE variety of the Latin alphabet i and j were not distinguished; nor were u and v; the letters k, q, x and w were not used until many years later. A new letter was devised by putting a stroke through d – ð, also the capital letter – Đ to indicate the voiceless and the voiced interdental [θ] and [ð]. The letter a was used either alone or as a part of a ligature made up of a and e – æ; likewise in the earlier OE texts we find the ligature œ (o plus e), which was later replaced by e.

The most interesting peculiarity of OE writing was the use of some runic characters, in the first place, the rune called “thorn” þ which was employed alongside the crossed d, ð to indicate [θ] and [ð] – it usually preserved in modern publications as a distinctive feature of the OE script. In the manufacture one more rune was regularly used - Ƿ “wynn” for the sound [w]. In modern publications it is replaced by w. Some runes were occasionally used not as letters but as symbols for the words which were their names: e.g. for OE dæʒ, for OE mann (NE day, man).

Like any alphabetic writing, OE writing was based on a phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. This principle, however, was not always observed, even at the earliest stages of phonetic spelling. Some OE letters indicated two or more sound, even distinct phonemes, e.g. ʒ stood for four different phonemes; some letters, indicating distinct sounds stood for positional variants of phonemes – a and æ. A careful study of the OE sound system has revealed that a set of letters, s, f and þ stood for two sounds each: a voiced and voiceless consonant. And yet, on the whole, OE spelling was far more phonetic and consistent than Modern English spelling.

The letters of the OE alphabet are supplied with transcription symbols, if their sound values in OE differ from the sound values normally attached to them in Latin and other languages.

Old English Alphabet

 

  

The letters could indicate short and long sounds. The length of vowels is shown by a macron: bát [ba: t], long consonants are indicated by double letters. (The differences between long and short sounds are important for the correct understanding of the OE sound system and sound changes, but need not be observed in reading.)

In reading OE texts one should observe the following rules for letters indicating more than one sound.

The letters f, s and þ, ð stand for voiced fricatives between vowels and also between a vowel and voiced consonant; otherwise they indicate corresponding voiceless fricatives:

 

f     OE ofer [′over]         NE over         OE feohtan [′feoxtan]   NE  fight

             selfa [′selva]             self                 oft [oft]                           often

s          risan [′ri:zan]            rise                 rās [ra:s]                         rose

þ, ð     ōðer [′o:ðer]             other               ʒāst [θæt]                            ghost

           wyrþe [′wyrðe]          worthy            lēap [leo:θ]                         song

 

The letter ʒ stands for [g] initially before back vowels, for [j] before and after front vowels front vowels, for [ɣ] between back vowels and for [g’] mostly when preceded by c:

OE ʒān [g], ʒēar [j], dæʒ [ɣ], secʒan [gg] (NE go, year, day, days, say).

The letter h stands for [x] between a back vowel and a consonant and also initially before consonants and for [x’] next to front vowels; the distribution of [h] is uncertain:

OE hlæne [x], tāhte [x], niht [x’], hē [x] or [h] (NE lean, taught, night, he).

The letter n stands for [n] in all positions except when followed by [k] or [g]; in this case it indicates [ŋ]: OE sinʒan (NE sing).

 

 

 

Old English Phonetics

 

OE is so far removed from Modern English that one may take it for an entirely different language; this is largely due to the peculiarities of its pronunciation.

The survey of OE phonetics deals with word accentuation the systems of vowels and consonants and their origins. The OE sound system developed from the PG system. It underwent multiple changes in the pre-written periods of history, especially in Early OE. The diachronic description of phonetics in those early periods will show the specifically English tendencies of development and the immediate sources of the sounds in the age of writing.

 

Word Stress

 

The system of word accentuation inherited from PG underwent no changes in Early OE.

In OE a syllable was made prominent by an increase in the force of articulation; in other words, a dynamic or a force stress was employed. In disyllabic and polysyllabic words the accent fell on the root-morpheme or on the first syllable. Words stress was fixed; it remained on the same syllable in different grammatical forms on the word and, as a rule, did not shift in word-building either. Polysyllabic words, especially compounds, may have had two stresses, chief and secondary, the chief stress being fixed on the first root-morpheme, e.g. the compound noun Norðmonna from the same extract, received the chief stress upon its first component and the secondary stress on the second component; the grammatical ending – a (Gen. pl.) was unaccented. In words with prefixes the position of the stress varied: verb prefixes were unaccented, while in nouns and adjectives the stress was commonly thrown on to the prefix:

 

ā-′risan, mis-′faran – v (NE arise, ‘go astray’)

tō-weard, ′or-eald – adj (NE toward ‘very old’)

′mis-dæd, ′uð-ʒenʒ - n (NE misdeed, ‘escape’)

 

If words were derived from the same root, word stress, together with other means, served to distinguish the noun from the verb:

 

′and-swaru n – and-′swarian v (NE answer, answer)

′on-ʒin n – on-′ʒinnan v (NE beginning, begin)

′fowyrd n – for-′weorþan v (‘destruction’, ’perish’)

 

Origin of Old English Vowels

 

Sound changes, particularly vowel changes, took place in English at very period of history.

The development of vowels in Early OE consisted of the modification of separate vowels, and also of the modification of entire sets of vowels.

The change begins with growing variation in pronunciation, which manifests itself in the appearance of numerous allophones: after the stage of increased variation, some allophones prevail over the others and a replacement takes place. It may result in the splitting of phonemes and their numerical growth, which fills in the “empty boxes” of the system or introduces new distinctive features. It may also lead to the merging of old phonemes, as their new prevailing allophones can fall together. Most frequently the change will involve both types of replacement, splitting and merging, so that we have to deal both with the rise of new phonemes and with the redistribution of new allophones among the existing phonemes. For the sake of brevity, the description of most changes below is restricted to the initial and final stages.

 

Independent changes. Development of Monophthongs

 

The PG short [a] and the long [a:], which had arisen in West and North Germanic, underwent similar alterations in Early OE: they were fronted and, in the process of fronting, they split into several sounds.

The principal regular direction of the change – [a] > [æ] and [a:] > [æ:] – is often referred to as the fronting or palatalisation of [a, a:]. The order directions can be interpreted as positional deviations or restrictions to this trend: short [a] could change to [ ] or [ā] and long [a:] became [ :] before a nasal: the preservation (or, perhaps, the restoration) of the short [a] was caused by a back vowel in the next syllable.

 

 

Development of Diphthongs

 

The PG diphthongs – [ei, ai, iu, eu, au] – underwent regular independent changes in Early OE; they took place in all phonetic conditions irrespective of environment. The diphthongs with the i-glade were monophthonised into [i:] and [a:], respectively; the diphthongs in –u were reflected as long diphthongs [io:], [eo] and [ea:].

If the sounds in PG were not diphthongs but sequences of two separate phonemes, the changes should be defined as phonologisation of vowel sequences. This will mean that these changes in creased the number of vowel phonemes in the language. Moreover, they introduced new distinctive features into the vowel system by setting up vowels with diphthongal glides; monophthongs were opposed to diphthongs.

 

 

Assimilative vowel changes. Breaking and Diphthongisation

 

Under the influence of succeeding and preceding consonants some Early OE monophthongs developed into diphthongs.

If a front vowel stood before a velar consonant there developed a short glide between them, as the organs of speech prepared themselves for the transition from one sound to the other. The glide, together with the original monophthong formed a diphthong.

The front vowels [i], [e] and the newly developed [æ], changed into diphthongs with a back glide when they stood before [h], before long (doubled) [ll] or [l] plus another consonant, and before [r] plus other consonants, e.g.: [e] > [eo] in OE deorc, NE dark. The change is known as breaking or fructure. Breaking is dated in Early OE, for in OE texts we find the process already completed; yet it must have taken place later than the vowel changes described above as the new vowel [æ], which appeared some time during the 5^th c., could be subjected to breaking under the conditions described.

Breaking produced a new set of vowels in OE – the sort diphthongs [ea] and [eo]; the could enter the system as counterparts of the long [ea:] and [eo:], which had developed from PG prototypes.

Breaking was unevenly spread among the OE dialects: it was more characteristic of West Saxon than of the Anglian dialects (Mercian and Northumbtian); consequently, in many words, which contain a short diphthongs in West Saxon, Anglian dialects have a short monophthongs: WS tealde, Mercian talde (NE told).

Diphthongisation of vowel could also be caused by preceding consonants: a glide arose after a palatal consonants as a sort of transition to the succeeding vowel.

After the palatal consonants [k’], [sk’] and [j] short and long [e] and [æ] turned into diphthongs with a more front close vowel as their first element, e.g. Early OE scæmu > OE sceamu (NE shame). In the resulting diphthong the initial [i] or [e] must have been unstressed but later the stress shifted to the first element, which turned into the nucleus of the diphthong, to conform with the structure of OE diphthongs (all of them were falling diphthongs). This process known as “diphthongization after palatal consonants” occurred some time in the 6^th c.

Breaking and diphthongization are the main sources of short diphthongs in OE. They are of special interest to the historians of English, for OE short diphthongs have no parallels in other OG languages a specifically OE feature.

The status of short diphthongs in the OE vowel system has aroused much discussion and controversy. On the one hand, short diphthongs are always phonetically conditioned as they are found only in certain phonetic environments and appear as positional allophones of respective monophthongs. On the other hand, however, they are similar in quality to the long diphthongs, and their phonetic status is supported by symmetrical arrangement of the vowel system. Their very growth can be accounted for by the urge of the system to have all its empty positions filled. However, their phonetic status cannot be confirmed by the contrast of minimal pairs: [ea], [æ], [a] as well as [eo] and [e] occur only in complementary distribution, never in identical phonetic conditions to distinguish morphemes; they also occur as variants in different dialects. On these grounds it seems likely that short diphthongs, together with other vowels, make up sets of allophones representing certain phonemes: [a, æ, ea] and [e, eo]. Perhaps the rise of short diphthongs merely reveals a tendency to a symmetrical arrangement of diphthongs in the vowel system, which was never fully realized at the phonetic level.

 

Palatal Mutation

 

The OE tendency to positional vowel change is most apparent in the process termed “mutation”. Mutation is the change of one vowel to another through the influence of a vowel in the succeeding syllable.

The kind of change occurred in PG when [e] was raised to [i] and [u] could alternate with [o] under the influence of succeeding sounds. In Early OE, mutations affected numerous vowels and brought about profound changes in the system and use of vowels.

The most important series of vowel mutations, shared in varying degrees by all OE languages (except Gothic), is known as “i-Umlaut” or “palatal mutation”. Palatal mutation is the fronting and arising of vowels through the influence of [i] or [j] (the non-syllabic [i]) in the immediately following syllable. The vowel was fronted and made narrower so as to approach the articulation of [i]: OE ān (NE one) with a back vowel the root and OE æniʒ (NE any) derived from the same root with the root vowel mutated to a narrower and more front sound under the influence of [i] in the suffix: [a:] > [æ:].

Since the sounds [i] and [j] were common in suffixes and endings, palatal mutation was of very frequent occurrence. Practically all Early OE monophthongs, as well as diphthongs except the closest front vowels [e] and [i] were palatalized in these phonetic conditions.

Due to the reduction of final syllables the conditions which caused palatal mutation, that is [i] or [j], had disappeared to [e] or were altogether lost.

Of all the vowel changes described, palatal mutation was certainly the most comprehensive process, as it could affect most OE vowels, both long and short, diphthongs and monophthongs. It led to the appearance of new vowels and to numerous instances of merging and splitting of phonemes.

The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] arose through palatal mutation from [u] and [u:], respectively, and turned into new phonemes, when the conditions that caused them had disappeared: mās and mys. The diphthongs [ie, ie:] were largely due to palatal mutation and became phonetic in the same way, through soon they were confused with [y, y:]. Other mutated vowels fell together with the existing phonemes, e.g. [oe] from [o] merged with [æ:], which arose through palatal mutation, merged with [æ:] from splitting.

Palatal mutation led to the growth of new vowel interchanges and to the increased variability of the root-morphemes: owing to palatal mutation many related words and grammatical forms acquired new root-vowel interchanges, e.g. two related words: OE ʒe-mōt n ‘meeting’ and OE mētan (NE meet), a verb derived from the noun-stem with the help of the suffix -j-. Likewise we find variants of morphemes with an interchange of root-vowels in the grammatical forms mās, mys (NE mouse, mice), bōc, bēc (NE book, books), since the plural was originally built by adding -iz. (Traces of palatal mutation are preserved in many modern words and forms, e.g. mouse – mice, foot – feet, tale – tell, blood – bleed; despite later phonetic changes, the original cause of the inner change is i-umlaut or palatal mutation.)

Another kind of change referred to umlaut in Early OE is so-called “velar-mutation” found in some of the OE dialects. It was caused by the influence of back vowels in the succeeding syllables, which transformed the accented root-vowels into diphthongs: OHG swestar, OE sweostor (NE sister); WS limu, other dialects liomu (‘limbs’), WS cæru, caru, cearu (NE care).

 

Changes of Unstressed Vowels in Early Old English

 

All the changes described above affected accented vowels. The development of vowels in unstressed syllables, final syllables in particular, was basically different. Whereas in stressed position the number of vowels had grown, due to the appearance of new qualitative differences, the number of vowels distinguished in unstressed position had been reduced. In unaccented syllables, especially final, long vowels were shortened, and thus the opposition of vowels – long to short – neutralized: OE nama (name) to the earlier namōn.

It must also be mentioned that some short vowels in final unaccented syllables were dropped. After long syllables, that is syllables containing a long vowel, or a short vowel followed by more than one consonant, the vowels [i] and [u] were lost: OE scipu and scēap (NE ships, sheep, pl. form skeapu); OE werian – dēman (NE wear, deem; Gt dōmijan).

 

Consonants. Proto-Germanic Consonant Shift

 

The specific peculiarities of consonants constitute the most remarkable distinctive feature of the Germanic linguistic group. Comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. Thus we regularly find [f] in Germanic where other IE languages have [p]: E full, R полный, Fr plein; wherever Germanic has [p], cognate words in non-Germanic languages have [b] (e.g. E pool, R болото). The consonants in Germanic look ‘shifted’ as compared with the consonants of non-Germanic languages. The alterations of the consonants took place in PG, and the resulting sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group.

The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19^th c. and are often called Grimm’s Law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift.

By the terms of Grimm’s Law voiceless plosives developed in PG into voiceless fricatives (Act I); IE voiced plosives were shifted to voiceless plosives (Act II) and IE voiced aspirated plosives were reflected either as voiced fricatives or as pure voiced plosives (Act III).

 

Another important series of consonant changes in PG was discovered in the late 19^th c. by Danish scholar, Carl Verner. They are known as Verner’s Law. Verner’s Law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm’s Law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. According to Verner’s Law all the early PG voiceless fricatives [f, θ, x] which arose under Grimm’s Law, and also [s] inherited from PIE, became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained voiceless. The voicing occurred in early PG at the time when the stress was not yet fixed on the root-morpheme. The process of voicing can be shown as a step in a succession of consonant changes in prehistorical reconstructed forms; consider, e.g. the changes of the second consonant in the word father:

 

PIE                                            Early PG                                     Late PG

pa′ter                                  > fa′θar      >       fa′ðar      >                > ′faðar

 

Verner’s Law accounts or the appearance of voiced fricatives or its later modifications [d] in the place of the voiceless [θ] which ought to be expected under Grimm’s Law. In late PG, the phonetic conditions that caused the voicing had disappeared: the stress had shifted to the first syllable.

As a result of voicing by Verner’s Law there arose an interchange of consonants in the grammatical forms of the word termed grammatical interchange. Part of the forms retained a voiceless fricative, while other forms – with a different position of stress in Early PG – acquired a voiced fricative. Both consonants could undergo later changes in the OG languages, but the original difference between them goes back to the time of movable word stress and PG voicing. The interchanges can be seen in the principal forms of some OG verbs, though even at that time most of the interchanges were leveled out by analogy.

 

 

Some Modern English words have retained traces of Verner’s Law, e.g. seethe – sodden; death – dead; raise – rear; was – were.

 

Origin of Old English Consonants

 

On the whole, consonants were historically more stable than vowels, through certain changes took place in all historical periods.

It may seem that being a typical OG language OE ought to contain all the consonants that arose in PG under Grimm’s and Verner’s Law. Yet it appears that very few noise consonants in OE correspond to the same sounds in PG; for in the intervening period most consonants underwent diverse changes: qualitative and quantitative, independent and positional.

Some of the consonant changes dated in pre-written periods are referred to as “West Germanic” (WG) as they are shared by all the languages of the WG subgroup; WG changes may have taken place at the transitional stage from PG to Early OE prior to the Germanic settlement of Britain. Other changes are specifically English; they took place in Early OE.