Talk:Old English language

I don't know how a linguist would want to handle this: have separate articles for the dative case for each language, or try to have one dative case article for all languages that have it? --LMS

These case entries need to be integrated into the article on OE and the stubs reserved for a consideration of the phenomenon of CASE in language.

they deleted it! Lir 12:44 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not specific to your character set, folks. Your þ (thorn) characters in the pronouns table showed up on my browser as the "fl" ligature. I've corrected them to the HTML reference þ. If you need an ð somewhere, use ð. --FOo

Apologies, FO: I have been busy enough trying to get the facts straight in the matter in the first place; I was going to do everything and then globally replace thorn & eth, but if it's causing grief I'll do it periodically e.g. every time I pack up for a while. Also there are a number of other ligatures in use (principally æ).user:sjc

FO, you're wrong. Wikipedia explicitly advertises itself as iso-8859-1, and if your browser doesn't understand that and if necessary convert appropriately, *it's behaving incorrectly*. --Brion 21:00 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Brion, if you're about, is there any way I can get Wikipedia to display the futhorc alphabet? (must get round to writing an article about futhorc, btw). I could put an image file up but it would be nicer to be able to work with the futhorc for illustrative purposes. user:sjc

If they're in Unicode, you can use numeric character references (see code chart for runic chars (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U16A0.pdf)). ᚦ ~= þ; ᚪ ~= a, etc. But, that'll be very unreliable -- I expect the vast majority of users will not have a font that includes them. It would likely be more useful to use inline images such as I used for the Shavian alphabet. --Brion 01:15 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

Thx. I think the images would be OK if I just wanted to do the futhorc as an article. Unicode chars would be very unwieldy to deal with in volume. I think we will probably just skate around futhorc texts pro tem. user:sjc

Can somebody do something about the width of this table, which causes the page to spread into the right margin? I tried cutting it down to first 75% then 65%, but it's still too wide. -- Zoe

I've split it into three tables, which greatly helps legibility too I think. Better? --Brion

Much better. Thanks, Brion. -- Zoe

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I've tweaked a bit of the linguistic terminology; and regretfully removed the claim that cnight 'would have been pronounced exactly as by the old woman in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "kernighet".' It would have been (whether spelt cnight or cniht) pronounced with ich-laut well into Middle English. - Gritchka

'cniht' was spelt 'cniht'. 'gh' didn't come in until after the Norman invasion - a French representation of a sound they didn't have. I think it was pronounced with [x], not ich-laut. Plus, it was the French guy who said it like that, not the old woman. - User:BovineBeast

I'm deeply suspicious about the accuracy in this bit:

"During the 700 years in which it was in use it assimilated some aspects of the indigenous pre-Celtic languages, some of the Celtic languages which it came into contact with,"

There are a few Celtic, specifically Brythonic loan words, but no other Celtic aspects were "assimilated," nor do we know a damn thing about the "indigenous pre-Celtic" languages of Britain.

I'm going to check a bit, but I think that bit should be excised. DigitalMedievalist 04:44, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, I very strongly agree. Old English being almost completely devoid of Celtic loan words, the suggestion that "Pre-Celtic" (???) loan words or even borrowed grammatical characteristics made it into the mix is pure science fiction and should by all means be excised from the article. --Yst 06:13, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Old English and Anglo-Saxon

I somehow dont quite like the expression Old English, as used in the title of Old English. It feels very retrospective and anachronistic, as if perhaps English were the creation of middle-age spin doctors. English to my mind is an issue of forced marriage between Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French, and an Indo-European mutant. And as a mutant it so transcends normal Indo-European limitations that it is now, in global terms, the sole example of a whole new family of languages. In contrast Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French belong firmly within the Indo-European family. I must admit however that my mind is influenced somewhat heavily by Lincoln Barnett's The treasure of our tongue (Secker & Warburg 1966) which uses 'English Celts' as a reference to southern Britons under Roman rule! And Old English would need some reworking before flitting to Anglo-Saxon. Laurel Bush 17:46, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC).

Old English here refers to the first stage in the development of the English language, hence 'Old English language'. Almost every text calls this stage 'Old English' and in this way the title is very appropriate for this subject. – AxSkov 09:41, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Old habits dont make a practice appropriate but I guess I might be using a lot of Anglo Saxon in Wikipedia. Laurel Bush 13:06, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC).

Maybe think of this...

Invader languages only replace native languages when the natives are all killed (usually by disease and technical superior agression) like in the US and South America.

With Britain, the Britons never really spoke the languages of...

A The Romans (Latin/Italian) B Anglo Saxons (Anglo Saxon) C Danes/Vikings (Norse) D Normans (French)

I don't believe in "Old English" because that is merely Anglo Saxon, spoken by those Anglo Saxons who ran England for five hundred years and afterwards the ones that were not killed at Hastings.

It makes sense (when you look at European invasions and language replacements) that the majority of of Britain has always been speaking English fairly similar to todays. Venacular languages were not written down until fairly recently in history. Arabs were in charge of Spain for five hundred years in almost the same time period (shifting forward 200 years) so why don't the Spanish speak Arabic?

A better question is, why do the Spanish speak a Latin derivative? --Brion 01:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Um, I have a question - What are you talking about? The development of English is well tracked from the Anglo-Saxon tongue to the modern day, via Middle English. The remnants of the original British language are contained in Welsh, Breton, and Cornish. We don't speak that(well, apart from the Welsh and the Bretons. And some Cornishpeople).

How stupid! American Indians weren't all killed. The American precolumbian population was extremely sparse except in the big Andine and Centroamerican nations, the Incas, Aztechs and Mayas.

In fact in Brazil there are more now Indians than at the discovery... just because they are Romanists and have Portuguese surnames it doesn't mean they or their ancestors were killed! Oppressed probably, even if several tribes were allied to the Portuguese, but not killed.

Perhaps a direct translation of the except from Beowulf, as opposed to one that follows the poetic form, would serve as a better linguistic illustration. 4pq1injbok

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Is there a reason why we need the word language in the page name? Isn't just "Old English" clear enough?--Sonjaaa 13:26, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

I think it's just the Wikipedia convention that generally languages are named "[language name] language", but after reading talk:Inuktitut and talk:Latin language where it appears the primary motivation for "____ language" is disambiguation with ethnic groups of the same name, I agree, it could probably be moved to Old English. —Muke Tever 16:00, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Disagree, I think it should stay for consistency and clarity. Everyking 16:07, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A question about OE prepositions

In the Prepositions section, it says that prepositions may occur in postposition. As it is a notable feature of germanic languages, couldn't a preposition found in the postpositional location be the particle of a verb-particle construction, or am I mistaken?

Prepositions do indeed sometimes occur in postposition in Old English. Having said that though, the article's point about postposition seems an odd one to me, as while it does happen, it is not the typical order. Their occurrence in postposition, I would almost say, is the exception to the rule. You do get prominent examples, of course, however. You only have to go nineteen lines into Beowulf to find the lines,

Beowulf wæs breme blæd wide sprang

Beowulf was renowned; (his) fame spread wide

Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.

Shield's offspring in Scedeland.

In which we have a preposition ending the noun phrase "Scyldes(genitive) eafera Scedelandum(dative) in." But my inclination is to think that this word order was favoured here in order to best suit the metre of the line. Regardless, it is by no means the favoured order in Old English prepositional phrases, though it does happen. --Yst 11:33, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why is there an Old English section in Wikipedia? Is that a joke?

Spelling

The spelling of this page should use British Spelling due to the fact that this is about a subject that occurred in Britain. So I will correct the spelling according to where this subject comes from. -- 203.164.184.155 12:18, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please stop changing the spellings in the Old English language article. It is a violation of wikipedia policy to do so. Please read the Wikipedia:Manual of Style before you make any further changes. In particular: "If an article is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type rather than provoking conflict by changing to another" and "If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article who used a word with variant spellings in the article or the title".

Darrien 12:41, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

You obviously have not read through this article properly, otherwise you would have realised that there is a mixture of British and American spelling styles. If you cared to look through the page history properly the first major contributor (that is not a stub) was done with British spelling. The first contributor who started this article is Scottish (according to page history), which is a country of Britain. So before reverting do your homework. I must admit that before doing the changes I didn't look through the page history, but I did the changes on the basis that Old English occurred in Britain and NOT in the US. -- 203.164.184.155 13:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you are going to make controversial changes, then it is you who should point out your reasons for making the change. If you had left a note that the first major contributor used British English, or mentioned it after I had done my first revert, there would not have been any problems.

Darrien 00:58, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

Beowulf translation

Does anyone have a modern translation for the Beowulf quotation? The current one isn't in a form of Modern English that's spoken today. As it's only a small part that's being quoted (24 lines), there'd be no problem using the Heaney translation (though we should credit it). Does anyone have it to hand? jguk 23:20, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, the Beowulf passage's facing "translation" looks like a practical joke. Old English sentences which are already conveniently in a completely coherent modern SVO word order have been intentionally placed out of their original and modern order in the translation to make the phrase appear more abstruse in Modern English. Take for example Beowulf is min nama, which one needn't know a word of Old English to recognise as "Beowulf is my name." The phrase has been intentionally distorted as "I am Beowulf named" for no apparent reason. And how the similarly transparent "Ic eom Hroðgares ar ond ombiht" ("I am Hrothgar's herald and officer") ended up as "Messenger, I, Hrothgar's herald!" in translation is completely beyond my imagining. Given the atrociousness of the present translation, absolutely anything at all with which it might be replaced could hardly be worse. And seeing as this passage does not impose any problematic critical issues in interpretation, and no interventionist manuscript ammendations are required to reconstruct it, I will endeavour to write a proper translation for it when I've got a spare moment using conventional glosses (the critical editions I have in my possession do not conflict in their interpretation of any part of the passage or in their choice of individual glosses) --Yst 06:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Alright, indeed, I've replaced the original with a fairly conservative semi-literal translation of my own creation. The prior translation wasn't anything close to literal, and some glosses were simply incorrect. On the other hand, a word for word translation is of course impossible, as Old English sentence structure ranges anywhere from ungrammatical to completely incoherent in Modern English, but this translation attempts none of the ridiculous poetic flourishes of the original, nor does it use Elizabethan English, which should be an improvement. --Yst 12:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Even though Yst's translation into modern English is much easier to read, in the Old English version I have replaced the wynn character with w for easier reading. If a novice tries to have a go at reading the Old English version, the character can unfortunately be mistaken for p (due to how some fonts render the character). Also most modern prints or translations (that I have come across) these days use 'w' instead of . – AxSkov 02:08, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Phonetic transcriptions

I really have to question some of the phonetic transcriptons you've got up. Indeed I've changed a few, but I thought I'd ask before changing the diphthongs. For instance, and I think this is the most way-out one, you say the letter 'y' was used for 'o-e' type sounds, when everything I've read or heard up till now says short 'y' was [Y] and long was [y:] - why else would it become merged with the 'u' or 'i' phonemes later? ...and why would they use 'y' for an o-e sound when that's not done in any other language (as far as I know)? A few other points are:

- Wasn't 'z' said [ts] if it ever appeared? - For example 'betst' (best in modern English) was sometimes written 'bezt' - Wasn't long 'a-e' said [E:] either instead of or as well as [{:] - Weren't long 'i', 'u' and 'o' quantitively longer than the short versions as well as being of different quality? - Surely short 'o' was said [O] as well as [Q] in some places? - Wasn't short 'a' rounded before an [n]? - Was long 'a' really never [a:], and was short 'a' really never [A]? - Were the second part of the falling diphthongs really schwa? - I thought the only letter that was schwaed was 'e', and even that may not have been schwaed until the middle english period

Hope someone can clear this up. All the best.

User:Xipirho 19:12, 28 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Copyedit

Amongst other things I do on Wikipedia, I also copyedit. Being able to improve articles so they are more readable I think is a worthwhile thing to do, whilst also giving me a chance to learn something about subjects I know little about.

It is disappointing, however, when some editors reject improvements by just saying "it was all right as it was". Personally I would welcome copyeditors (especially those who know little about cricket to have a look at the cricket-related articles, or the article on United Kingdom corporation tax I have written and suggest how to improve them). Here we have a simple dispute. The years referred to in the article are currently presented in a highly confusing manner. They adopt a style that many do not understand, and which, although this is a British topic, is wholly non-standard in the UK (in that no British English usage guides I've ever seen even refer to the style). I am proposing to make the date references easier to follow; there should be no ambiguity here as long as the reader clearly understands that it is a year we are referring to. That is why I am making the adjustment. I am surprised that there are those who are against improving the readability of the article. Kind regards, jguk 20:24, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not against making articles more legible, but by removing information that could give someone else a chance to learn something new about a subject – that they may not have come accross before – robs them of that chance to learn about it. You said yourself, that you like to learn something new about subjects of which you have little knowledge. You also said that people from the UK would not understand the date references in this article, that's a mighty big assumption, just because you don't understand something does not mean everyone else does. CE is a date system used by academics, historians and modern scientific publications. What's wrong in using it especially if there's a wikilink to an article explaining what it is? -- AxSkov 00:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Because there's no need for it in this instance. There is no ambiguity to resolve here. Also, it is confusing. Nor does it provide extra information that's in any way relevant to the article. What's wrong in making articles easier to read? jguk 08:16, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've just came across the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). After looking at the Eras section in the Manual, I understand why you made those changes, that CE/AD should only be used when dates span the start of the Common Era or from BCE/BC to CE/AD. So if you make those changes again I will not oppose them. -- AxSkov 11:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry about making those changes, I've just made them. -- AxSkov 09:20, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First sentence (under Germanic Origins)

"The most important shaping force on Old English was, of course, its Germanic heritage in vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, that it shared with its sister languages in continental Europe."

My problems here are that "of course" seems to be POV. Secondly, that sentence makes little sense to me. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this to make it less awkward? Also, if anyone would like to second or counter my statement, please feel free to do so. Thank you. - Thorns among our leaves 16:17, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Remove X-SAMPA

I am going to remove the X-SAMPA pronunciation codings, now that Internet Explorer can display IPA symbols using the IPA template. X-SAMPA is not really needed for this article anymore. – AxSkov 13:48, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Done. – AxSkov 14:34, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. I'd been thinking about it but never got round to it. Xipirho 22:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

's' Pronunciation

Are you sure final 's' was devoiced? I always thought it wasn't, just like in modern English. After all, OE didn't have auslautsverhärtung. Xipirho 17:54, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No one can be 100% sure that final 's' was voiceless, but (all of) the Old English language experts say that the final 's' was voiceless. From what I have read on the Internet and in encyclopaedias the final 's' didn't start becoming voiced until the later part of the Middle English period. See the External links on the Old English language page for links to more information about the 's' pronunciation. Hope this helps. – AxSkov 14:07, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK. Cool, I didn't know that was the general concensus - thanks for enlightening me. You don't know why it stayed unvoiced in most (all?) nouns do you BTW? E.g. 'ice', 'horse', 'goose' etc. Anyway, thanks for changing it. Oh, I wasn't sure which links to check - are there any specific ones I should have a look at? Cheers. Xipirho 22:28, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This article gives the end date for the language as 1200. Obviously any cut off date can't be precise, it being a gradual process, but I always thought 1100 was the accepted date, I guess the idea being that within one generation of the conquest enough changes could be seen that it's a useful dividing point. Any opinions about this? Everyking 10:59, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

At first I wasn't going to mess with it, but this persistence in changing the correct semicolon to the incorrect comma is getting on my nerves, so from here on out I'm just going to rollback those edits, in the absence of some sort of agreement that it should be a comma. Everyking 19:50, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Featured article

I am going to nominate this article for featured article status. If you object, please do so within this week. --Zantastik 08:46, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The English of our Ancestors

I know the language (and syntax, etc.) that, for instance, Shakespeare used isn't 'Old English'; what is the English from this period actually called? I'm trying to research similarities between modern Spanish and, say, the English of Shakespeare, but I don't know what to call it. (I'm trying to look up similarities like how people used to be much more flexible in their subject verb object placement, etc. I'm also looking at how "we" used to ask questions like, "Have you a pen?", just as the Spaniards do today.) Anyways, any help would be great. Thanks. --Djacobs 18:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Shakespeare's English is known as "Early Modern English" today. Everyking 00:58, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Added that to the article. Also replaced the bit about correctness of the term, mainly because Shakespeare, while not Old English, is certainly old English--with "English" meaning "Modern English" of course, not "all ages of English". —Muke Tever 14:12, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Semicolon/comma

The semicolon in the first sentence of the second paragraph has been changed to a comma about five times now. I think there are some misconceptions about when to use a semicolon and when to use a comma The phrase in question is:

Old English was not static; its usage covered a period of some 700 years or so.

Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of some 700 years or so.

As they are two indpendent clauses, if a period is not used, the semicolon should be instead (first example). A comma (second example) creates a comma splice and makes the phrase sound like a run-on sentence. If an and was added, then a comma could be used. But as it stands, this needs a semicolon.

Also, the second external link on the comma page (http://www.geocities.com/markboonejesusfreak/academic/commas) talks about the comma splice and the example is very similar to the one here.

I would actually opt for a colon there (it shows proof and [sometimes] causality); either is fine. It's basically a matter of preference. But you're right: the comma has no place in the middle of that sentence. --Djacobs 18:28, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Revert wars

An anonymous user 203.164.184.111 reverted a great deal of the fixes I made, claiming he "didn't agree with it". Whimemsz then undid the revert, at which point Mr. 203 then re-reverted.

Revert wars are clearly anti-social; I'd like to suggest a consensus in favor of the changes I made:

[a] the info on the pronunciation of c and g that i put in is directly out of Campbell 1959. the previous info was clearly wrong, and in the info i added, i gave demonstrations to show this.

[b] the alternative pronunciations i added for ie are from Lass 1994 and others.

[c] the stuff on 'wuldor' does not belong. it duplicates the example 'engel', and the sound change described along with it. the deletion of 'o' in 'or' is not specific to 'or' or even to the vowel 'o'.

if no one comments in another day, i will put back my changes.

Benwing 01:54, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Unless the anonymous user can provide some actual evidence that the information was incorrect, I would of course support placing it back on the page. I asked the user on their talk page whether they believed the info was factually inaccurate, but they haven't responded yet. --Whimemsz 14:43, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Keep it simple, do not add copious amounts of information that makes the section confusing to read. If you feel it necessary that more information is needed then add footnotes to the bottom of the section, such as a Note. Remember, no one actually know what these sounds were like and if someone says that they do then they are deluded, most of what is know about pronunciation is really educated guess work at best. Most of the pronunciation information came from E-Intro to Old English - 2. Pronunciation (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/pronunciation.html), The Pronunciation of Old English (http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/OEsteps/pronounc.html), etc. How can you say that information was wrong by consulting an out of date textbook.

The 'Wuldor' example was there first so delete the 'engel' example. Also do not add AD or CE to the year, that was sorted out earlier, just leave it as year. -- John 12:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

PS this page uses standard British spelling, don't use American spelling - this was also sorted out earlier. Also cite your references by: (1) if online add to the Also see section or (2) a footnote at the end of the article.

Well, obviously we don't KNOW how anything was pronounced for certain, but to call it "guess work at best" is completely misrepresenting the situation. There are a number of clues that historical linguists can use to have a fairly good idea of how things were pronounced. But that's not really the issue here, so never mind. My thinking is, the more information, the better, but I do see your point about cluttering the orthography list...thing...up too much. Maybe just put the deleted information below that list as a note, like you mentioned? (EDIT: Oh, wait. Benwing claims that "the previous info was clearly wrong." In which case, it should certainly be deleted. What exactly was wrong, Benwing?) --Whimemsz 18:10, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

The info was wrong because you cannot determine the pronunciation of c or g by looking at the surrounding vowels -- this was true in 400 AD, but not in 900 AD when OE was written down. In the info that John 12:46 keeps deleting, I explained exactly why what I said is true, with historical examples.

Could you please expand on your comments above. -- John 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I have posted a request to the Wikipedia:AMA_Requests_for_Assistance page, since i don't see how we can resolve this; John 12:46 will just keep reverting. -- Benwing 01:29, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

BTW his comments about British spelling, AD vs. CE, etc. are completely irrelevant and designed to distract from the issue at hand.

I just mentioned this, because when I read through your changes I noticed a few of those things, and thought you might find this information useful for future reference. -- John 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Just because something was there first does not make it right. i already explained why above.

Complaining that I am "deluded" and citing "out of date textbooks" [Campbell 1959, which is *the* classic reference on OE, and much more authoritative than the couple of random web pages that John 12:46 cites] is nothing more than slander. -- Benwing 01:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Don't be so sensitive. I didn't say that you were "deluded", I said "someone", not referring to you specifically, just anyone, who claims to know what those sounds were actually like. Campbell 1959 may be the "classic" reference on OE, but it is certainly not the only one. The websites I mentioned were not random at all, some are recommended by various institutions to visit for getting an idea of what the Old English language might have been like. -- John 11:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

As I said before, though, the implication in that claim is that we have no idea what a dead language was pronounced like. In fact, although we may have a few things wrong, with languages as well-documented and carefully researched as Old English, we're probably pretty damn close. I don't doubt that those are reliable websites, but I do think that the information from Campbell should NOT have been deleted. In my opinion, it should be restored in a note at the bottom of the section at the very least. Benwing has a point that the current descriptions are inadequate and basically incorrect as a result. --Whimemsz 21:24, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Viking Influence

The whole Viking Influence section of the article, in my opinion should be rewritten; as it is, it's fairly confused and clumsy. What I'm most wary of, though, is the claim: "One theory holds that the presence of very similar words in both Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English – that is, if your Nordic neighbour says "horsu" and you say "horsa", you split the difference and just say "horse", reducing the ending to no more than a silent vowel. Others point out that the silent 'e' of English was pronounced up until the beginning of the Renaissance, so this compromise would be impossible. A compromise between "horsa" and "horsu" being "horse" is possible, but it would have a pronounced 'e'." I'll admit I don't know much about Old English, but this seems like a very very very very unlikely possibility to me, and I'd like to know who's theory this is (The sentence at the end about final orthographic <e> being pronounced just adds to the overall clumsiness of the paragraph; although it's true, it just...doesn't fit). --Whimemsz 16:37, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Benwing! --Whimemsz 23:18, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Acute accents vs. macrons

Is there any good reason why this article uses acute accents rather than macrons to mark long vowels? All textbooks, dictionaries, and grammars of Old English I'm familiar with use macrons: A. Campbell, Old English Grammar; Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English; Roger Lass, Old English: A historical linguistic companion; J.R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Any objections to switching to macrons here? --Angr/ 10:25, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Phonology section

I've got some real problems with a lot of the assertions made in the phonology section, but I don't want to change anything until I get some input from other people.

c: between or before front vowels: ; otherwise in all other positions except after an 's' (see sc) or before a 'g'. The 'soft-c' ) is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern speakers for the sake of pronunciation, like so: 'ċ' or 'č' or 'ç'.

It wasn't always before front vowels; the palatalization doesn't apply before vowels that were fronted by umlaut: cēne, cēpan, and cyning, for example, all had . Also, who uses č or ç? I've only ever seen ċ.

cg:

In docga at least it was probably .

ð/þ: initially, finally or between a vowel and a voiceless consonant: ; between two vowels or between a vowel and a voiced consonant: . In the modern orthography, all voiceless 'ð'/'þ's use the þ (thorn), while all voiced ones use the ð (eth).

What modern orthography? OE isn't written anymore. If citing a specific ms., editors use the letter found in the ms. The reference grammars seem to prefer thorn in initial position and eth in final position (both voiceless positions!) and are inconsistent about which to use in the middles of words.

g: between or before front vowels: ; after a front vowel and before a consonant: ; otherwise in all other positions. The 'soft-g' ) is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern speakers for the sake of pronunciation, represented as 'ġ' or the number three ('3') – representing yogh ), which is not to be confused with ezh ), a similar looking letter.

g was adjacent to front vowels (again except the ones fronted by umlaut: gēs and gyrdan have ; after back vowels; after n in palatalizing environments (e.g. sengan < *sangjan was ), and elsewhere.

h: initial or following a consonant: ; following a back vowel or a diphthong beginning with a back vowel: ; following a front vowel or a diphthong beginning with a front vowel: .
hl: – a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, like the Welsh letter 'll'.
''': , replaced in modern print by hw – a voiceless labial-velar fricative, like the Scots letter 'wh'.

h was in syllable onset position and in syllable coda position (maybe after front vowels, like in Modern German, but it's probably impossible to know for sure). The consonant clusters hl, hn, hr, hw were just that, clusters, from the phonological point of view, but were probably pronounced as voiceless sonorants , , , . It's really unlikely hl was a lateral fricative like the Welsh sound.

--Angr/ 11:11, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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