Abstract
How many vowels did Old English (OE) have? Did its vowels contrast phonemically in length? Did it have diphthongs? Did its singleton and geminate consonants contrast phonemically in duration? Surprisingly, experts do not seem to agree. We have undertaken to bring some clarity to these issues by interrogating some of the most ancient texts ever written in the English language. When contemporary acoustic phonetic and phonological theories are applied to these ancient texts, they reveal that the orthographers of OE were keenly aware of the phonetic feature [± tense] of OE vowels even though they did not have an accurate label for it. They were also keenly aware of the distributional constraints of its open and closed syllables, and their proclivity to ambisyllabicity. They took full advantage of these insights in reducing English to writing. By scrutinizing four of the most ancient texts written in OE, we have uncovered what early orthographers knew and how they applied their insights to OE spelling, thereby bequeathing to subsequent generations an orthographic system that Chomsky and Halle (1991:49) qualify as “remarkably close to optimal.”
Recommended Citation
Koffi, Ettien and Randolph, Isabella
(2025)
"A TEXT-BASED ANALYSIS OF OLD ENGLISH VOWELS AND CONSONANTS IN LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGICAL THEORIES,"
Linguistic Portfolios: Vol. 14, Article 9.
Available at:
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling/vol14/iss1/9
