Old English

Updated: 12/11/2025, 5:35:30 PM Wikipedia source

Old English (Englisc or Ænglisc, pronounced [ˈeŋɡliʃ] or [ˈæŋɡliʃ]), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature dates from the mid-7th century. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, English was replaced for several centuries by Anglo-Norman (a type of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during the subsequent period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into what is now known as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language; and Latin, brought to Britain by the Roman conquest. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Kentish, Mercian, Northumbrian, and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian, and Scots from Northumbrian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, with its closest relatives being Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is very different from Modern English and Modern Scots, and largely incomprehensible for Modern English or Modern Scots speakers without study. Within Old English grammar, the nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, and word order is much freer. The oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 8th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet.

Infobox

Pronunciation

[ˈeŋɡliʃ]

Region

England (except Cornwall and the extreme north-west), southern and eastern Scotland, and some localities in the eastern fringes of modern Wales

Ethnicity

Anglo-Saxons

Era

5th century –12th century; mostly developed into Middle English and Early Scots by the 12th century

Language family

Indo-European GermanicWest GermanicNorth Sea GermanicAnglo-FrisianAnglicOld English

Early forms

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic

Dialects

Kentish Anglian • Mercian • Northumbrian West Saxon

Writing system

Runic, later Latin (Old English Latin alphabet)

ISO 639-2

ang

ISO 639-3

ang

ISO 639-6

ango

Glottolog

olde1238

Tables

Consonants · Phonology

Nasal

Col 1

Nasal

Labial

Alveolar

(n̥) n

Velar

(ŋ)

Stop

Col 1

Stop

Labial

p b

Alveolar

t d

Palatal

tʃ (dʒ)

Velar

k (ɡ)

Fricative

Col 1

Fricative

Labial

f (v)

Dental

θ (ð)

Alveolar

s (z)

Palatal

ʃ (ç)

Velar

x ɣ

Glottal

(h)

Lateral

Col 1

Lateral

Alveolar

(l̥) l

Approximant

Col 1

Approximant

Alveolar

(r̥) r

Palatal

Velar

(ʍ) w

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		(n̥) n		(ŋ)
Stop	p b		t d	tʃ (dʒ)	k (ɡ)
Fricative	f (v)	θ (ð)	s (z)	ʃ (ç)	x ɣ	(h)
Lateral			(l̥) l
Approximant			(r̥) r	j	(ʍ) w

Monophthongs · Phonology

unrounded

Col 1

unrounded

Front

rounded

Front

unrounded

Back

rounded

Col 1

Front

i iː

Front

y yː

Back

u uː

Mid

Col 1

Mid

Front

e eː

Back

o oː

Open

Col 1

Open

Front

æ æː

Back

ɑ ɑː

Back

(ɒ)

	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
Close	i iː	y yː		u uː
Mid	e eː			o oː
Open	æ æː		ɑ ɑː	(ɒ)

Diphthongs · Phonology

Firstelement

Short(monomoraic)

iy̯

Long(bimoraic)

iːy̯

Mid

Firstelement

Mid

Short(monomoraic)

eo̯

Long(bimoraic)

eːo̯

Open

Firstelement

Open

Short(monomoraic)

æɑ̯

Long(bimoraic)

æːɑ̯

Firstelement	Short(monomoraic)	Long(bimoraic)
Close	iy̯	iːy̯
Mid	eo̯	eːo̯
Open	æɑ̯	æːɑ̯

· Orthography

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/ɑ/

Notes

Spelling variations like ⟨land⟩ ~ ⟨lond⟩ ("land") suggest the short vowel had a rounded allophone [ɒ] before /m/ and /n/ when it occurred in stressed syllables.

Variants in modern editions

/ɑː/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ā⟩ to distinguish long /ɑː/ from short /ɑ/.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/æ/

Notes

Formerly the digraph ⟨ae⟩ was used; ⟨æ⟩ became more common during the 8th century, and was standard after 800. Modern editions use ⟨ǣ⟩ to distinguish long /æː/ from short /æ/.

Variants in modern editions

/æː/

Variants in modern editions

/æ/, /æː/

IPA transcription

In 9th-century Kentish manuscripts, a form of ⟨æ⟩ that was missing the upper hook of the ⟨a⟩ part was used; it is not clear whether this represented /æ/ or /e/. The symbol ⟨ę⟩ is used as a modern editorial substitution for the modified Kentish form of ⟨æ⟩. Compare e caudata, ⟨ę⟩.

Variants in modern editions

/b/

[v] (an allophone of /f/)

Variants in modern editions

Used in this way in early texts (before 800). For example, the word sheaves is spelled scēabas in an early text, but later (and more commonly) as scēafas.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/k/

Notes

The /tʃ/ pronunciation is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern editors: most commonly ⟨ċ⟩, sometimes ⟨č⟩ or ⟨ç⟩. Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always /k/; word-finally after ⟨i⟩ it is always /tʃ/. Otherwise, a knowledge of the history of the word is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty, although it is most commonly /tʃ/ before front vowels (other than [y]) and /k/ elsewhere.

Variants in modern editions

/tʃ/

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

[ɡɡ] (between vowels; rare), [ɡ] (after /n/)

Notes

Proto-Germanic *g was palatalised when it underwent West Germanic gemination, resulting in the voiced palatal geminate [ddʒ] (which can be phonemically analyzed as /jj/). Consequently, the voiced velar geminate [ɡɡ] (which can be phonemically analyzed as /ɣɣ/) was rare in Old English, and its etymological origin in the words in which it occurs (such as frocga 'frog') is unclear. Alternative spellings of either geminate included ⟨gg⟩, ⟨gc⟩, ⟨cgg⟩, ⟨ccg⟩ and ⟨gcg⟩. The two geminates were not distinguished in Old English orthography; in modern editions, the palatal geminate is sometimes written ⟨ċġ⟩ to distinguish it from velar ⟨cg⟩. After /n/, /j/ was realised as [dʒ] and /ɣ/ was realised as [ɡ]. The spellings ⟨ncg⟩, ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of the usual ⟨ng⟩. The addition of ⟨c⟩ to ⟨g⟩ in spellings such as ⟨cynincg⟩ and ⟨cyningc⟩ for ⟨cyning⟩ may have been a means of showing that the word was pronounced with a stop rather than a fricative; spellings with just ⟨nc⟩ such as ⟨cyninc⟩ are also found. To disambiguate, the cluster ending in the palatal affricate is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ (or ⟨nġċ⟩) by modern editors.

ċġ

Variants in modern editions

[ddʒ] (between vowels), [dʒ] (after /n/)

Variants in modern editions

/d/

IPA transcription

In the earliest texts it also represented /θ/. See ⟨þ⟩.

Variants in modern editions

ð, þ

IPA transcription

/θ/, including its allophone [ð]

Notes

Called ðæt in Old English; now called eth or edh. Derived from the insular form of ⟨d⟩ with the addition of a cross-bar. Both ⟨þ⟩ and ⟨ð⟩ could represent either allophone of /θ/, voiceless [θ] or voiced [ð], but some texts show a tendency to use ⟨þ⟩ at the start of words and ⟨ð⟩ in the middle or at the end of a word. Some modern editors replace ⟨ð⟩ with ⟨þ⟩ as a form of normalisation and means of imposing consistency. See ⟨þ⟩.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/e/

Variants in modern editions

/eː/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ē⟩ to distinguish long /eː/ from short /e/.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/æɑ̯/

Notes

Sometimes stands for /ɑ/ after ⟨ċ⟩ or ⟨ġ⟩

ēa

Variants in modern editions

/æːɑ̯/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ēa⟩ to distinguish long /æːɑ̯/ from short /æɑ̯/. Sometimes stands for /ɑː/ after ⟨ċ⟩ or ⟨ġ⟩.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/eo̯/

Notes

Sometimes stands for /o/ after ⟨ċ⟩ or ⟨ġ⟩

ēo

Variants in modern editions

/eːo̯/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ēo⟩ to distinguish long /eːo̯/ from short /eo̯/.

Variants in modern editions

/f/, including its allophone [v]

IPA transcription

See also ⟨a⟩.

Variants in modern editions

/oː/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ō⟩ to distinguish long /oː/ from short /o/.

Variants in modern editions

oe, œ

IPA transcription

/ø/

Notes

Only occurs in some dialects. Written as ⟨oe⟩ in Old English manuscripts, but some modern editions use the ligature ⟨œ⟩ to indicate that it is a single vowel sound. Modern editions use ⟨ōe⟩ or ⟨œ̄⟩ to distinguish long /øː/ from short /ø/.

ōe, œ̄

Variants in modern editions

/øː/

Variants in modern editions

/p/

Variants in modern editions

/kw/

IPA transcription

A rare spelling of /kw/, which was usually written as ⟨cƿ⟩ (⟨cw⟩ in modern editions).

Variants in modern editions

/r/

IPA transcription

The exact nature of Old English /r/ is not known; it may have been an alveolar approximant [ɹ] as in most modern English, an alveolar flap [ɾ], or an alveolar trill [r].

Variants in modern editions

/s/, including its allophone [z]

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/sk/ (rare)

Notes

At the start of a word, the usual pronunciation is palatalised sċ /ʃ/. Between vowels in the middle of a word, the pronunciation can be either a palatalised geminate /ʃː/, as in fisċere /ˈfiʃ.ʃe.re/ ('fisherman') and wȳsċan, /ˈwyːʃ.ʃɑn ('to wish'), or an unpalatalized consonant sequence /sk/, as in āscian /ˈɑːs.ki.ɑn/ ('to ask'). The pronunciation /sk/ occurs when ⟨sc⟩ had been followed by a back vowel (/ɑ/, /o/, /u/) at the time of palatalisation, as illustrated by the contrast between fisċ /fiʃ/ ('fish') and its plural fiscas /ˈfis.kɑs/. But due to changes over time, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty. In word-final position, the pronunciation of sċ was either /ʃ/ or possibly /ʃː/ when the preceding vowel was short.

sċ

Variants in modern editions

/ʃː/ (between vowels),/ʃ/ (elsewhere)

Variants in modern editions

/t/

Variants in modern editions

/θ/

IPA transcription

Represented /θ/ in the earliest texts (see ⟨þ⟩)

Variants in modern editions

/θ/, including its allophone [ð]

IPA transcription

Called thorn and derived from a rune of the same name. In the earliest texts ⟨d⟩ or ⟨th⟩ was used for this phoneme, but these were later replaced in this function by eth ⟨ð⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩. Eth was first attested (in definitely dated materials) in the 7th century, and thorn in the 8th. Eth was more common than thorn before the time of Alfred. From then onward, thorn was used increasingly often at the start of words, while eth was normal in the middle and at the end of words, although usage varied in both cases. Some modern editions use only thorn.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/u/, also sometimes /w/. See ⟨ƿ⟩.

Variants in modern editions

/uː/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ū⟩ to distinguish long /uː/ from short /u/.

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/w/

Notes

Old English manuscripts typically represented the sound /w/ with the letter ⟨ƿ⟩, called wynn and derived from the rune of the same name. In earlier texts by continental scribes, and also later in the north, /w/ was represented by ⟨u⟩ or ⟨uu⟩. In modern editions, wynn is replaced by ⟨w⟩, to prevent confusion with ⟨p⟩.

Variants in modern editions

/ks/

Variants in modern editions

IPA transcription

/y/

Variants in modern editions

/yː/

IPA transcription

Modern editions use ⟨ȳ⟩ to distinguish long /yː/ from short /y/.

Variants in modern editions

/ts/

IPA transcription

A rare spelling for /ts/; e.g. betst ('best') is occasionally spelt bezt.

OE	Variants in modern editions	IPA transcription	Notes
a	a	/ɑ/	Spelling variations like ⟨land⟩ ~ ⟨lond⟩ ("land") suggest the short vowel had a rounded allophone [ɒ] before /m/ and /n/ when it occurred in stressed syllables.
a	ā	/ɑː/	Modern editions use ⟨ā⟩ to distinguish long /ɑː/ from short /ɑ/.
æ	æ	/æ/	Formerly the digraph ⟨ae⟩ was used; ⟨æ⟩ became more common during the 8th century, and was standard after 800. Modern editions use ⟨ǣ⟩ to distinguish long /æː/ from short /æ/.
	ǣ	/æː/
	ę	/æ/, /æː/	In 9th-century Kentish manuscripts, a form of ⟨æ⟩ that was missing the upper hook of the ⟨a⟩ part was used; it is not clear whether this represented /æ/ or /e/. The symbol ⟨ę⟩ is used as a modern editorial substitution for the modified Kentish form of ⟨æ⟩. Compare e caudata, ⟨ę⟩.
b		/b/
b		[v] (an allophone of /f/)	Used in this way in early texts (before 800). For example, the word sheaves is spelled scēabas in an early text, but later (and more commonly) as scēafas.
c	c	/k/	The /tʃ/ pronunciation is sometimes written with a diacritic by modern editors: most commonly ⟨ċ⟩, sometimes ⟨č⟩ or ⟨ç⟩. Before a consonant letter the pronunciation is always /k/; word-finally after ⟨i⟩ it is always /tʃ/. Otherwise, a knowledge of the history of the word is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty, although it is most commonly /tʃ/ before front vowels (other than [y]) and /k/ elsewhere.
c	ċ	/tʃ/
cg	cg	[ɡɡ] (between vowels; rare), [ɡ] (after /n/)	Proto-Germanic *g was palatalised when it underwent West Germanic gemination, resulting in the voiced palatal geminate [ddʒ] (which can be phonemically analyzed as /jj/). Consequently, the voiced velar geminate [ɡɡ] (which can be phonemically analyzed as /ɣɣ/) was rare in Old English, and its etymological origin in the words in which it occurs (such as frocga 'frog') is unclear. Alternative spellings of either geminate included ⟨gg⟩, ⟨gc⟩, ⟨cgg⟩, ⟨ccg⟩ and ⟨gcg⟩. The two geminates were not distinguished in Old English orthography; in modern editions, the palatal geminate is sometimes written ⟨ċġ⟩ to distinguish it from velar ⟨cg⟩. After /n/, /j/ was realised as [dʒ] and /ɣ/ was realised as [ɡ]. The spellings ⟨ncg⟩, ⟨ngc⟩ and even ⟨ncgg⟩ were occasionally used instead of the usual ⟨ng⟩. The addition of ⟨c⟩ to ⟨g⟩ in spellings such as ⟨cynincg⟩ and ⟨cyningc⟩ for ⟨cyning⟩ may have been a means of showing that the word was pronounced with a stop rather than a fricative; spellings with just ⟨nc⟩ such as ⟨cyninc⟩ are also found. To disambiguate, the cluster ending in the palatal affricate is sometimes written ⟨nċġ⟩ (or ⟨nġċ⟩) by modern editors.
cg	ċġ	[ddʒ] (between vowels), [dʒ] (after /n/)
d		/d/	In the earliest texts it also represented /θ/. See ⟨þ⟩.
ð	ð, þ	/θ/, including its allophone [ð]	Called ðæt in Old English; now called eth or edh. Derived from the insular form of ⟨d⟩ with the addition of a cross-bar. Both ⟨þ⟩ and ⟨ð⟩ could represent either allophone of /θ/, voiceless [θ] or voiced [ð], but some texts show a tendency to use ⟨þ⟩ at the start of words and ⟨ð⟩ in the middle or at the end of a word. Some modern editors replace ⟨ð⟩ with ⟨þ⟩ as a form of normalisation and means of imposing consistency. See ⟨þ⟩.
e	e	/e/
e	ē	/eː/	Modern editions use ⟨ē⟩ to distinguish long /eː/ from short /e/.
ea	ea	/æɑ̯/	Sometimes stands for /ɑ/ after ⟨ċ⟩ or ⟨ġ⟩
ea	ēa	/æːɑ̯/	Modern editions use ⟨ēa⟩ to distinguish long /æːɑ̯/ from short /æɑ̯/. Sometimes stands for /ɑː/ after ⟨ċ⟩ or ⟨ġ⟩.
eo	eo	/eo̯/	Sometimes stands for /o/ after ⟨ċ⟩ or ⟨ġ⟩
eo	ēo	/eːo̯/	Modern editions use ⟨ēo⟩ to distinguish long /eːo̯/ from short /eo̯/.
f		/f/, including its allophone [v]	See also ⟨b⟩.
g	g	/ɣ/, including its allophone [ɡ]	In Old English manuscripts, this letter usually took its insular form ⟨ᵹ⟩. The [j] and [dʒ] pronunciations are sometimes written ⟨ġ⟩ in modern editions. Word-initially before another consonant letter, the pronunciation is always the velar fricative [ɣ]. Word-finally after ⟨i⟩, it is always palatal [j]. Otherwise, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty, although it is most commonly /j/ before and after front vowels (other than [y]) and /ɣ/ elsewhere.
g	ġ	/j/, including its allophone [dʒ], which occurs after ⟨n⟩
h		/x/, including its allophones [h, ç]	The combinations ⟨hl⟩, ⟨hr⟩, ⟨hn⟩, ⟨hw⟩ may have been realised as devoiced versions of the second consonants instead of as sequences starting with [h].
i	i	/i/, rarely [j]	Although the spelling ⟨g⟩ is used for the palatal consonant /j/ from the earliest Old English texts, the letter ⟨i⟩ is also found as a minority spelling of /j/. West Saxon scribes came to prefer to use ⟨ri⟩ rather than ⟨rg⟩ to spell the /rj/ sequence found in verbs like herian and swerian, whereas Mercian and Northumbrian texts generally used ⟨rg⟩ in the spelling of these words.
i	ī	/iː/	Modern editions use ⟨ī⟩ to distinguish long /iː/ from short /i/.
ie	ie	/iy̯/
ie	īe	/iːy̯/	Modern editions use ⟨īe⟩ to distinguish long /iːy̯/ from short /iy̯/.
io	io	/io̯/	By the time of the first written prose, /i(ː)o̯/ had merged with /e(ː)o̯/ in every dialect but Northumbrian, where it was preserved until Middle English. In Early West Saxon /e(ː)o̯/ was often written ⟨io⟩ instead of ⟨eo⟩, but by Late West Saxon only the ⟨eo⟩ spelling remained common.
io	īo	/iːo̯/	Modern editions use ⟨īo⟩ to distinguish long /iːo̯/ from short /io̯/.
k		/k/	Rarely used; this sound is normally represented by ⟨c⟩.
l		/l/	Probably velarised [ɫ] (as in Modern English) when in coda position.
m		/m/
n		/n/, including its allophone [ŋ]	The allophone [ŋ] occurred before a velar plosive ([k] or [ɡ]).
o	o	/o/	See also ⟨a⟩.
o	ō	/oː/	Modern editions use ⟨ō⟩ to distinguish long /oː/ from short /o/.
oe	oe, œ	/ø/	Only occurs in some dialects. Written as ⟨oe⟩ in Old English manuscripts, but some modern editions use the ligature ⟨œ⟩ to indicate that it is a single vowel sound. Modern editions use ⟨ōe⟩ or ⟨œ̄⟩ to distinguish long /øː/ from short /ø/.
oe	ōe, œ̄	/øː/
p		/p/
qu		/kw/	A rare spelling of /kw/, which was usually written as ⟨cƿ⟩ (⟨cw⟩ in modern editions).
r		/r/	The exact nature of Old English /r/ is not known; it may have been an alveolar approximant [ɹ] as in most modern English, an alveolar flap [ɾ], or an alveolar trill [r].
s		/s/, including its allophone [z]
sc	sc	/sk/ (rare)	At the start of a word, the usual pronunciation is palatalised sċ /ʃ/. Between vowels in the middle of a word, the pronunciation can be either a palatalised geminate /ʃː/, as in fisċere /ˈfiʃ.ʃe.re/ ('fisherman') and wȳsċan, /ˈwyːʃ.ʃɑn ('to wish'), or an unpalatalized consonant sequence /sk/, as in āscian /ˈɑːs.ki.ɑn/ ('to ask'). The pronunciation /sk/ occurs when ⟨sc⟩ had been followed by a back vowel (/ɑ/, /o/, /u/) at the time of palatalisation, as illustrated by the contrast between fisċ /fiʃ/ ('fish') and its plural fiscas /ˈfis.kɑs/. But due to changes over time, a knowledge of the history of the word in question is needed to predict the pronunciation with certainty. In word-final position, the pronunciation of sċ was either /ʃ/ or possibly /ʃː/ when the preceding vowel was short.
sc	sċ	/ʃː/ (between vowels),/ʃ/ (elsewhere)
t		/t/
th		/θ/	Represented /θ/ in the earliest texts (see ⟨þ⟩)
þ		/θ/, including its allophone [ð]	Called thorn and derived from a rune of the same name. In the earliest texts ⟨d⟩ or ⟨th⟩ was used for this phoneme, but these were later replaced in this function by eth ⟨ð⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩. Eth was first attested (in definitely dated materials) in the 7th century, and thorn in the 8th. Eth was more common than thorn before the time of Alfred. From then onward, thorn was used increasingly often at the start of words, while eth was normal in the middle and at the end of words, although usage varied in both cases. Some modern editions use only thorn.
u	u	/u/, also sometimes /w/. See ⟨ƿ⟩.
u	ū	/uː/	Modern editions use ⟨ū⟩ to distinguish long /uː/ from short /u/.
uu	w	/w/	Old English manuscripts typically represented the sound /w/ with the letter ⟨ƿ⟩, called wynn and derived from the rune of the same name. In earlier texts by continental scribes, and also later in the north, /w/ was represented by ⟨u⟩ or ⟨uu⟩. In modern editions, wynn is replaced by ⟨w⟩, to prevent confusion with ⟨p⟩.

References

By the sixteenth century the term Anglo-Saxon came to refer to all things of the early English period, including languag
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language
Baugh (1960), pp. 60–83, 110–130.
Aeon
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-the-english-spelling-system-so-weird-and-inconsistent
A history of English. A sociolinguistic approach
Origins and development of the English language
The English language. A historical introduction
https://doi.org/10.1017%2FCBO9780511817601
The Oxford History of English
Hogg & Denison (2006).
Baugh (1960).
Hogg (1992), p. 83.
An Outline of English Literature; Anglo-Saxon and Middle English Literature
A Practical Introduction to the History of English
Campbell (1959), §§5–22.
Campbell (1959), p. 4.
Hogg (1992), p. 117.
Magennis (2011), pp. 56–60.
The Somersetshire dialect: its pronunciation. Two papers read before the Archeological society of Somersetshire
https://archive.org/details/somersetshiredi00bayngoog
Rotary-munich.de
https://web.archive.org/web/20090327012738/http://www.rotary-munich.de/2005-2006/theo-vennemann.pdf
Kulturelle Integration und Personennamen Im Mittelalter
https://doi.org/10.1515%2F9783110268850-011
Language Change and Variation
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kroch/papers/function-grammar-do.pdf
Journal of Germanic Linguistics
https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/culicover.1/Publications/do.pdf
ICAME Journal
https://web.archive.org/web/20200806012413/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/455f/5bdb18ddeb74a5c5015c733b4f0691bfe8f3.pdf
Nominal vs. Verbal -ing Constructions and the Development of the English Progressive
Contact: The Interaction of Closely-Related Linguistic Varieties and the History of English
"Verbal movement in Dutch present-participle clauses"
http://www.let.rug.nl/~koster/DenBesten/Hoeksema.pdf
The history of English: a linguistic introduction
https://books.google.com/books?id=1vj0-f_U1SQC&pg=PA86
Jespersen (1923), pp. 58–82.
BBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-OiNxknXdY
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language
McCrum (1987), pp. 70–71.
Our Language
Evolution of the English Language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adngAZ2iuRc
Campbell (1959), p. 21.
Ringe & Taylor (2014), p. 4.
Kuhn (1970), pp. 42–44.
Hogg (1992), p. 39.
Page (1973), p. 230.
Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
http://www.credoreference.com/entry/britlit/old_english
Mitchell & Robinson (2001), pp. 109–112.
English Studies
https://doi.org/10.1080%2F00138380701270572
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
https://archive.org/details/cambridgeencycl000crys
Millward & Hayes (2011), p. 96.
First Steps in Old English
Minkova (2014), p. 79.
Wełna (1986), p. 755.
Shaw (2012), p. 51.
Hogg (1992), p. 91.
Wełna (1986), pp. 754–755.
Fulk (2014), pp. 68–69.
Fulk (2014), pp. 69.
Publications of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40914943
Kuhn (1970), p. 45.
Hogg (1992), p. 257.
Ker (1990).
Anglo-Saxon Glosses and Glossaries
Beiträge zur englischen Philologie
English Linguistics 1500–1800 (A Collection of Facsimile Reprints)
https://archive.org/details/dalgariodidascal0000unse
The Tomb of Beowulf and Other Essays on Old English
The Evolution of Englishes. The Dynamic Model and Beyond
bosworthtoller.com
https://bosworthtoller.com/