Old English phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Stress

Phonotactics

Sound changes

Dialects

Examples

Gemination

Fricative voicing

Velar consonants

Palatal consonants

Sonorants

Monophthongs

Diphthongs

Onset

Nucleus

Coda

Exceptions to voicing

Origins of /f, θ, s/

Velarization

Voiceless sonorants

[|Unstressed] vowels

ea

eo

io

ie

Diphthong controversies

Old English phonology is the pronunciation system of Old English, the Germanic language spoken on Great Britain from around 450 to 1150 and attested in a body of written texts from the 7th–12th centuries. Its reconstruction is necessarily somewhat speculative, but features of Old English pronunciation have been inferred based on the sounds used in modern varieties of English, the spellings used in Old English literature, analysis of Old English poetry, and comparison with other Germanic languages.
Some words were pronounced differently in different dialects of Old English. The dialect called West Saxon is the best documented in surviving texts, and so is commonly treated as a default reference in descriptions of Old English, even though it is not a direct ancestor of the modern English language.
Old English had a distinction between short and long consonants, at least between vowels, and a distinction between short vowels and long vowels in [|stressed] syllables. It had a larger number of vowel qualities in stressed syllables than in unstressed ones. It had diphthongs that no longer exist in Modern English, with both short and long versions.

The inventory of consonant surface sounds of Old English is shown below. Allophones are enclosed in parentheses.

Notes:
The following consonants were generally both spelled and pronounced approximately as in modern English:. Others are described at Help:IPA/Old English and discussed below.

There was a contrast between short consonant sounds, such as the in banan 'slayers', and long consonant sounds, such as the in bannan 'summon': long consonants were represented in writing with double consonant letters. Long consonants are also called geminate consonants from the Latin word geminus 'twin, double'.
Geminate consonants occurred only in restricted positions: typically in the middle of a word after a stressed short vowel and before a vowel or sonorant, as in cynnes 'kin' or bettra 'better'. Geminates were shortened next to other consonants, at the end of a word, or after an unstressed vowel. In writing, however, double consonant letters were sometimes used in some of these contexts by analogy to inflected forms, or as etymological spellings. It is likely that early on, short and long consonants did contrast in word-final position, but even early texts show variation in spelling in this position: e.g. between bedd and bed 'bed', pronounced something like. It appears that geminate consonants could cause a preceding long vowel to be shortened, although this change may have been sporadic or the long vowel may have been subject to analogical restoration in some cases.
The short-long contrast was distinctive for most consonant phonemes. Minimal pairs can be cited for long and short, and also for and assuming that phonetic, are phonemically analyzed as,. Sometimes and are instead analyzed as separate phonemes, in which case neither has a distinctive length contrast. The affricate was always phonetically long between vowels; it could also occur after or at the end of a word. There seems to have been no merge between and at the end of a word, so there was a distinction in pronunciation between weġ 'way', pronounced, and weċġ 'wedge', pronounced or. The approximant was always short. The fricative could be short or long, but geminate was fairly marginal. In the context of verb conjugation, intervocalic singleton often originated from Proto-Germanic *b and showed alternation with the geminate. The change of intervocalic *b to had the effect of eliminating former minimal pairs between versus. The fricative came to be lost when single between voiced sounds: since only long remained in this position, its length was no longer contrastive. Spellings with single for original are sometimes seen, e.g. hlæhað, croha. Length was not distinctive for the phoneme, which originated from a cluster and was probably always phonetically long when it came between vowels within a word, and phonetically short in word-initial or word-final position.

The three phonemes, which all belong to the phonetic category of fricatives, had different pronunciations depending on the context. One set of allophones, transcribed as, were phonetically voiceless. The other set of allophones, transcribed as, were phonetically voiced. The difference between and was generally not marked in Old English spelling. The sounds were both written with the letter, the sounds were both written with the letter, and the sounds were both written with the letters and. However, certain alternative spellings existed for some sounds.
The pronunciation of as versus was generally predictable from context. The voiced allophones were used between voiced sounds so long as the immediately preceding syllable had some degree of stress. For example, the phoneme was pronounced as the voiced sound in the words eorðe 'earth' and fæþm 'fathom', which can be phonemically transcibed as, and phonetically transcribed as,. The voiceless allophones were used next to voiceless consonants, at the beginning and end of words, after unstressed syllables, and at the start of the second elements of compound words.
In accordance with these rules, the allophones and alternated in many pairs of related words or word-forms, such as the following:

There may have been some exceptions to the distribution of and according to these rules.
One category of potential exceptions is words where the fricative originally stood after an unstressed vowel, but the vowel was lost. Examples include the Old English words strengþu 'strength' and hālsian 'to take an oath', from Proto-West-Germanic *strangiþu and *hailisōn, with loss of the medial unstressed vowel *-i-. These words may have been pronounced and, with voiceless and.

A piece of evidence for fricatives being voiceless in this context is the verb blētsian 'to bless', which contains the same suffix -sian attached to the root of blōd 'blood'. The replacement of voiced with voiceless suggests that in this word was a phonetically voiceless sound.
On the other hand, there is evidence that some word-medial fricatives did become voiced after syncope. Old English anfilt or anfealt evolved from Proto-West-Germanic *anafalt-, and Old English sīþe evolved from Proto-West-Germanic *sigiþī, with loss of the unstressed vowels *-a- and *-i- respectively. The modern English forms of these words, anvil and scythe, are pronounced with the voiced fricative sounds and.

Another category of potential exceptions is words where original geminate became shortened, such as cærse.
Despite the evidence for some exceptions to the voicing of word-medial to in Old English, it is not clear that voiced and voiceless fricatives contrasted in this context. Some scholars have argued that the contrast had already become phonemic in Old English whereas, citing the absence of minimal pairs, argues that they were not lexically contrastive segments and so should be analyzed as allophones during Old English, even if their distribution was not determined solely by phonology.
The Old English fricative voicing rule did not apply to the fricatives or .

In contexts where other fricatives became voiced, Proto-Germanic *x came to be lost entirely in Old English, though before it was lost it caused certain sound changes such as breaking of preceding vowels. Old English did possess a voiced velar fricative sound, which developed from Proto-Germanic *ɡ, but is usually analyzed as a separate phoneme from : the sounds were normally distinguished in spelling, with written as and as, although some unetymological interchange of these spellings occurs, especially in word-final position. The fricative seems to have instead been phonemically identified in Old English with the plosive, also written.
The fricative developed later than other fricative sounds, as it evolved from the West Germanic cluster. It is likely that sċ was pronounced as geminate between vowels, and possibly also at the end of a word after a short vowel. In Old English poetry, between vowels seems to have been treated metrically like a cluster rather than like a single consonant.

The Old English phoneme descended in some cases from Proto-Germanic *f, which became between voiced sounds as described above. But also had another source. In the middle or at the end of words, Old English was often derived from Proto-Germanic *, a fricative allophone of the phoneme *b. Proto-Germanic *b became Old English only at the start of a word, after, or when geminated. In other contexts, it became Old English, pronounced either as or based on its position :

PG *stabaz > OE stæf
PG *habdē > OE hæfde 'had', but PG *habjaną > OE habban 'to have'

In contrast, the Old English phonemes and generally descend only from Proto-Germanic voiceless *θ and *s. Proto-Germanic * regularly developed in all positions into the Old English stop, as in fæder from Proto-Germanic *fadēr. Proto-Germanic *z regularly developed to Old English . As a result, some Old English verbs show alternations between and or between and, although in others this alternation was leveled, resulting in or throughout.
Examples of Old English verbs that retained inherited – or – alternations:

snīþan, snāþ, snidon, sniden from 'cut'
frēosan, frēas, fruron, froren from 'freeze'

Examples of Old English verbs that leveled the consonant to only or only :

wrīþan, wrāþ, wriþon, wriþen, versus 'wrap, twist'
lesan, læs, lǣson, lesen, versus 'gather'

The voiceless velar plosive was typically spelled. The sound alternated in some circumstances with the voiceless palatal affricate, also spelled.
The voiced velar plosive and fricative were both typically spelled and can be analyzed as allophones of the same phoneme. In early Old English, the plosive was used only after, as in singan, or as part of the geminate, as in frogga. In later Old English, was also used at the start of a word, but in early Old English, is believed to have been used in word-initial position. In both early and late Old English, was used medially after vowels or after consonants other than. The sounds and were mostly in complementary distribution. However, either sound could occur after, since phonetic occurred as the result of syncope in some words such as syngian. The phonemic transcription used in this article ignores such exceptional cases and treats and as allophones of a phoneme. As with, the letter in Old English represented not only velar but also palatal consonant sounds: had a palatal counterpart and had a palatal counterpart, described in the following section.
The voiceless glottal fricative and voiceless velar fricative were both typically spelled and are generally considered allophones of a single phoneme, which can be analyzed as, at least in early Old English. The glottal allophone was used at the start of a word, whereas the velar allophone was used at the end of a syllable or as part of the geminate. Thus, hund can be transcribed phonetically as, phonemically as. This phoneme is often assumed to have had a third allophone, a voiceless palatal fricative, used after front vowels. For example, cniht, may have been phonetically realized as.
The consonants and are analyzed as separate phonemes in at least the early stages of Old English, because it appears that they originally stood in direct contrast at the start of a word or at the end of a word. However, certain sound changes reduced the contrast between and in some later varieties of Old English.

Word-final and eventually merged in some dialects. This is shown by spellings with for words that originally ended with, and also some "inverted" spellings with final for words that originally ended with. Such spellings occur regularly in Late West Saxon, and in Kentish texts from around 900 onwards, suggesting both sounds had come to be pronounced in this position. They are not attested in older Kentish charters, and are seen only occasionally in Early West Saxon. Spellings with for original are comparatively rare in Anglian dialects, with hardly any clear examples in Northumbrian texts.
Word-medial was lost early on between voiced sounds. After this sound change, there was no direct contrast between and in this position. In the same dialects where final came to be spelled with, there are occasional examples of word-medial being written with : for example, for fuglas. Spellings like this have been interpreted as evidence that could be devoiced to in syllable-final, as well as in word-final position. Alternatively, the voiced sound may have been written here by analogy to the interchangeable use of the spellings and in word-final position. In support of the latter interpretation, points out examples of being used in place of medial at the start of a word-medial syllable, such as for dagum, sorge.

It is possible that medial became reanalyzed as an allophone of after the sound changes described above. In Late West Saxon texts, and were in complementary distribution everywhere except for at the start of a word. Word-initial never merged with, but the eventual replacement of word-initial with the plosive might have been a consequence of the sound becoming phonemically reanalyzed as in this position.
A morphological contrast is seen between inflected forms with medial --, and forms that show contraction of adjacent vowels after the loss of original intervocalic or. These alternate in certain classes of strong verbs as a result of Verner's Law:
an example is the strong class 6 infinitive slēan versus the corresponding plural past form slōgon.
The inflectional paradigms of some words show alternation between,, and as a result of devoicing and palatalization:

dæġ, dæġes vs. dagas
burg, burh >, vs. burgum, vs. byrġ

The palatal consonants were represented in Old English spelling with the same letters as velar consonants or clusters :

represented either palatal or velar.
represented either palatal or velar. After the letter, it usually represented palatal or velar.
or represented double consonants between vowels: either palatal or velar.
represented either palatal or velar.

Modern editors may mark the palatal consonants with a dot above the letter:,,. Historically, developed from by palatalization. Some cases of developed from palatalization of, while others developed from Proto-Germanic *j. Even though palatalization was originally a regular sound change, later sound changes and borrowings meant that the occurrence of the palatal forms was no longer predictable. Thus, palatal and velar consonants eventually became separate phonemes. But it is debated when the contrast became phonemic, and when the palatal counterparts of evolved to affricates as opposed to palatal plosives. The forms and, attested around 900 AD as unetymological spellings of original ortġeard and fetian, are commonly interpreted as evidence that palatal ċ had become an affricate, as it is assumed that these words underwent a change of to. However, because palatal ċ and velar c alliterate in English poetry up through at least the late tenth century, assumes that they were still allophones of a single phoneme before 1000. Likewise, word-initial palatal ġ and velar g alliterate with each other in early Old English verse, which interprets as evidence that and constituted allophones at this point in time, despite the existence of from Proto-Germanic. assumes that, and were all allophones of a phoneme at one point during the history of Old English.
Palatalized, according to, may have still been pronounced as a cluster rather than as a unitary consonant in some dialects at the end of Old English. state that palatalized was initially pronounced as or, but this coalesced to by some point during the 10th century.
The distribution of velar and palatal consonants is described below.

is always palatal at the start of a stressed syllable. Before a back vowel, the letter is variably written as a diacritic after word-initial to indicate its palatal quality: e.g. is spelled either or, is spelled either or.
are always palatal before stressed, and also before in most dialects; however, in Mercian, velar cea, gea can be found in words that underwent second fronting of stressed ă to æ̆, followed by back umlaut.
Before stressed, is always velar, and is usually velar. Palatal can occur before a stressed back vowel in words such as 'young' : this could be spelled, but spellings with initial, or are often seen instead, such as. Some scholars interpret spellings like as evidence that an epenthetic glide developed between the palatal consonant and the following back vowel, whereas others interpret in this context as a diacritic spelling where simply marks the palatal value of the preceding consonant letter.
Before stressed, are velar in cases where the vowel developed by i-umlaut of a back vowel: e.g. cǣġ, gēs, gylden, cȳþan. Palatal ċæ, ġæ, ċe, ġe are typically not found in stressed syllables in Early West Saxon, since palatal diphthongization replaced them with ċea, ġea, ċie, ġie respectively. However, these sequences are attested in some varieties of Old English. Spellings with for original ċæ̆, ġæ̆, such as ċæstre, ġæf, are attested in Anglian, although not universally: such words can also be spelled in Anglian texts with or, depending on the dialect and time period. In Kentish, palatal diphthongization did not occur, but the vowel æ eventually merged with e: subsequently, either letter could be used regardless of a word's etymology. Thus, spellings such as onċærrende, ċǣses can be found in Kentish charters from the 9th century. Palatal ċe, ġe arose regularly in non-West Saxon dialects in words containing the i-umlaut of ea: e.g. Mercian ċele, Mercian ġerwan, Kentish ġēman = Early West Saxon ċiele, ġierwan, ġīeman. Palatal ċe, ġe can also be found in Late West Saxon texts, which show "smoothing" of Early West Saxon ē̆a to ē̆ after a palatal consonant, e.g. ċerf, ġef, ġēr. Mercian texts that exhibit "second fronting" of æ̆ to ĕ may contain ċe, ġe in forms such as ġet, ċester = Early West Saxon ġeat, ċeaster. Palatal diphthongization of e does not seem to have been a consistent sound change outside of West Saxon so there are also examples where e simply represents original, such as Mercian ġeldan = Early West Saxon ġieldan. Palatal ċy, ġy occur in Late West Saxon words where corresponds to Early West Saxon ie: e.g. ġyfu, ġyldan. The letter "y" could also be used in Late West Saxon in place of original i, e.g. in ċyriċe for ċiriċe. After the merger of y, e in Kentish, could be used as a "reverse" spelling for, as in Kentish ċyrð.

Before unstressed vowels, can be palatal or velar depending on etymology. Velar can be found before unstressed back vowels in words such as dīcas, plegode, æscas, whereas palatal can be found before unstressed back vowels in words that originally contained an etymological *j or *i after the consonant, such as sēċan, wierġan, wȳsċan from Proto-Germanic *sōkijaną, *wargijaną, *wunskijaną. The letter is variably written as a diacritic between a palatal consonant and a following unstressed or ; before unstressed, was usually used instead. Velar can be found before an unstressed front vowel in class II weak verbs with an infinitive ending in -ian; e.g. wacian, dagian, āscian. The front vowel is here derived from umlaut, unrounding, shortening and raising of original -ō-: e.g. Proto-West-Germanic *makōn 'to make' was replaced with *makōjan, which is hypothesized to have developed through *makœ̅jan and *makejan to Old English macian. As seen from these examples, the sounds that etymologically caused palatalization of velar consonants also caused i-umlaut of the vowel in the preceding syllable. However, it is not always possible to predict whether a consonant is velar or palatal from the quality of the preceding vowel: some palatal consonants arose after the vowel, which is unchanged by i-umlaut and for historical reasons, some words developed palatal consonants between two back vowels.
The voiced affricate is found only in restricted contexts: it does not occur at the start of a word, and occurs medially or finally only after a nasal or in contexts where it was geminated. It is nearly in complementary distribution with. However, phonetic occurs as the result of syncope in some words such as menġu. The transcription in this article ignores such exceptional cases and treats as an allophone of.

senġan, pronounced
bryċġ, pronounced

In circumstances where the palatal affricates and came to be followed by another consonant due to syncope of an intervening vowel, they were eventually replaced with the corresponding velar plosives, and respectively. The affricates do seem to have been used before other consonants in compound words, e.g. in bryċġ-bōt 'bridge-repairing' and seċġ-lēac 'sedge-leek, rush-garlic'.

is an allophone of occurring before and. Words that have final in standard Modern English have the cluster in Old English.

sincan, phonetically
lang, phonetically

The exact nature of Old English is not known. It may have been an alveolar approximant, as in most Modern English accents; an alveolar flap ; or an alveolar trill.

The consonants are thought to have been velarized before a consonant or when geminate. This is based on the assumption that breaking of short vowels to diphthongs was caused by assimilation to a following velar consonant.

*lirnian > liornian > leornian
*erþǣ > eorþǣ > eorþe
*fællan > feallan

However, the exact quality of these allophones is disputed. For example, assumes that breaking before preconsonantal was caused by velarized, but argues that breaking before preconsonantal was not caused by a velar, uvular or retroflex coarticulation, but instead was an effect of being weakened in this position to a more vowel-like or approximant sound.
Based on phonotactic constraints on initial clusters, proposed interpreting and as digraphs representing the velarized sounds in prevocalic position, in which case the distinction would be phonemic, as exhibited by minimal pairs such as wrīdan "to grow" vs. rīdan "to ride" or wlītan "to look" vs. lītan "to bend". However, this hypothesis is inconsistent with orthoepic and orthographic evidence from the Early Modern English era, as well as borrowings into and from Welsh, which has and as genuine initial clusters. Furthermore, in Old English poetry, and can alliterate with each other as well as with followed by a vowel, as in "Wēn' ic þæt gē for wlenco, nalles for wræcsīðum".

The spellings,,, probably represented two-phoneme clusters,, where was pronounced . In this context, may have been pronounced as voiceless sonorants. The status of,,, as clusters rather than unitary segments in Old English phonology is supported by their alliteration in poetry with each other and with prevocalic . Furthermore, the cluster analysis of is supported by its behavior in the context of metathesis. For example, hræn 'wave, sea' has a variant form hærn, where and are separated, which suggests that the in hræn was not a single consonant phoneme.

Word	Phonemic transcription	Phonetic transcription
hwæt
hlāf
hnutu
hrīm

There is an alternative hypothesis that holds that in these sequences was not pronounced as an independent consonant sound, but was only a diacritic marking the voicelessness of the following sonorant. Original would merge with plain by early Middle English, with a transitional period from the eleventh century to around the thirteenth century. Examples of all three mergers are attested in alliterative lines of the Middle English poem Layamon's Brut. The digraphs, and are attested to some extent in Middle English texts; e.g. the 12th-century Ormulum contains but also includes forms spelled with simple. The Ayenbite of Inwyt contains spellings with and alongside spellings with and in words that had hl, hn in Old English.
At least some of these mergers may have begun earlier. Old English scribes occasionally omitted the letter in words starting with these clusters. A merge of the cluster with is also attested in some historical and many current varieties of English, but has still not been completed, as some present-day speakers distinguish the former as. There is evidence of alliteration between and in some Old English poems.

Old English had a moderately large vowel system. In stressed syllables both monophthongs and diphthongs had short and long versions, which were clearly distinguished in pronunciation. In unstressed syllables, the number of vowel contrasts was generally reduced. Historically, unstressed vowels could be elided in some circumstances.

Depending on dialect, Old English distinguished five to eight vowel qualities in stressed syllables. Each could appear as a long or a short monophthong. An example of two words distinguished by vowel length is god versus gōd .
The front mid rounded vowel existed only in some dialects; in others, it was unrounded and merged with . This merger is seen for both the long and short versions of the vowel in West Saxon and Kentish by around 900 AD, and was complete in Late West Saxon. In Anglian dialects long generally remains rounded, but short exhibits variable unrounding.
In Kentish, the vowels and also merged into sometime around the 9th century, leaving and as the only front vowels in this dialect.
The long and short versions of each vowel were probably pronounced with the same quality, although some reconstructions assume accompanying qualitative distinctions.

Short e i y o u are sometimes transcribed as "lax", in contrast to "tense" for long ē ī ȳ ō ū.
The long–short vowel pair developed into the Middle English vowels, with two different vowel qualities distinguished by height: suggests they may have had different qualities in late Old English as well.
The back low vowels also generally show a qualitative distinction in Middle English: short usually became Middle English, whereas long was raised to Middle English except in northern dialects. In Old English, short was probably pronounced as rounded before nasals, as is suggested by the fact that the word for "person", for example, is spelled as mann or monn.

Unstressed syllables displayed fewer vowel contrasts. All unstressed vowels came to be shortened, and many texts only show a clear distinction in this context between three vowels, which can be phonemically transcribed as. Even this reduced three-way contrast was lost by Middle English, and the merger of unstressed seems in fact to have occurred before the end of the Old English period.
While they were probably still distinct in Early West Saxon as spoken in the late ninth century, unstressed vowels become increasingly confused in spelling during the tenth and eleventh centuries; thus, Late West Saxon texts show interchange between endings such as -an, -en, -um.
In texts that show a three-way contrast between unstressed vowels, the letters and in unstressed syllables can be analyzed as contextual variants of the phonemes and respectively. In the case of, the variant seems to have been used in words ending in -iġ, -iċ, -isċ, -ing, -iht, -liċ ; or in general, in the environment of a following palatal consonant. In the case of, the quality was normally preserved in the endings -um, -ung, -uc or after an accented syllable containing the sound ; in other contexts, was variably interchanged with depending on dialect and time period, with the use of generally increasing over time, although there was a tendency to retain in absolute word-final position.
Unstressed developed from older and, and spellings with unstressed and can be seen in certain early Old English texts.

All dialects of Old English had diphthongs. Diphthongs were written with digraphs composed of two vowel letters and were pronounced by gliding from one vowel quality to another within a single syllable. The two main spellings used to represent diphthongs were and. Some dialects had additional diphthongs, such as or. There is disagreement about how Old English vowel digraphs were pronounced and how they should be phonemically analyzed. Digraphs such as or may have represented monophthongal vowel sounds instead of diphthongs in certain circumstances.
It is generally agreed that diphthongs could be short or long. A short diphthong had the same length as a short single vowel, and a long diphthong had the same length as a long single vowel. As with monophthongs, their length was not systematically marked in Old English manuscripts, but is inferred from other evidence, such as a word's etymological origins or the pronunciation of its descendants. Modern editions conventionally mark long diphthongs with a macron on the first letter: e.g. long, in contrast to short,. In phonetic or phonological transcriptions, it is possible to represent the length contrast by placing a breve over the short diphthongs and leaving long diphthongs unmarked. For the sake of clarity, this article marks both short and long diphthongs, transcribing short diphthongs like ea as, and long diphthongs like ēa as : unmarked transcriptions like are used on this page only in contexts where length is not relevant.
Long diphthongs developed partly from the Proto-Germanic diphthongs *au, *eu, *iu and partly from Old English vowel shifts. Short diphthongs developed only from the Old English vowel shifts of breaking, palatal diphthongization, and back mutation.
The inventory of diphthongs in Late West Saxon was as follows:

First element	Short	Long	Spelling	Spelling
Mid			eo	eo, ēo
Low			ea	ea, ēa

The diphthong was pronounced like, gliding from the sound of the vowel to. This diphthong was occasionally spelled instead. The general use of in place of might have been a purely graphical convention: scribes might have preferred to avoid spelling as because this was essentially equivalent to writing, a trigraph of three vowel letters. Some evidence suggests the first element of this diphthong could have a slightly higher quality than the vowel, so another possible pronunciation of this diphthong is. In Anglian dialects, long was "smoothed" to before, as in the words hēh "high", ēgan "eyes", iēces "cuckoo", contrasting with the vowel found as the umlaut of in words like ǣht "property", cǣġ "key", rǣċan "reach". Smoothed can alternatively become in some Anglian dialects, such as early Mercian glossaries. The dialectal variation between and would be understandable if Anglian smoothing of initially resulted in a quality like.
Long ēa came from the following sources:

the Proto-Germanic diphthong *au
breaking of Anglo-Frisian long *ǣ before, seen in PG *nēhʷ > Pre-West Saxon *nǣh > West Saxon Old English nēah "near".
palatal diphthongization in West Saxon of Anglo-Frisian long *ǣ after ġ, ċ, or sċ ; AF '*ġǣbun > West Saxon ġēafon; PWG *kākā > West Saxon ċēace "jaw", and variably also of umlauted Anglo-Frisian long *ā after sċ

Short ea came from the following sources:

breaking of Anglo-Frisian short *æ before or before preconsonantal, as in PG *ahtōu > eahta "eight", PG *armaz > earm "arm", PWG *farr > fearr "bull". Breaking did not apply to *-ærj-, which evolved to -eri-, as in PG *hazjaną > herian "to praise". Breaking apparently preceded the change of to, and so ea is seen in words such as PG *flahs > OE fleax "flax".
In West Saxon and Kentish, short *æ was also broken to ea before preconsonantal, as in PG *allai > ealle "all", PG *kaldaz > ċeald "cold". In contrast, Anglian dialects retracted *æ to a in this position: alle, cald. Breaking did not apply to *-ælʲlʲ- from original *alj-, which evolved to -ell-, as in PG *saljaną > sellan; it applied in combination with i-mutation to*ælC- or original *æll- + high front vowel, which produced ie in Early West Saxon, y in Late West Saxon, e in Kentish ; such words show æ in Anglian from umlaut of retracted a.
palatal diphthongization of æ after ġ, ċ, or sċ
back mutation of short æ before a back vowel.

In Anglian dialects, short ea was smoothed to æ~ae before h or x . Anglian also smoothed ea before rh, rc, rg, but in this case the result was usually e except for in early Mercian glossaries, which tend to show æ~ae. Early Anglian texts also contain some spellings with unsmoothed ea in these contexts.
argue that short had become its own phoneme distinct from and in Old English, citing evidence such as gærs compared to ears and calu, calw- compared to fealu, fealw-. Minimal pairs between and include ærn "house" vs. earn "eagle" and stæl "place" vs. steal "stall".

The diphthong was pronounced like, gliding from the sound of the vowel to.
Long ēo came from the following sources:

the Proto-Germanic diphthong *eu
breaking before of Anglo-Frisian long *ǣ in the Non-West Saxon dialects where it was raised to ē. cites Anglian nēolǣċan 'approach', nēowest 'nearest' and Kentish nīor 'nearer' and nēor.
In some dialects, from earlier īo

Short eo came from the following sources:

breaking of Anglo-Frisian short *e before, before preconsonantal, before, before, or before, as in PG *fehu > OE feoh 'cattle, property', PG *herdō > OE heord 'herd', PG ferr- > OE feorr 'far', PG *knewa- > OE cneow- 'knee', PG *gelwaz > OE ġeolu 'yellow', PG *selhaz > OE seolh 'seal '
back mutation of short *e before a back vowel, as in PG *sebun > AF *sefon > OE seofon 'seven'
In some dialects, from earlier io

The diphthong io, īo was found in Northumbrian, but was absent from Late West Saxon, having merged with eo, ēo. The quality of is reconstructed as or. The spelling is attested in Early West Saxon, but it varies with the spelling, suggesting the merger had already taken place in this dialect as of around 900 AD. In Mercian, and are distinguished only in the earliest glosses; they merge in later texts, yielding eo, ēo as in West Saxon. In Kentish short eo, io tended to merge as eo, whereas long ēo, īo tended to merge as īo. In contexts where i-umlaut occurred, corresponds instead in West Saxon to or later ~, as in Northumbrian þīostru, Mercian þēostru, Early West Saxon þīestru "darkness".
Long īo came from the following sources:

the Proto-Germanic diphthong *iu, as in PG *biumi > Anglian bīom, West Saxon bēo ' am'
breaking of Anglo-Frisian long *ī before

Short io came from the following sources:

breaking of Anglo-Frisian short *i before, before preconsonantal, before, or before, as in PG *liznōjaną > Anglo-Frisian *lirnian > Anglian liornian, West Saxon leornian 'learn'
back mutation of short *i, as in PG *niþanē > OE neoþan 'from beneath'

The diphthong ie, īe was found exclusively in Early West Saxon. The quality of is disputed: proposals include,,, or a monophthong with an intermediate quality between and. During the time of Alfred the Great, the spellings and could be interchanged in writing: for example, in the words hiene and hieder, the digraph represents an etymological monophthong. This is interpreted as a sign that the sound spelled was pronounced in Alfred's time as a phonetic monophthong, which call "unstable ī̆". This "unstable ī̆" sound typically corresponds to ȳ̆ in Late West Saxon, as in gelȳfan for earlier gelīefan and gelīfan. In contrast, original ī̆ is usually unchanged in Late West Saxon, as in bīdan. Therefore, assume that unstable ī̆ and original ī̆ remained phonetically distinct in Early West Saxon, even after they came to be interchanged in writing. That produced additional instances of alongside those that developed from i-mutation and from sporadic rounding of in certain circumstances.
Before a palatal consonant, however, EWS ī̆e normally corresponds to LWS ī̆, as in hīġ 'hay', niht 'night'; i was also common in ġifan 'to give', which might be a variant formation rather than a simplification of EWS ġiefan.
Early West Saxon ie, īe developed from i-mutation of ea, ēa or io, īo. In dialects other than West Saxon, i-mutation instead turned ea, ēa into e, ē and left io, īo unchanged.
Long īe came from:

i-mutation of what would otherwise become the diphthong ēa, from:
*Proto-Germanic *au + later *ī̆,
*breaking of Anglo-Frisian long *ǣ before + later *ī̆, seen in PG *nēhʷistą > PWG *nāhwist > Early West Saxon nīehst 'nearest', Late West Saxon nīhst.
*palatal diphthongization of Anglo-Frisian long *ǣ + later *ī̆; this development is attested by PWG *kāsī > *kǣsī > LWS ċȳse "cheese".
i-mutation of what would otherwise become the diphthong īo, from:
*Proto-Germanic *iu + later *ī̆.
* breaking of *ī before + later *ī̆, seen in PG *linhtijaną > LWS lȳhtan, PWG *skilhijan > LWS besċȳlan.
palatal diphthongization of *ē after a palatal consonant. There are very few examples, because palatal diphthongization was for the most part confined to West Saxon, which did not raise Anglo-Frisian *ǣ to ē the way that other dialects did. cites ġīe 'ye', an occasional alternative spelling in Early West Saxon of ġē, suggesting the latter form developed regularly as the unstressed version of the word; Hogg also mentions Early West Saxon ġīet, ġīt as a possible example.
i-mutation and palatal diphthongization after sċ- of original ō. cites LWS ġesċȳ 'shoes'.

Short ie came from:

i-mutation of what would otherwise become the diphthong ea, from:
* breaking of *æh, *ærC, *ærr + later *ī̆, as in PG *nahti- > EWS nieht, niht 'night'; PG *wahsīdi > EWS wiexþ, wixþ 'grows'-3s; PG *warmijaną > EWS wierman 'to warm', PNWG *firrijaną > EWS ā-fierran 'to remove'.
* breaking of *ælC- or original *æll- + later *ī̆, which produced ie in Early West Saxon, y in Late West Saxon, e in Kentish ; such words show æ in Anglian from umlaut of retracted a.
* palatal diphthongization of *ġæ, *ċæ, or *sċæ + later *j or *ī̆. After sċ-, there are cases where diphthongization appears to have applied after i-umlaut. cites EWS sċiendan, LWS sċyndan, ġesċyndnyss.
i-mutation of what would otherwise become the diphthong io, from breaking of *ih, *irC, *irr + later *ī̆, as in PG *sihwidi > EWS siehþ 'see'-3s; PG *wirpidi > EWS wierpþ 'throw'-3s.
palatal diphthongization of *ġe, *ċe, or *''sċe''

The phonetic realization of Old English diphthongs is controversial.
Assuming vowel digraphs were in fact pronounced as phonetic diphthongs, they may have been the "falling" type, where the first portion of the diphthong was more prominent, and the second part was a non-syllabic offglide. Alternatively, both components may have been more or less equal in prominence.
During the 20th century, various academic articles disputed the reconstruction of "short diphthongs", arguing that they were actually monophthongs. However, in response to these proposals, further arguments have been made in support of the proposition that short digraphs did in fact represent phonetic diphthongs. argues that a contrast between long and short diphthongs is not necessarily phonologically implausible, noting it is attested in some modern languages, such as Scots, where the short diphthong in tide contrasts with the long diphthong in tied. In contrast, considers the evidence for the phonemic status of short diphthongs to be unconvincing and prefers to analyze short, as allophones of, or at most, as semi-contrastive entities that never became completely distinct phonemes from the corresponding short monophthongs.
The primary feature that distinguished from seems to have been the height of the first component of the diphthong: the start of sounded like whereas the start of sounded like . All diphthongs inherited from Proto-Germanic originally ended with high back rounded ; this also seems to have been the original value of the second element of the diphthongs resulting from breaking. Diphthongs seem to have still ended in this quality at the time when i-umlaut occurred. assumes the qualities continued to be used into Old English for ea eo io ēa ēo īo respectively, but acknowledges that their values may have been different in late Old English. assume that by the 9th century, the second component of ea had become lowered and unrounded. Both components of are low vowels and both components of are mid vowels. propose that Old English diphthongs were "height-harmonic", that is, that both parts of any diphthong had the same vowel height as a rule. The reconstruction of io as and early West Saxon ie as is consistent with this principle of height harmony. However, do not find height harmony convincing as a general rule, arguing that the later development of ie īe points instead to the value. considers the lowering of the second element of diphthongs to be related to the development of unstressed vowel qualities. While acknowledging that the height of the first element affected the outcome of the second, Hogg rejects height harmony as an overarching principle, and supposes that io came to be pronounced in Old English, with only being its early or archaic value. Some other scholars have reconstructed and as ending in an unrounded schwa-like glide in Old English. However, there is evidence that Old English eo io ēo īo had rounded outcomes in some dialects of Middle English.
Another controversy concerns the development of ē̆a from ǣ̆, and of ī̆e from ē̆, in the context of West Saxon palatal diphthongization. It is difficult to explain why would become after a palatal consonant: accordingly, rejects the reality of this sound change and considers the digraphs in this context to be merely an orthographic device used to indicate that were preceded by a palatal consonant. The mainstream position is that ǣ̆ and ē̆ were genuinely diphthongized in this position. It has been proposed that their initial outcomes were something like, with subsequently merging with ē̆a.

As in modern English, there was a distinction in Old English between stressed and unstressed syllables. Stress typically could be found only on the first or leftmost syllable of a root morpheme. In morphologically simple words, this is equivalent to the first syllable of the word: e.g. yfel 'evil', pronounced. Non-initial syllables within a morpheme were unstressed.
Inflectional suffixes are inferred to have been fully unstressed, based on the absence of alliteration involving these syllables. Fully unstressed syllables did not contain long vowels or diphthongs.
When a simple word was extended by a derivational suffix, or when two roots capable of standing as free words were combined to form a compound, the primary [|stress] fell on the first syllable of the leftmost root. However, there may have been secondary stress in some circumstances on the first syllable of the later element. In Old English verse, the first root of a compound participates in alliteration, whereas the second root of a compound can be involved in alliteration only as a supporting element, if it starts with the same consonant as the first root. Derivational suffixes and the second elements of compound words appear to display a wider range of vowel contrasts than inflectional suffixes: for example, a diphthong can be seen in the second syllable of the word spelled 'honorless' derived from the morphemes ār 'honor' and lēas 'devoid of, bereft of'. Since vowel length was not written in Old English, it is less clear to what extent long vowels may have been shortened, or conversely, analogically restored, in such derivational suffixes.
When a word started with a prefix, the primary stress could fall either on the first syllable of the prefix, or on the first syllable of the root that followed the prefix. Whether a prefix was stressed or unstressed depended on the identity of the prefix and on the part of speech of the word. The prefixes ġe- and be- were always fully unstressed, and the prefix for- was nearly always unstressed. In contrast, the prefixes and- and ed- always received primary stress. Other prefixes seem to have generally received primary stress in nouns or adjectives, but not in verbs or adverbs. The prefix hund-, used on numerals for the decades 70-120, was unstressed.

Phonotactics is the study of the sequences of phonemes that occur in languages and the sound structures that they form. When describing syllable structure, a capital letter C can be used to represent a consonant sound and a capital letter V can be used to represent a vowel sound, so a syllable such as 'be' is described as having CV structure. The IPA symbol that shows a division between syllables is the dot.
Old English stressed syllables were structured as ³V⁴: that is, one vowel as the nucleus with zero to three consonant phonemes in the onset and zero to four consonant phonemes in the coda. An example of a stressed syllable with the minimal number of phonemes would be ǣ 'law, statute', whereas an example of a stressed syllable with nearly the maximum number of phonemes would be bringst.

Onset clusters typically consist of a obstruent followed by a sonorant, although is allowed as a third element before voiceless stops, and is allowed before. The consonants occur only on their own. Some have proposed analyzing clusters of and a voiceless stop as single segments. In Old English alliterative poetry, a word-initial sequence of + voiceless stop alliterates only with itself : that is, and count as a match, as do and, but and do not alliterate with each other.
Unpalatalized and did not occur as a rule at the start of a word, since in inherited vocabulary, original * came to be palatalized in this position regardless of what sound followed it. The cluster could be found word-medially before a back vowel, e.g. in the words þerscan and discas, although the lack of palatalization in such forms might imply that the was shared between the first and second syllable. The cluster probably occurred medially in malscrung, judging by the forms of the related Middle English malskren and Modern English masker. assumes that was found at the start of the word scolere, from Latin scholārius, but transcribes it as sċolere; the form sċrift from Latin scrīpt- shows that palatalized sċ- could come to be used at the start of Old English words taken from Latin.
The onset was optional, so syllables could start with a vowel phoneme. In Old English poetry, stressed syllables starting with vowel phonemes all alliterate with each other. A glottal stop consonant may have been phonetically inserted in this position.

The syllable nucleus was always a vowel in stressed syllables. Stressed monosyllabic words always ended in either a consonant or a long vowel : this can be stated in terms of stressed words having at least two moras of length. In words of two or more syllables, it was possible for the stressed syllable to end in a short vowel, although two-syllable words more often had a heavy first syllable.
It is possible that certain sonorant consonants, such as or, could serve as the nucleus of an unstressed syllable. However, it is difficult to determine whether or in which contexts consonants were syllabic in Old English, because the relevant forms show variable spelling and variable behavior in verse.

In general, Old English permitted similar kinds of clusters of coda consonants as modern English. In morphologically simple words, most coda clusters started with a sonorant or.
Long consonants seem to have become simplified to single consonants when not between vowels. However, did not merge with single in this context, but remained a distinct coda.
The following tables show some examples of coda clusters that could occur in Old English, while not necessarily constituting an exhaustive list. Although might be categorized as a resonant, it had non-resonant allophones, and so will be listed alongside obstruent consonants in the tables below.
Some codas with an obstruent preceded by more than one resonant are attested, often as the result of syncope, e.g:

, as in irnþ
,, as in yrmþ, wyrms
, as in weorld
,, as in cwylmd, cwylmð

The following additional two-obstruent coda clusters may rarely occur:

was normally replaced with, but there are some variant spellings with final, such as wæfs, which may represent the original pronunciation.
was normally replaced with, but some variant spellings with final can be found, such as þreahs for þreax. It is possible that early on, the letter was used to represent rather than.
, as in ġeresp, hosp, hyspte. This could become by metathesis, as in crisp~cyrps 'curly' from Latin crispus.
, as in frosc. Uncommon compared to sċ, and often varies with by metathesis.
,, as in ġenæfd, ġehyġd
might occur at the end of some Kentish verb forms spelled with, namely ofðreċt and ġehyðlǣċt.
was apparently regularly assimilated to, as in the nominative forms of the nouns bliss and liss, which would etymologically be blīþs and līþs. Some variant spellings can be found that do not show this simplification, but it is unclear whether the consonant was ever restored in pronunciation.

						Examples
-∅-						ābītst, cwiðst, drȳpst, hæfst, bæcst, flīehst, sæġst
						wyrpst, ċyrfst, wyrcst, byrġst
						ġehiltst, hilpst, dilfst, *milcst, bilġst
	—	—	—	—	—	fintst, drincst

Additional possible three-obstruent clusters include:

, as in wixð, if not simply a morphological spelling for.

Although resonant consonants such as or could occur word-finally after another consonant, there is some uncertainty about whether they were pronounced as coda consonants or as syllabic consonants in this context. The tables below show word-final sequences ending in a resonant consonant:

			Examples
			ċeorl, þorn, wyrm
†			†eall, eln, cwealm
‡	†	—	‡ēarspinl, †cynn
‡		†	‡cuml, stemn, †ramm
‡	—	—	sāwl

†It is assumed that geminate consonants such as,, were simplified by the Old English period to single consonants when entirely in a syllable coda.
‡The final in words ending in,, could potentially become syllabic or have an epenthetic vowel inserted before it; see below. This possibly could apply also to the final in.
Because of the loss of certain vowels in final syllables, Proto-West-Germanic came to have words ending in sequences of an obstruent consonant followed by a resonant consonant: for example, Proto-Germanic *xlaxtraz developed to Proto-West-Germanic *xlaxtr. In the past, it was sometimes assumed that a resonant consonant in such a position must necessarily be syllabic. This assumption is false: there are languages where a syllable can end in an obstruent followed by a resonant, as demonstrated by modern Icelandic, where vatn, býsn, segl, gísl are all monosyllables. There is evidence that this type of coda cluster eventually became disallowed in Old English, because many such words show a spelling with a vowel letter inserted before the consonant, such as hleahtor. However, some words could be spelled with or without an inserted vowel letter in Old English, raising the question of whether there was also variation between different pronunciations. Based on the treatment of such words in poetry, argues that their pronunciation changed either during or shortly before the time period when Old English literature was written: when not etymologically preceded by a vowel, resonant consonants in this position were generally nonsyllabic in early Old English verse, whereas in late Old English verse, they came to be syllabic. Fulk finds that the syllabic pronunciations are generally used consistently in poetry from the ninth century or later. The development of a syllabic pronunciation seems to have been affected by the identity of the resonant, the identity of the consonant preceding the resonant, and the weight of the syllable.

Word-final consonant + sequences are practically always spelled with an epenthetic vowel letter in Old English manuscripts, e.g. æcer, fōdor, fæġer, although these epenthetic vowels do not always count as syllables in early Old English poetry.
Word-final consonant + sequences may be spelled with or without an epenthetic vowel depending on the identity of the consonant. An inserted vowel letter is never seen in, and usually not in,,,,,, but is seen often in other combinations, e.g.,,,,. In poetry, never scans as its own syllable after.
Word-final consonant + sequences show considerable variability. Spellings with an epenthetic vowel seem to be generally uncommon in words ending with a short vowel + single consonant +, e.g. swefn, reġn, stemn, although a few spellings with inserted are attested early on and others are attested in late West Saxon. In cases where word-final is preceded by more than one consonant, or by a syllable containing a long vowel or diphthong, the inclusion of an epenthetic vowel letter is variable, possibly affected by dialect.
Word-final sequences of a consonant + never scan as a separate syllable in poetry, and are never spelled with an epenthetic vowel letter in early West Saxon: e.g.,,,,,. In texts from other time periods or dialects, spellings with or can be found except for in words ending with or.

last C	full cluster	Examples
	,,,,,,	nǣdl, setl, sūsl, ċeafl, seġl, templ, tungl
	,,,,,	hræfn , stemn, fæstn, wǣpn, tācn, seġn
	,,,,,	botm, bearhtm, wæstm, bōsm

Like Frisian, Old English underwent palatalization of the velar consonants and fronting of the open vowel to in certain cases. Old English also underwent vowel shifts that were not shared with Old Frisian: smoothing, diphthong height harmonization and breaking. Diphthong height harmonization and breaking resulted in the unique Old English diphthongs io, ie, eo, ea.
Palatalization yielded some Modern English word pairs in which one word has a velar and the other has a palatal or postalveolar. Some of these were inherited from Old English, and others have an unpalatalized form loaned from Old Norse.

Old English had four major dialect groups: Kentish, West Saxon, Mercian and Northumbrian. Kentish and West Saxon were the dialects spoken south of a line approximately following the course of the River Thames: Kentish in the easternmost portion of that area and West Saxon everywhere else. Mercian was spoken in the middle part of England and was separated from the southern dialects by the Thames and from Northumbrian by the River Humber. Mercian and Northumbrian are often grouped together as "Anglian".
Modern English descends mostly from the Anglian dialect, rather than the standard West Saxon dialect of Old English. However, since London sits on the Thames, near the boundary of the Anglian, West Saxon and Kentish dialects, some West Saxon and Kentish forms have entered Modern English. For example, the spelling of the verb bury is derived from West Saxon, but the pronunciation is derived from Kentish.
The largest dialectal differences in Old English occurred between West Saxon and the other groups and occurred mostly in the front vowels, particularly the diphthongs. In Kentish, the vowels æ, e, y would eventually all merge as e. The primary differences between dialects were the following:

Original remained as ǣ in West Saxon, but was raised to ē in Anglian. This preceded other changes such as breaking and the development of ǣ by i-umlaut of Old English ā. Thus, West Saxon slǣpan appears as slēpan in Anglian, but dǣlan from *dailijan appears the same in both dialects. thinks early Kentish had ǣ like West Saxon, whereas argue that Kentish originally had ē as in Anglian based on the development of the diphthong ēo in the adverb nēor.
The West Saxon vowels ie/īe were caused by i-umlaut of long and short ea, eo, io and did not appear in Anglian. Instead, i-umlaut of ea and rare eo are spelled e, and i-umlaut of io remains io.
Breaking of short to ea did not happen in Anglian before followed by a consonant; instead, the vowel was retracted to. When mutated by i-umlaut, it appears again as æ : Anglian cald vs. West Saxon ċeald.
The merger of eo and io occurred early in West Saxon but much later in Anglian.
Many instances of diphthongs in Anglian, including the majority of those caused by breaking, were turned back into monophthongs again by the process of "Anglian smoothing", which occurred before c, h, g, alone or preceded by r or l. That accounts for some of the most noticeable differences between standard Old English and Modern English spelling: ēage became ēge in Anglian; nēah became Anglian nēh and was later raised to nīh in the transition to Middle English by the raising of ē before h ; nēahst become Anglian nēhst, shortened to nehst in late Old English by vowel-shortening before three consonants.

All dialects of Old English seem to have shared palatalization as a sound change, including Northumbrian. Forms in Modern English with hard and in which a palatalized sound would be expected from Old English appear to be influenced by Scandinavian.

Approximant

The prologue to Beowulf:

Hwæt! Wē Gārdena in ġeārdagum

þēodcyninga þrym ġefrūnon,

hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Oft Sċyld Sċēfing sċeaþena þrēatum,

monegum mǣġþum meodo-setla oftēah.

Eġsode eorl, syððan ǣrest wearð

fēasċeaft funden; hē þæs frōfre ġebād,

wēox under wolcnum, weorð-myndum þāh,

oð þæt him ǣġhwylċ þāra ymb-sittendra

ofer hronrāde hȳran sċolde,

gomban ġyldan; þæt wæs gōd cyning.

The Lord's Prayer: