A Guide to Pronouncing Anglo-Saxon

[weofodthignen]

Written Anglo-Saxon is a medieval language, so it is written basically phonetically-all written letters should be sounded (including r), except that in some cases they are part of a digraph where the combination represents a single sound (like modern th and in some people’s pronunciation, wh). (The Anglo-Saxon digraphs are: ig, cg, hl, hn, hr, hw

Comments

[spi_sto_let]

Thanks a lot for this. Any idea how to pronounce the name "Beorhtel"? I need it for the book I'm translating, and I really need to know how to trancsribe it...

[weofodthignen]

BAY-urchht-ell :-)

M

[spi_sto_let]

Oh, thank you so much =) So that's [beiə:k'tel] then, is it?

[weofodthignen]

Not quite--the r is sounded; a short trill would be my guess in this phonetic context, so [r], but it could be like a US r, which I dimly remember is an upside down r in IPA??? And the "h" is not a k with glottal stop--it's like the "ch" in German "ich," the unvoiced version of what IPA (and Cyrillic) represents as X. As you can tell, I don't have IPA easily within reach, so I don't remember the symbol for that. But yes, it's a schwa ([ə]) for the second half of the diphthong. At least in my opinion. Not a long one though--Anglo-Saxon still pronounced the /r/s that have become length markers in modern British.

Hoping that makes sense ...

[spi_sto_let]

It does =) Thank you for your help, I won't forget this!