When you think about Old English, you may imagine pages from Beowulf or a swinging storefront sign reading “Ye Olde Shoppe.” But what did Old English letters really look like? Did they look like a completely different language, or was the Old English alphabet easy for English speakers to read?
Luckily, you don’t need to step into a time machine or a British literature class to see Old English letters—you see them every day, including right now! Learn how Old English letters have influenced our modern English language, which ones we don’t use anymore, and how Old English letters connect English with other languages around the world.
Table of Contents
The Old English alphabet
Before exploring Old English letters, it’s important to know where English came from. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was the language spoken in England and Scotland during the early Middle Ages. It was influenced by Brittonic Celtic (a dialect of various native Celtic languages), Latin from the Roman Empire, and Germanic languages from the Angle and Saxon tribes of Germany. Old English was known as Ænglisc or Englisc to its speakers, and was the primary language of Britain from the mid 5th-century until the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The oldest Old English documents date back to the 7th century, and reflect the language’s adoption of letters from the Latin alphabet. However, the Old English alphabet from this period also includes several letters that represent distinct Germanic sounds.
Old English was typically written in lowercase letters until the 8th century, when the Carolingian minuscule script developed a stronger distinction between capital and lowercase letters.
| Old English Letter | Sound | Example in Old English |
| A, a | ah (as in father) | andgit, arod |
| B, b | buh | bealu, bæl |
| C, c | kuh | cempa, coss |
| D, d | duh | duguþ, duru |
| E, e | eh | engel, ent |
| F, f | feh | fæder, forma |
| G, g (sometimes Ᵹ, ᵹ) | guh | garleac, god |
| H, h | huh | hlaford, hund |
| I, i | ih | isen, ic |
| L, l | luh | laþ, lif |
| M, m | muh | mæg, modor |
| N, n | nuh | neah, næss |
| O, o | aw | oft, oþþe |
| P, p | puh | pæþ, plume |
| R, r | ruh | rap, ricsian |
| S, s | suh | sunne, sona |
| T, t | tuh | tun, tungol |
| U, u | oo | fus, hunig |
| X, x | gh or ich | axian, feax |
| Y, y | ee | alyfan, flys |
| Ƿ, ƿ | wuh | ƿinter, ƿif |
| Ð, ð | th (as in breathe) | broðer, weaðer |
| Þ, þ | th (as in think) | þær, þurh |
| Æ, æ | ah (as in cat) | hætan, æppel |
Old English also used several letter combinations to create distinct sounds. For example, gh made a “kh” sound when pronounced (as in night, pronounced “neekt” in Old English), and wh made a voiceless “wh” sound (as in what, pronounced “hwat” in Old English).
Old English letters we don’t use anymore
While this alphabet looks similar to our modern English alphabet, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed some missing letters (J, K, Q, V, W, and Z) that weren’t needed to spell Old English words during this period, as Old English words didn’t include these sounds. Additionally, the last five letters of the Old English alphabet—ƿ, ð, þ, æ, and œ—come from the previous Futharc runic alphabet and reflect Germanic sounds not made by other letters in the Latin alphabet.
Today, some of these letters from Old English are obsolete and appear only in Old English documents. However, because Old English and Old Norse share Germanic roots, some Old English letters also appear in Scandinavian languages that come from Old Norse, and still appear in those modern alphabets.
Wynn (Ƿ, ƿ)
Wynn (Ƿ, ƿ) created a “w” sound in Old English words, as Latin didn’t have a W in its alphabet. Latin also didn’t have a letter U and used the letter V to make the long /oo/ vowel sound. English dropped the wynn during the transition to Middle English and replaced it with a double U or double V which eventually became the letter “w.” Today, wynn is an obsolete letter and not used in any modern language.
Eth (Ð, ð)
The letter eth (Ð, ð) represented the “th” sound in Old English words, specifically the soft “th” in words like “breathe.” It was mainly used in words with Irish roots and was written similarly to a Latin D. Today, you’ll find eth in both Icelandic and Faroese alphabets to represent that “th” sound.
Thorn (Þ, þ)
Like eth, thorn (Þ, þ), also spelled þorn, was used to make a “th” sound in Old English. This use was slightly different and was more commonly used in the beginnings of words, as in “think.” Thorn was a more commonly used letter than eth, and is still present in the Icelandic alphabet today.
Ash (Æ, æ)
Ash (Æ, æ) represented a short “a” sound that sounds like the “a” in “cat.” Known as a linguistic ligature (two letters joined together to make a single sound), the ash was a way to distinguish between the letter A, which made a long “a” sound, and the shorter vowel sound. You’ll find this letter in modern-day Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, and Faroese.
Were diacritics used in Old English?
Also known as accent marks, diacritics guide readers toward a word’s pronunciation and meaning. Old English diacritics often appear in manuscripts from this era, though their usage isn’t always consistent, as they were frequently added by scribes without a standardized diacritic system. (That’s why Old English spelling was inconsistent, too!)
Common Old English diacritics and their functions include:
- acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú): stressed syllable or long vowel sound
- dots (ċ, ġ): palatalized consonants
- bars/macrons (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū): long vowel sound
Additionally, a bar can indicate missing consonants in a word. Linguists typically use context clues in the rest of a medieval manuscript to determine that particular scribe’s purpose in using a diacritic in their writing.
The Futhorc came before the Old English alphabet
Before English adopted the Latin alphabet to depict its sounds in writing, scholars used the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, Anglo-Saxon runes composed of symbols that represented common words in the Anglo-Saxon language. These runes typically resembled the concept they represented, and several went on to become part of the Old English alphabet (pay special attention to Þorn, wyn, æsc!).
| Rune | Symbol | Old English Letter |
| feh | ᚠ | f |
| ur | ᚢ | u |
| Þorn | ᚦ | þ |
| ōs | ᚩ | o |
| rād | ᚱ | r |
| cēn | ᚳ | c |
| gyfu | ᚷ | g |
| wyn | ᚹ | w |
| hægil | ᚻ | h |
| næd | ᚾ | n |
| īs | ᛁ | i |
| gær | ᛡ | j |
| īw | ᛇ | ï |
| peord | ᛈ | p |
| ilcs | ᛉ | x |
| sygil | ᛋ | s |
| Tīw | ᛏ | t |
| berc | ᛒ | b |
| eh | ᛖ | e |
| mon | ᛗ | m |
| lagu | ᛚ | l |
| ing | ᛝ | ŋ |
| oedil | ᛟ | œ |
| dæg | ᛞ | d |
| ac | ᚪ | a |
| æsc | ᚫ | æ |
| ear | ᛠ | ea |
| ȳr | ᚣ | y |
If some of those runic names look almost like modern English words, that’s not a coincidence. The rune berc is the symbol for “birch tree,” īs is the symbol for “ice,” gyfu is the symbol for “gift,” and mon is the symbol for “man.” Even the rune for Þorn looks like a stem with a thorn!
Middle English changes
So why don’t we use letters like thorn or ash anymore? Old English transitioned to Middle English after the Norman conquest of 1066 brought on a significant Norman-French influence, and French loanwords in Middle English didn’t require the use of Old English letters.
However, the final change that eliminated thorn, ash, eth, and wynn was the invention of the printing press in 1440. Because these five letters weren’t readily available on most printing machines, typesetters found other ways to represent these sounds with the standardized Latin alphabet. That’s why we use digraphs like “th” or letters like “w” instead of these letters today.
Additional changes from the Old English alphabet to the Middle English alphabet include:
- The addition of J, K, Q, V, W, and Z to the alphabet to reflect loanwords from other language influences
- C making both a “k” sound and an “s” sound
- Q appearing in more words when paired with U
- Z sounding less like an “s” sound and more like a “z” sound
The Middle English alphabet didn’t change between this period and the 16th-17th century Renaissance, when Modern English (also known as Shakespearean English) became the more standard. However, with changes to spelling and pronunciation in Middle English, as well as a huge number of loanwords from other languages, Modern English became much less phonetic than its previous versions. That’s why many many learners find English is one of the harder languages to learn.
FAQs on Old English letters
There may only be 24 Old English letters, but there’s so much history and meaning to uncover in each one. Discover more about these notable moments in the English language, including how common conceptions about Old English may not be as true as they seem.
Does Old English have silent letters?
Old English does not have silent letters, as it is a highly phonetic language that is pronounced just the way it’s spelled.
While some modern words with Old English roots do have silent letters today (including wrap, spelled wræppen and pronounced “whrapen” with the vocalized W, or knee, spelled cnēo and pronounced “kuh-nee”), those silent letters are holdovers to their Old English backgrounds that were standardized by the Latin alphabet. All that to say, if you see a letter written in Old English, it’s not silent, so feel free to pronounce it!
Why does Old English look so fancy?
If the Old English alphabet doesn’t look as formal or fancy as you imagine it to be, that’s less to do with the individual letters and more to do with the script in which they’re written. When scribes and scholars first wrote in Old English during the Middle Ages, they used Insular Minuscule, a cursive script that added embellishments to different letters.
When you combine Insular Minuscule with thorn, ash, and other Old English runic letters, the effect looks much “fancier” than standard English writing or text.
Is “Ye Olde” a real Old English phrase?
“Ye Olde” is not a real Old English phrase, despite the fact that many think of it as a primary example of Old English writing. But it’s not a completely fictional part of Old English history. The word “Ye” comes from the Old English word þe, which uses a thorn to create the “th” sound.
But as was the case with many Old English words, typesetters in the Middle English period struggled to spell þe without the use of a thorn letter in the Latin typeface. They began using Y instead of þ, which made “the” look like “ye” in typing. (The word “Olde,” however, is a fictional Old English word, as adding a silent E to a word was not standard in Old English.)
What languages are similar to Old English?
Along with Modern English, Germanic languages like Dutch, German, and Frisian (which is the closest language to English) share roots with Old English, making them quite similar.
Additionally, Icelandic, Danish, and Norwegian come from Old Norse, a close linguistic relative to Old English, and even share some of the “lost” Old English letters in their modern alphabets! To learn more about how much these languages share with English, start your language journey with Rosetta Stone today.
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