2. Pronunciation

2.1. Quick start

No one knows exactly how Old English sounded, for no native speakers survive to inform us. Rather, linguists have painstakingly reconstructed the pronunciation of the language from various kinds of evidence: what we know of Latin pronunciation (since the Anglo-Saxons adapted the Latin alphabet to write their own language), comparisons with other Germanic languages and with later stages of English, and the accentuation and quantity of syllables in Old English poetry. We believe that our reconstruction of Old English pronunciation is reasonably accurate; but some aspects of the subject remain controversial, and it is likely that we will never attain certainty about them. The greatest Old English scholar in the world today might very well have difficulty being understood on the streets of King Alfred’s Winchester.

Despite the uncertainties, you should learn Old English pronunciation and get into the habit of reading texts aloud to yourself. Doing so will give you a clearer idea of the relationship between Old and Modern English and a more accurate understanding of Old English meter, and will also enhance the pleasure of learning the language.

If you find any of the terminology or the phonetic symbols in this chapter unfamiliar, you should consult Appendix B, “Phonetic Symbols and Terms”.

2.1.1. Vowels and diphthongs

Old English had six simple vowels, spelled a, æ, i, o, u and y, and probably a seventh, spelled ie. It also had two diphthongs (two-part vowels), ea and eo. Each of these sounds came in short and long versions. Long vowels are always marked with macrons (e.g. ā) in modern editions for students, and also in some scholarly editions. However, vowels are never so marked in Old English manuscripts.

When we speak of vowel length in Old English, we are speaking of duration, that is, how long it takes to pronounce a vowel. This fact can trip up the modern student, for when we speak of “length” in Modern English, we are actually speaking of differences in the quality of a vowel. If you listen carefully when you say sit (with “short” i) and site (with “long” ī), you’ll notice that the vowels are quite different: the “short” version has a simple vowel [ɪ], while the “long” version is a diphthong, starting with a sound like the u in but and ending with a sound like the i in sit [ʌɪ].[1] The same is true of other long/short pairs in Modern English: they are always qualitatively different. We do give some vowels a longer duration than others (listen to yourself as you pronounce beat and bead), but this difference in duration is never significant: that is, it does not make a difference in the meaning of a word. Rather, we pronounce some vowels long and others short because of the influence of nearby sounds.

Vowel length (that is, duration) is significant in Old English because it does make a difference in the meanings of words. For example, Old English is means ‘is’ while īs means ‘ice’, ac means ‘but’ while āc means ‘oak’, and ġe means ‘and’ while ġē means ‘you’ (plural). The significance of length means that the macrons that appear in the texts you will be reading are not there only as guides to pronunciation, but also to help you decide what words mean. If you absent-mindedly read mǣġ ‘kinsman’ as mæġ ‘may’, you will never figure out the meaning of the sentence you are reading.

Simple vowels

The following list of vowels deals with quality only; you may assume that the short and long vowels sound alike except for a difference in duration. The list cites a number of Modern English words for comparison: these are from the Mid-Atlantic dialect of American English and may not be valid for speakers of British English or other American dialects.

a	is pronounced [ɑ], as in Modern English father. Examples: macian ‘make’, bāt ‘boat’.
æ	is pronounced [æ], as in Modern English cat. Bæc ‘back’, rǣdan ‘read’.
e	is pronounced [e], as in Modern English fate; that is, it is like the e of a continental European language, not like the “long” or “short” e of Modern English (actually [i] or [ɛ]). Helpan ‘help’, fēdan ‘feed’.
i	is pronounced [i], as in Modern English feet; that is, it is like the i of a continental European language, not like the “long” or “short” i of Modern English (actually [ʌɪ] or [ɪ]). Sittan ‘sit’, līf ‘life’.
o	is pronounced [o], as in Modern English boat. God ‘God’, gōd ‘good’.
u	is pronounced [u], as in Modern English tool; it is never pronounced [ʌ] as in Modern English but. Full ‘full’, fūl ‘foul’.
y	is pronounced [y], like the ü in German über or Füße, or like the u in French tu or dur. Make it by positioning the tongue as you do to say feet while rounding the lips as you do to say tool. Cyning ‘king’, brȳd ‘bride’.
ie	which appears mainly in early West Saxon, is difficult to interpret. It was probably approximately [ɪ], like the i of Modern English sit. In late West Saxon, words that contained this vowel are rarely spelled with ie, but rather with i or y. Ieldesta ‘eldest’, hīeran ‘hear’.

• Many grammars tell you to pronounce short e as [ɛ], like the e in Modern English set, short i as [ɪ], like the i of Modern English sit, and short u as [ʊ], like the u of Modern English pull. You can get away with these pronunciations, though they probably do not represent the Old English vowels accurately.

• In most Modern English dialects, the “long” vowels /eː/, /oː/ and sometimes /i/ and /u/ are pronounced as diphthongs, e.g. /eɪ/, /oʊ/, /əʊ/. Old English long vowels are thought not to have been diphthongized, so try to avoid pronouncing them as diphthongs.

In unaccented syllables, where few vowel sounds were distinguished, vowels were probably pronounced less distinctly than in accented syllables. In late Old English (ca. 1000 and later), frequent spelling confusion shows that by then the language was beginning to approach the Middle English situation in which all vowels in unaccented syllables were pronounced [ə] (a neutral schwa, like the a in China). But unaccented vowels were distinguished in Old English, and it is important to pronounce them, for vowel quality often is the only thing that distinguishes one ending from another. For example, dative singular cyninge and genitive plural cyninga, genitive singular cyninges and nominative plural cyningas are distinguished only by vowel quality.

Diphthongs

Old English has two digraphs (pairs of letters) that are commonly interpreted as diphthongs: ea and eo.[2] Both ea and eo can represent short or long sounds, equivalent in length to the short and long vowels. Beyond this generally agreed fact, there is controversy about what sound these digraphs represent. Here we present the most widely accepted view.

eo	represents [eo] or [eʊ], a diphthong that started with [e] and glided to a rounded sound, [o] or [ʊ]. Examples: ċeorl ‘freeman’ (Modern English churl), dēop ‘deep’.
ea	represents [æɑ], a diphthong that started with [æ] and glided to [ɑ] (as in father). Feallan ‘fall’, rēad ‘red’.

Some grammar books say that the spelling ie also represents a diphthong, but this book interprets it as a simple vowel.

Perhaps the most common error students make when trying to pronounce Old English diphthongs is to break them into two syllables—for example, to pronounce Bēowulf as a three-syllable word when in fact it has only two syllables. Remember that there is a smooth transition between the two vowels of a diphthong, and this is as true of the unfamiliar diphthongs of Old English as it is of the familiar ones of Modern English (like those of site and sound).