Beowulf by Janina Ramirez

Author:Janina Ramirez [Ramirez, Janina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405935951
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Old English is essentially spelled as it was pronounced. This meant that words were written differently in regions where words were pronounced distinctly. Although it is a long-dead language, we can learn how to read and recite it, since we can follow the rhythmical and alliterative patterns, examining spelling variations to see how sounds changed over centuries.

The first thing to note is that the Old English alphabet has a few unusual letters: ‘Þ’ (thorn) and ‘ð’ (eth) are both pronounced ‘th’, and ‘æ’ (ash) is a long ‘a’. Once you know how these letters should sound, they are less intimidating. However, it is a fully inflected language with five grammatical cases. Like French, all nouns are gendered (e.g., ‘sēo sunne’, the Sun, is feminine; ‘se mōna’, the Moon, is masculine).

When it comes to pronunciation, most Old English consonants are the same as their Modern English equivalents. The exceptions are ‘c’, which can be pronounced hard like ‘k’ or sibilant as ‘ch’. And ‘g’ can be pronounced as ‘y’ before ‘i’ or ‘e’ and as a hard ‘g’ otherwise. The long vowels sit further downwards in the mouth. Long ‘e’, for example, should rhyme with ‘way’ rather than ‘meet’. This is because Old English literature dates from before the Great Vowel Shift, when the influence of French loanwords shifted the pronunciation of long vowels upwards.

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