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The 'phonology of Old English' is necessarily somewhat speculative, since it is preserved purely as a written language. Nevertheless, there is a very large corpus of Old English, and the written language apparently indicates phonological alternations quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw certain conclusions about the nature of Old English phonology.

Contents

Sound inventory

Consonants

Consonant allophones

Vowels

The distribution of velars and palatals

Phonological processes

A-restoration

Breaking

h-loss

i-mutation

Vowels after palatals

References

Sound inventory

The inventory of surface sounds (whether allophones or phonemes) of Old English is as shown below.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
'Stop'
'Affricate'
'Nasal'
'Fricative'
'Approximant'
'Lateral approximant'

1. The exact nature of Old English ''r'' is not known. It may have been an alveolar approximant , as in most Modern English accents, an alveolar flap , or an alveolar trill . In this article we will use the symbol indiscriminately to stand for this phoneme.

Consonant allophones

The sounds marked in parentheses in the table above are allophones:

★ is an allophone of occurring after and when geminated

★
★ For example, ''senġan'' "to singe" is < <

★
★ and ''bryċġ'' "bridge" is < < <

★ is an allophone of occurring before and

★
★ For example, ''hring'' "ring" is ; did not occur alone word-finally in Old English as it does in Modern English.

★ are allophones of respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants.

★
★ For example, ''stafas'' "letters" is < , ''smiþas'' "blacksmiths" is < , and ''hūses'' "house (genitive)" is < .

★ are allophones of occurring in coda position after front and back vowels respectively. The evidence for this 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, 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.

★ The sequences /hw hl hn hr/ were realized as [ʍ l ̥ n ̥ r ̥].

★
★ For example, ''cniht'' "boy" is , while ''ġeþōht'' "thought" is

★ is an allophone of occurring after a vowel or liquid. Historically, is older, and originally appeared in word-initial position as well; for Proto-West Germanic (PWG) and probably the earliest Old English it makes more sense to say that is an allophone of after a nasal. But after became word-initially, it makes more sense to treat the stop as the basic form and the fricative as the allophonic variant.

★
★ For example, ''dagas'' "days" is and ''burgum'' "castles (dative)" is

Vowels

Monophthongs	Short		Long
	Front	Back	Front	Back
'Close'
'Mid'
'Open'

The front mid rounded vowels occur in some dialects of Old English, but not in the best attested Late West Saxon dialect. There is also historical evidence suggesting that short /e/ and /o/ were phonetically lower and/or more centralized (perhaps and ) than the corresponding long ones.

Diphthongs	Short (monomoraic)	Long (bimoraic)
'First element is close'
'Both elements are mid'
'Both elements are open'

2. It is uncertain whether the diphthongs spelt ''ie''/''īe'' were pronounced or . The fact that this diphthong was merged with in many dialects suggests the former.

The distribution of velars and palatals

The pairs ~ and ~ are almost certainly distinct phonemes synchronically in Late West Saxon, the dialect in which the majority of Old English documents are written. This is shown by such near-minimal pairs as:

★ ''drincan'' "to drink" vs. ''drenċan'' "to drench"

★ ''gēs'' "geese" vs. ''ġē'' "you"
Nevertheless there are very few environments in which both the velars and the palatals can occur; in most environments only one or the other set occurs. Also, the two sets alternate with each other in ways reminiscent of allophones, for example:

★ ''ċēosan'' "to choose" vs. ''curon'' "chose (pl.)"

★ ''ġēotan'' "to pour" vs. ''guton'' "poured (pl.)"
(In the standardized orthography used on this page, ''c'' stands for , ''ċ'' for , ''g'' for and , and ''ġ'' for and . The geminates of these are spelled ''cc'', ''ċċ'', ''cg'', ''ċġ''.)
The best way to explain the distribution of ''c''~''ċ'' and ''g''~''ġ'' is through historical linguistics. The PWG ancestor of both ''c'' and ''ċ'' is ; the ancestor of both ''g'' and ''ġ'' is . Palatalization of to ''ċ'' and of to ''ġ'' happened in the following environments:

★ before PWG nonlow front vowels () as well as PWG

★
★ Examples: ''ġifþ'' "(he) gives" < , ''ċīdan'' "to chide" < , ''ċeorl'' "churl" < , ''ġēotan'' "pour" < ; non-initially ''bēċ'' "books" < , ''sēċan'' "seek" < , ''bryċġ'' "bridge" <

★ before OE < PWG (but not before OE < PWG by a-restoration)

★
★ Examples: ''ġeaf'' "gave" < , ''ċēace'' "cheek" <

★ before OE < PWG

★
★ Examples: ''ċēas'' "chose (sg.)" < , ''ġēat'' "poured (sg.)" <

★ before OE < PWG by breaking

★
★ Examples: ''ċeald'' "cold" < , ''ġeard'' "yard" <

★ after OE , unless a back vowel followed

★
★ Examples: ''iċ'' "I" < PWG , ''dīċ'' "ditch, dike" < PWG (but ''wicu'' "weak")

★ after OE and ( only!), unless a back vowel followed

★
★ Examples: ''weġ'' "way" < PWG , ''næġl'' "nail" < PWG , ''mǣġ'' "relative" < PWG (but ''wegas'' "ways")
The velars remained velar, however, before back vowels that underwent i-mutation (umlaut):

★ ''cyning'' "king" <

★ ''gēs'' "geese" <

★ ''cemban'' "to comb" <

★ ''macian'' "to make" <
Palatalization was undone before consonants in OE:

★ ''sēcþ'' "he seeks" <
★ ''sēċþ'' <

★ ''sengþ'' "he singes" <
★ ''senġþ'' <
The palatalization of PWG to OE (spelled ''sċ'') is much less restricted: word-initially it is found before back vowels and ''r'' as well as in the environments where ''ċ'' and ''ġ'' are found.

★ ''sċuldor'' "shoulder" <

★ ''sċort'' "short" <

★ ''sċrūd'' "dress" <
Non-initially palatalization to ''sċ'' is found before PWG front vowels and ''j'', and after front vowels in OE, but not before an OE back vowel

★ ''fisċ'' "fish" <

★ ''āscian'' "ask" <
In addition to from the palatalization of PWG , Old English also has from PWG , which could stand before back vowels:

★ ''ġeong'' "young" < PWG

★ ''ġeoc'' "yoke" < PWG
Many instances where a ''ċ/c'', ''ġ/g'', or ''sċ/sc'' alternation would be expected within a paradigm, it was levelled out by analogy at some point in the history of the language. For example, the velar of ''sēcþ'' "he seeks" has replaced the palatal of ''sēċan'' "to seek" in Modern English (though not in the related verb ''beseech'').

Phonological processes

A-restoration

The Anglo-Frisian languages underwent a sound change in their development from Proto-West Germanic by which the vowels were fronted to unless followed by a nasal consonant, a process known in the literature as 'Anglo-Frisian brightening'.
Later in Old English, short (and in some dialects long as well), was backed to when there was a back vowel in the following syllable. Because strong masculine and neuter nouns have back vowels in the plural, alternations like in the singular vs. in the plural are common in this noun class:

' alternation in masculine and neuter strong nouns'
'Case'	'Masculine'		'Neuter'
	'Singular'	'Plural'	'Singular'	'Plural'
'Nominative'	dæġ	dagas	fæt	fatu
'Accusative'	dæġ	dagas	fæt	fatu
'Genitive'	dæġes	daga	fætes	fata
'Dative'	dæġe	dagum	fæte	fatum

Breaking

'Breaking' in Old English is the diphthongization of the short vowels to short (monomoraic) when followed by or by or plus another consonant. Note that /l/ in implosive position has a velar quality (the "dark l" allomorph on PDE ''all'', ''cold''), and is therefore indicated as . The geminates ''rr'' and ''ll'' count as ''r'' or ''l'' plus another consonant. (But the change → does not happen before plus consonant unless the cluster is .)
Examples:

★ ''weorpan'' "to throw" <

★ ''wearp'' "threw (sing.)" <

★ ''feoh'' "money" <

★ ''feaht'' "fought (sing.)" <

★ ''healp'' "helped (sing.)" <

★ ''feorr'' "far" <

★ ''feallan'' "to fall" <

★ ''eolh'' "elk" < (but no breaking in ''helpan'' "to help" because the consonant after is not )
The breaking of as a result of i-mutation of is .
Examples:

★ ''hwierfþ'' "turns" (intr.) < < + I-mutation <

★ ''hwierfan'' "to turn" (tr.) < < + I-mutation <

h-loss

In the same contexts where the voiceless fricatives become voiced, i.e. between vowels and between a voiced consonant and a vowel, is lost, with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel if it is short. Breaking before and takes place regardless of whether the is lost by this rule. An unstressed short vowel is absorbed into the preceding long vowel.
Examples:

★ ''sċōs'' "shoe" (gen.) < < , cf. ''sċōh'' (nom.)

★ ''fēos'' "money" (gen.) < < < , cf. ''feoh'' (nom.)

★ ''wēalas'' "foreigners, Welsh people" < < , cf. ''wealh'' (sing.)

i-mutation

:''See i-mutation in Old English''

Vowels after palatals

The vowels ''ie''/''īe'' and ''ea''/''ēa'' generally occur in Old English after ''ċ'', ''ġ'', ''sċ'' where the vowels ''e''/''ē'' and ''æ''/'' would be expected.
Examples:

★ ''sċieran'' "to cut", ''sċear'' "cut (past sing.)", ''sċēaron'' "cut (past pl.)", which belongs to the same conjugation class (IV) as ''beran'' "to carry", ''bær'' "carried (sing.)", '' "carried (pl.)"

★ ''ġiefan'' "to give", ''ġeaf'' "gave (sing.)", ''ġēafon'' "gave (pl.)", ''ġiefen'' "given", which belongs to the same conjugation class (V) as ''tredan'' "to tread", ''træd'' "trod (sing.)", '' "trod (pl.)", ''treden'' "trodden"
The traditional view of this (e.g. Campbell 1959, Mitchell and Robinson 2001) is that the vowels were actually diphthongized in this position.
A minority view (e.g. Lass 1994) is that this phenomenon is purely orthographic, and that no diphthongization took place. Under this view, the words listed above have the following pronunciations:

★ ''sċieran''

★ ''sċear''

★ ''sċēaron''

★ ''ġiefan''

★ ''ġeaf''

★ ''ġēafon''

★ ''ġiefen''
The main argument in favor of this view is the fact that diphthongizations like → and → (if this is the correct interpretation of orthographic ''ie'') are phonetically unmotivated in the context of a preceding palatal or postalveolar consonant.

References

★ Old English Grammar, Campbell, A., , , Oxford University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-19-811943-7

★ Old English: A historical linguistic companion, Lass, Roger, , , Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-521-43087-9

★ A Guide to Old English, Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C. Robinson, , , Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 0-631-22636-2