2.2.3. Silent e; o for u

When ċ, ġ or sc (pronounced [ʃ]) occurs before a back vowel, it is sometimes followed by an e, which probably should not be pronounced, but merely indicates that the ċ should be pronounced [ʧ], the ġ [j] or [ʤ], and the sc [ʃ]. For example, you will see sēċean ‘seek’ as well as sēċan, ġeþinġea ‘of agreements’ as well as ġeþinġa, and sceolon ‘must’ (plural) as well as sculon.

Notice that sceolon has o in the first syllable while sculon has u. These two spellings do not indicate different pronunciations; rather, the Old English spelling system appears (for unknown reasons) to have prohibited the letter-sequence eu, and scribes sometimes wrote eo instead to avoid it. Other words that are spelled with o but pronounced [u] are ġeō ‘formerly’, ġeong ‘young’, ġeoguð ‘youth’ and Ġeōl ‘Yule’. For these you may also encounter the spellings iū, iung, iuguð, Ġiūl and Iūl.

2.3. More about c and g

The dots that we print over c and g are not in the manuscripts that preserve the Old English language for us; rather, modern scholars have supplied them. Further, the relationship between Old English pronunciation and Modern English outcome is not always straightforward, as you can see from Modern English seek, which comes from Old English sēċan. So what are the rules for the pronunciation of Old English c and g? We print dots over c and g when they come in these environments:

• Before the front vowels i and ie and the diphthongs ea and eo.

• Before y in late West Saxon, but only in words where it was spelled ie in early West Saxon.

• At the end of a syllable, we print ġ following any front vowel (æ, e, i), unless a back vowel (a, o, u) immediately follows. The same is true of ċ, but only after i;

• In a few words where g is not descended from an older [ɡ] or [ɣ], as is usually the case, but rather from [j]: ġeāra ‘of yore’, ġeoc ‘yoke’, ġeoguð ‘youth’, Ġeōl ‘Yule’, ġeōmor ‘unhappy’, ġeong ‘young’; internally, in smēaġan ‘ponder’, frēoġan ‘set free’ and a few other words.

Otherwise, we generally print plain c and g.

C was pronounced [k] in camb ‘comb’, cǣġ ‘key’, cēne ‘keen, brave’, bacan ‘bake’, bōc ‘book’. It was pronounced [ʧ] in ċeaf ‘chaff’, ċīdan ‘chide’, ċierran (late West Saxon ċyrran) ‘turn’, iċ ‘I’.

G was pronounced [ɡ] in gōd ‘good’, glæd ‘glad’. It was pronounced [ɣ] (the voiced velar spirant) in dagas ‘days’, sorga ‘sorrows’, sīgan ‘descend’. It was pronounced [j] in ġiestrandæġ ‘yesterday’, sleġen ‘slain’, mæġ ‘may’, seġl ‘sail’ (noun), seġlode ‘sailed’. It was pronounced [ʤ] in enġel ‘angel’, senġe ‘I singe’.

As soon as you start to read Old English texts you will notice that these rules apply well enough at the beginnings of syllables, but don’t always seem to work elsewhere. For example, the c in sēċan ‘seek’ has a dot even though it comes before a back vowel, and the c in macian ‘make’ lacks a dot even though it comes before a front vowel. Such anomalies arise from the fact that the changes that produced the sounds spelled ċ and ġ took place long before the time of our written texts, and the sounds that produced those changes often disappeared later as a result of the simplification of unaccented syllables that is characteristic of Old English.[5] This fact is inconvenient for students of Old English, for it means that you cannot be certain how to pronounce some words unless you know their pre-history.

Often it is enough to know about the grammar of a word to decide how to pronounce it. In class 1 weak verbs, the root syllable had formerly been followed by [i], which either disappeared or came to be spelled e, or [j], which usually disappeared; so c and g should generally be dotted at the ends of those syllables. Examples: senġan ‘singe’, senċan ‘cause to sink’, sēċan ‘seek’, īeċan ‘increase’, bīeġan ‘bend’. In class 2 weak verbs, the root syllable had formerly been followed by a back vowel, even though that vowel often disappeared; so c and g at the ends of those root syllables should not be dotted. Examples: macian ‘make’, bōgian ‘dwell’, swīgian ‘fall silent’.

When the vowel of any syllable has undergone i-mutation, that is a sign that [i] or [j] once followed, and so c or g at the end of such a syllable should be dotted. Athematic nouns like man/men, which change their vowels, do so as a result of i-mutation; so the plural of bōc ‘book’ is bēċ, and the plural of burg ‘stronghold’ is byrġ.