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Characteristics of the OE phonetics and spelling system.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.
· 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. 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.
Some grammar books say that the spelling ie also represents a diphthong, but this book interprets it as a simple vowel. Consonants Most Old English consonants are pronounced as in Modern English, and most of the differences from Modern English are straightforward: 1. Old English scribes wrote the letters þ (“thorn”) and ð (“eth”) interchangeably to represent [θ] and [ð], the sounds spelled th in Modern English. Examples: þing ‘thing’, brōðor ‘brother’. 2. There are no silent consonants. Old English cniht (which comes to Modern English as knight) actually begins with [k]. Similarly hlāf(Modern English loaf) and hring (ring) begin with [h], gnæt (gnat) with [ɡ], and wrīðan (writhe) with [w]. Some Old English consonant combinations may be difficult to pronounce because they are not in Modern English. If you find this to be so, just do your best. 3. The consonants spelled f, s and þ/ð are pronounced as voiced [v], [z] and [ð] (as in then) when they fall between vowels or other voiced sounds. For example, the f of heofon ‘heaven’, hæfde ‘had’ and wulfas ‘wolves’ is voiced. So are the s of ċēosan ‘choose’ and the ð of feðer‘feather’. This distinction remains not only in such Modern English singular/plural pairs as wolf/wolves, but also in such pairs as nounbath and verb bathe, noun cloth and derivative clothes. 4. These same consonants were pronounced as unvoiced [f], [s], and [θ] (as in thin) when they came at the beginning or end of a word or adjacent to at least one unvoiced sound. So f is unvoiced in ful ‘full’, cræft ‘craft’ and wulf ‘wolf’. Similarly s is unvoiced in settan‘set’, frost ‘frost’, and wulfas ‘wolves’, and þ/ð is unvoiced in þæt ‘that’ and strengð ‘strength’. 5. When written double, consonants must be pronounced double, or held longer. We pronounce consonants long in Modern English phrases like “big gun” and “hat trick,” though never within words. In Old English, wile ‘he will’ must be distinguished from wille ‘I will’, and freme ‘do’ (imperative) from fremme ‘I do’. QUESTIONS: Characteristics of the OE phonetics and spelling system. The Old English Phonetics. Though Gothic is referred to the East Germanic subgroup of languages, its similar sounds, morphological forms and vocabulary with Old English, Old High German, Old Scandinavian and other ancient Germanic languages are quite frequent. In the early Medieval Age, when both Gothic and Old English were spoken, single languages of the group did not go too far from each other and remained very much alike. As a whole, Old English phonetics included the majority of sounds typical for all Germanic speech; and only some of its phonemes are unique and require a special acquaintance. First we will talk about the vowels, which could be either short or long in Old English, just like in Modern English or German. The difference between them is also familiar to Modern English speakers: the distinction between open and close syllables. This distinction is quite Germanic, and obviously did not existed in Proto-Indo-European where vowels could be short and long in every position. In Germanic a long sound in a closed syllable can be seldom met. The table below explains all Old English (OE) vocals compared to those of Gothic and followed by examples (sounds for them will follow later):
Spelling. OE alphabet used two kinds of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The bulk of the OE material is written in the Latin script. The most interesting peculiarity of OE writing was the use of some runic characters, in the first place, the rune called "thorn" which was employed alongside the crossed d, ∂ to indicate [th] and [∂]. In the manuscripts one more rune was regularly used – "wynn" for the sound [w]. The Anglo-Saxons did not use the letters v and j (which were invented later), and q and z were used only very occasionally. They used the letter æ, which we do not use. Old English writing - phonetic principle: every letter indicated a separate sound. But, some letters indicated two or more sounds. ñì. ðèñóíêè. Some OE letters indicated two or more sounds, even distinct phonemes. The letters could indicateshort and long sounds. The letters f, s and [th], [∂] stand for voiced fricatives between vowels and also between a vowel and a voiced consonant; otherwise they indicate corresponding voiceless fricatives. The letter ç stands for [g] initially before back vowels, for [j] before and after front vowels, for [γ] between back vowels and for [g'] mostly when preceded by c: OE daç [j] The letter h stands for [x] between a back vowel and a consonant and also initially before consonants and for [x’] next to front vowels: OE niht [x’] The letter n stands for [n] in all positions except when followed by [k] or [g]; in this case it indicates [ŋ]: OE sinçan.
Date: 2015-12-17; view: 2735
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