The Old English Alphabet
After the Roman Empire collapsed, Western Europe was thrown into a time of economic, political, and social mayhem. People were slaughtered as tribes tried to become kings. New empires grew. Religions appeared. More important, though, was the onset of a new language after the Empire crumbled. Before that, Latin was the big language. After that, each area started to develop its own specific language. In the 5th century ACE, Old English appeared in the land that is now commonly called England. However, back in that time, the speakers of Old English called the place they lived Angelcynn or Englaland.
Called Englisc by the speakers, it didn’t start appearing in text until the 8th century. There were four different dialects of Englisc. West Saxon was the dialect that most texts were written in, but the other three were Mercian, Northumbrian and Kentish. Whichever one was used by the Angle (the name these people took for themselves) was dependent often times on where they lived and where they had come from. By hearing the specific dialect, it would help someone determine where that traveler was from. It’s similar to being from New York and then going to Virginia. Dialects change.
The Old English Alphabet
The alphabet that is seen today when discussing the Old English Alphabet is usually written with a Runic alphabet. This alphabet was brought to the land in the 11th century by the Saxons. In modern days, the only place to really find Runic letters is on jewelery, weapons, stones and other objects. There are only a few Runic manuscripts that remain.
Originally, the Old English alphabet looked more like Latin. The Irish missionaries that tried to convert the Anglo-Saxons preferred this script type of writing that was elegant and beautiful, so it was in vogue for quite a while. However, as time went on, the elegant script was gradually replaced by a more rigid type of lettering. Fundamentally, though, if someone can read both sets of alphabets, they can read anything in Old English.
There are a few details to understand about the Old English alphabet that, when looking at it, make sense.
- There is no need for a q or z in the alphabet, so they are completely left out.
- J and v don’t have their own letter, but when they are needed, they become a variation of i and u respectively.
- K was used rarely and was used only to represent the sound of the k.
Old English is where the modern day English originated from. When looking at the alphabet, it is easy to see the similarities between letters. The “i” in Old English is only different from the Modern “i” because there is no dot on the Old English version. There are a lot of different distinctions like this, that make the Old English alphabet so interesting. Although Old English is no longer used, the alphabet is still used to this day to try and decipher various old documents that researchers come across.
