pronounced as /notice/Old English phonology is necessarily somewhat speculative since Old English is preserved only as a written language. Nevertheless, there is a very large corpus of the language, and the orthography apparently indicates phonological alternations quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw certain conclusions about the nature of Old English phonology.
Old English had a distinction between short and long (doubled) consonants, at least between vowels (as seen in "sun" and "son", "to put" and "to steal"), and a distinction between short vowels and long vowels in stressed syllables. It had a larger number of vowel qualities in stressed syllables – pronounced as //i y u e o æ ɑ// and in some dialects pronounced as //ø// – than in unstressed ones – pronounced as //ɑ e u//. It had diphthongs that no longer exist in Modern English, which were pronounced as //io̯ eo̯ æɑ̯//, with both short and long versions.
The inventory of consonant surface sounds (whether allophones or phonemes) of Old English is as shown below. Allophones are enclosed in parentheses.
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ (pronounced as /ink/) | ||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | |
| Approximant | (pronounced as /ink/) pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Trill | (pronounced as /ink/) pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||
The fricatives pronounced as //f θ s// had voiced allophones pronounced as /[v ð z]/, which occurred between vowels or a vowel and a voiced consonant when the preceding sound was stressed.
Proto-Germanic (a fricative allophone of) developed into the OE stop pronounced as //d//, but Proto-Germanic (a fricative allophone of) developed into the OE fricative pronounced as //f// (either its voiced allophone pronounced as /[v]/ or its voiceless allophone [f]).
Old English had a fairly large set of dorsal (postalveolar, palatal, velar) and glottal consonants: pronounced as /[k, tʃ, ɡ, dʒ, ɣ, j, ʃ, x, ç, h]/. Typically only pronounced as //k, tʃ, ɣ, j, ʃ, x// are analyzed as separate phonemes; pronounced as /[dʒ]/ is considered an allophone of pronounced as //j//, pronounced as /[ɡ]/ an allophone of pronounced as //ɣ//, and pronounced as /[h]/ and pronounced as /[ç]/ allophones of pronounced as //x//.
Historically, pronounced as //tʃ, ʃ// developed from pronounced as //k, sk// by palatalization, and some cases of pronounced as //j// developed from palatalization of pronounced as //ɣ//, while others developed from Proto-Germanic . (Although this palatalization occurred as a regular sound change, later vowel changes and borrowings meant that the occurrence of the palatal forms was no longer predictable, that is, the palatals and the velars had become separate phonemes.) Both the velars pronounced as //k, ɣ// (including pronounced as /[ɡ]/) and the palatals pronounced as //tʃ, j// (including pronounced as /[dʒ]/) are spelled as, in Old English manuscripts.
In modern texts, the palatalized versions may be written with a dot above the letter:, . (As just mentioned, it would otherwise not generally be possible to predict whether a palatal or velar is meant, although there are certain common patterns; for example, often has the palatalized sound before the front vowels,, . Note that Old English had palatalized in certain words that have hard G in Modern English due to Old Norse influence, such as English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ġiefan "give" and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ġeat "gate".)
pronounced as //j// was pronounced as pronounced as /[j]/ in most cases, but as the affricate pronounced as /[dʒ]/ after pronounced as //n// or when geminated (fortition). The voiced velar fricative pronounced as //ɣ// was pronounced as the stop pronounced as /[ɡ]/ after pronounced as //n// or when doubled. In late Old English, pronounced as /[ɣ]/ was devoiced to pronounced as //x// at the ends of words. Because of this, and the palatalization referred to above, the phonemes pronounced as //ɣ//, pronounced as //j//, and pronounced as //x// came to alternate in the inflectional paradigms of some words.
In late Old English, pronounced as /[ɡ]/ appeared in initial position as well, and pronounced as /[ɣ]/ became an allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//, occurring only after a vowel.
pronounced as /[h, ç]/ are allophones of pronounced as //x// occurring word-initially and after a front vowel respectively.
The evidence for the allophone pronounced as /[ç]/ after front vowels is indirect, as it is not indicated in the orthography. Nevertheless, the fact that there was historically a fronting of to pronounced as //tʃ// and of to pronounced as //j// after front vowels makes it very likely. Moreover, in late Middle English, pronounced as //x// sometimes became pronounced as //f// (e.g. tough, cough), but only after back vowels, never after front vowels. This is explained if we assume that the allophone pronounced as /[x]/ sometimes became pronounced as /[f]/ but the allophone pronounced as /[ç]/ never did.
pronounced as /[ŋ]/ is an allophone of pronounced as //n// occurring before pronounced as /[k]/ and pronounced as /[ɡ]/. Words that have final pronounced as //ŋ// in standard Modern English have the cluster pronounced as /[ŋɡ]/ in Old English.
The exact nature of Old English pronounced as //r// is not known. It may have been an alveolar approximant pronounced as /[ɹ]/, as in most Modern English accents, an alveolar flap pronounced as /[ɾ]/, or an alveolar trill pronounced as /[r]/.
pronounced as //w, l, n, r// were pronounced as voiceless sonorants pronounced as /[ʍ, l̥, n̥, r̥]/ following pronounced as //x//.
However, it is also commonly theorized that the ⟨h⟩ in these sequences was unpronounced, and only stood for the voicelessness of the following sonorant.
pronounced as //l r// apparently had velarized allophones pronounced as /[ɫ]/ and pronounced as /[rˠ]/, or similar, when followed by another consonant or when geminated. This is suggested by the vowel shifts of breaking and retraction before pronounced as //l r//, which could be cases of assimilation to a following velar consonant:
Due to phonotactic constraints on initial clusters, ⟨wr⟩ and ⟨wl⟩ are thought by some to be digraphs representing these velarized sounds, in which case the distinction was phonemic:[1]
However, this theory is inconsistent with orthoepic and orthographic evidence from the Early Modern English era,[2] as well as borrowings into and from Welsh, which has pronounced as /[wl]/ and pronounced as /[wr]/ as genuine initial clusters.
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, vowels were reduced or elided, though not as much as in Modern English.
Old English had seven or eight vowel qualities, depending on dialect, and each could appear as either a long or short monophthong. An example of a pair of words distinguished by vowel length is English, Old (ca.450-1100);: god pronounced as /[god]/ ('god') and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: gōd pronounced as /[goːd]/ ('good').
| Front | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | ||
| Close | pronounced as /i iː/ | pronounced as /y yː/ | pronounced as /u uː/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /e eː/ | pronounced as /ø øː/ | pronounced as /o oː/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as /æ æː/ | pronounced as /ɑ ɑː/ | |||
The front mid rounded vowel pronounced as //ø(ː)// occurs in the Anglian dialects, for instance, but merged into pronounced as //e eː// in the West Saxon dialect.
The long–short vowel pair pronounced as //æ æː// developed into the Middle English vowels pronounced as //a ɛː//, with two different vowel qualities distinguished by height, so they may have had different qualities in Old English as well.
The short open back vowel pronounced as //ɑ// before nasals was probably rounded to pronounced as /[ɒ]/. This is suggested by the fact that the word for "person", for example, is spelled as English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mann or English, Old (ca.450-1100);: monn.
In unstressed syllables, only three vowels, pronounced as //ɑ e u//, were distinguished. Here pronounced as //æ, e, i// were reduced to pronounced as //e//; pronounced as //ɑ, o// were reduced to pronounced as //ɑ//, and pronounced as //u// remained. Unstressed pronounced as //e, u// were sometimes pronounced/ spelled as pronounced as /[i, o]/ in closed syllables, as in English, Old (ca.450-1100);: hāliġ and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: heofon.
All dialects of Old English had diphthongs, written with digraphs composed of two vowel letters. Like monophthongs, diphthongs could be short or long. Phonologically, the short versions behave like short monophthongs, and the long versions like long monophthongs. In modern texts, long diphthongs are marked with a macron on the first letter. The phonetic realization of Old English diphthongs is controversial.
Some scholars view a contrast between long and short diphthong phonemes as phonologically implausible and have interpreted short English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io not as diphthongs but as centralized monophthongs or simply as allophones of pronounced as //æ, e, i//. Hogg argues that such objections are unfounded, saying that a length contrast in diphthongs exists in modern languages, such as Scots, in which the short diphthong in tide pronounced as //təid// contrasts with the long diphthong in tied pronounced as //taid//.
Another debated point is the phonetic quality of the offglide (the second part of the diphthong) in Late West Saxon. Some scholars reconstruct English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo as ending in an unrounded, schwa-like glide. In contrast, assumes pronunciations such as pronounced as /[æːu̯ eːu̯ iːu̯]/ (diphthongs ending with a rounded high back glide) may have persisted, citing evidence of rounded outcomes for English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo in some dialects of Middle English. Other analyses assume Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo had developed to height-harmonic diphthongs, meaning that both parts of the diphthong had the same vowel height (high, mid or low).
The Anglian dialects had the following diphthongs:
| High | pronounced as /iu̯/ | pronounced as /iːu̯/ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | pronounced as /eo̯/ | pronounced as /eːo̯/ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo | |
| Low | pronounced as /æɑ̯/ | pronounced as /æːɑ̯/ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa |
The high diphthongs English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo were not present in West Saxon, having merged into English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo. Early West Saxon, however, had an additional pair of long and short diphthongs written English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ie (distinguished as English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ie and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īe in modern editions), which developed from i-mutation or umlaut of English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo or English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo or English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa. Scholars do not agree on how they were pronounced; they may have been pronounced as /[ie̯ iːe̯]/ or pronounced as /[iy̯ iːy̯]/. They were apparently monophthongized by Alfred the Great's time, to a vowel whose pronunciation is still uncertain, but is known as "unstable i". This later went on to merge with pronounced as //y yː//, according to spellings such as English, Old (ca.450-1100);: gelyfan, for earlier English, Old (ca.450-1100);: geliefan and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: gelifan ('to believe').[3] (According to another interpretation, however, the "unstable i" may simply have been pronounced as //i//, and the later pronounced as //y// can be explained by the fact that Late West Saxon was not a direct descendant of Early West Saxon. See Old English dialects.) This produced additional instances of pronounced as //y(ː)// alongside those that developed from i-mutation and from sporadic rounding of pronounced as //i(ː)// in certain circumstances (e.g. English, Old (ca.450-1100);: myċel 'much' from earlier English, Old (ca.450-1100);: miċel, with rounding perhaps triggered by the rounded pronounced as //m//). All instances of pronounced as //y(ː)// were normally unrounded next to, and, hence English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ġifan from earlier English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ġiefan 'to give'.
Old English diphthongs have several origins, either from Proto-Germanic or from Old English vowel shifts. Long diphthongs developed partly from the Proto-Germanic diphthongs and partly from the Old English vowel shifts, while the short diphthongs developed only from Old English vowel shifts. These are examples of diphthongs inherited from Proto-Germanic:
There are three vowel shifts that resulted in diphthongs: breaking, palatal diphthongization, and back mutation. Through breaking, Anglo-Frisian short developed into the short diphthongs English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea before pronounced as //x, w// or a consonant cluster beginning with pronounced as //r, l//, and Anglo-Frisian long developed into the diphthongs English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa before pronounced as //x//. Palatal diphthongization changed English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: æ and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: a, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ǣ, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: u and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: o, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ē to the diphthongs English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ie, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa respectively after the palatalized consonants English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ġ, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: sċ, and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ċ (though this may have only been a spelling change). Back mutation changed English, Old (ca.450-1100);: i, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e, and sometimes English, Old (ca.450-1100);: a to English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo, and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea before a back vowel in the next syllable.
Peter Schrijver has theorized that Old English breaking developed from language contact with Celtic. He says that two Celtic languages were spoken in Britain, Highland British Celtic, which was phonologically influenced by British Latin and developed into Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, and Lowland British Celtic, which was brought to Ireland at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain and became Old Irish. Lowland British Celtic had velarization like Old and Modern Irish, which gives preceding vowels a back offglide, and this feature was loaned by language contact into Old English, resulting in backing diphthongs.
Phonotactics is the study of the sequences of phonemes that occur in languages and the sound structures that they form. In this study it is usual to represent consonants in general with the letter C and vowels with the letter V, so that a syllable such as 'be' is described as having CV structure. The IPA symbol used to show a division between syllables is the dot pronounced as /[.]/. Old English stressed syllables were structured as (C)3V(C)3; that is, up to three consonants in both the onset and coda with one vowel as the nucleus.
Onset clusters typically consist of a fricative pronounced as //s, ʃ, f, θ// and a stop pronounced as //p, t, k, b, d, ɣ//, although pronounced as //s// is allowed as a third element before voiceless stops. The other onset consonants pronounced as //j, tʃ, x, n̥, r̥, l̥, ʍ// (and pronounced as //rˠ, ɫ// if these are accepted as existing) always occur alone. Alternatively, the voiceless sonorants pronounced as /[n̥, r̥, l̥, ʍ]/ can be analyzed as clusters of pronounced as //x// and a voiced sonorant: pronounced as //xn, xr, xl, xw//. Conversely, the clusters of pronounced as //s// and a voiceless stop- pronounced as //sp, st, sk// can be argued to be phonemic, although no analyses do so.
| Middle consonant ! | Last consonant | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -∅ | pronounced as /-m/ | pronounced as /-n/ | pronounced as /-r/ | pronounced as /-l/ | pronounced as /-w/ | |||
| ∅- | -∅- | pronounced as /m/ | pronounced as /n/ | pronounced as /r/ | pronounced as /l/ | pronounced as /w/ | ||
| pronounced as /-p-/ | pronounced as /p/ | — | pronounced as /pr/ | pronounced as /pl/ | — | |||
| pronounced as /-b-/ | pronounced as /b/ | pronounced as /br/ | pronounced as /bl/ | |||||
| pronounced as /-t-/ | pronounced as /t/ | pronounced as /tr/ | — | pronounced as /tw/ | ||||
| pronounced as /-d-/ | pronounced as /d/ | pronounced as /dr/ | pronounced as /dw/ | |||||
| pronounced as /-k-/ | pronounced as /k/ | — | pronounced as /kn/ | pronounced as /kr/ | pronounced as /kl/ | pronounced as /kw/ | ||
| pronounced as /-ɣ-/ | pronounced as /ɡ/ | pronounced as /ɡn/ | pronounced as /ɡr/ | pronounced as /ɡl/ | — | |||
| pronounced as /ʃ-/ | pronounced as /ʃ/ | — | pronounced as /ʃr/ | — | ||||
| pronounced as /f-/ | pronounced as /f/ | — | pronounced as /fn/ | pronounced as /fr/ | pronounced as /fl/ | — | ||
| pronounced as /θ-/ | pronounced as /θ/ | — | pronounced as /θr/ | — | pronounced as /θw/ | |||
| pronounced as /x-/ | pronounced as /h/ | — | pronounced as /n̥/ | pronounced as /r̥/ | pronounced as /l̥/ | pronounced as /ʍ/ | ||
| pronounced as /s-/ | -∅- | pronounced as /s/ | pronounced as /sm/ | pronounced as /sn/ | — | pronounced as /sl/ | pronounced as /sw/ | |
| pronounced as /-p-/ | pronounced as /sp/ | — | pronounced as /spr/ | pronounced as /spl/ | — | |||
| pronounced as /-t-/ | pronounced as /st/ | pronounced as /str/ | — | |||||
| pronounced as /-k-/ | pronounced as /sk/ | pronounced as /skr/ | ||||||
| Other | pronounced as /j, tʃ, rˠ/wr, ɫ/wl/ | |||||||
The syllable nucleus was always a vowel.
See main article: Phonological history of Old English. Like Frisian, Old English underwent palatalization of the velar consonants pronounced as //k ɣ// and fronting of the open vowel pronounced as //ɑ ɑː// to pronounced as //æ æː// in certain cases. It 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 English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ie, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: 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 (drink and drench, day and dawn), while others have an unpalatalized form loaned from Old Norse (English, Old (ca.450-1100);: [[skirt]] and English, Old (ca.450-1100);: [[shirt]]).
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 the country, separated from the southern dialects by the Thames and from Northumbrian by the River Humber. Mercian and Northumbrian are often grouped together as "Anglian".
The biggest differences occurred between West Saxon and the other groups. The differences occurred mostly in the front vowels, and particularly the diphthongs. (However, Northumbrian was distinguished from the rest by much less palatalization. Forms in Modern English with hard pronounced as //k// and pronounced as //ɡ// where a palatalized sound would be expected from Old English are due either to Northumbrian influence or to direct borrowing from Scandinavian. Note that, in fact, the lack of palatalization in Northumbrian was probably due to heavy Scandinavian influence.)
The early history of Kentish was similar to Anglian, but sometime around the ninth century all of the front vowels English, Old (ca.450-1100);: æ, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: y (long and short) merged into English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e (long and short). The further discussion concerns the differences between Anglian and West Saxon, with the understanding that Kentish, other than where noted, can be derived from Anglian by front-vowel merger. The primary differences were:
Modern English derives 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, bury has its spelling derived from West Saxon and its pronunciation from Kentish (see below).
The prologue to Beowulf:
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Hwæt! Wē Gārdena in ġēardagum pronounced as /[ˈʍæt weː ˈɡɑːrˠˌde.nɑ in ˈjæːɑ̯rˠˌdɑ.ɣum]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: þēodcyninga þrym ġefrūnon, pronounced as /[ˈθeːo̯dˌky.niŋ.ɡɑ ˈθrym jeˈfru.non]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon. pronounced as /[huː θɑː ˈæ.ðe.liŋ.ɡɑs ˈel.len ˈfre.me.don]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Oft Sċyld Sċēfing sċeaþena þrēatum, pronounced as /[oft ˈʃyld ˈʃeː.viŋɡ ˈʃɑ.ðe.nɑ ˈθræːɑ̯.tum]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: monegum mǣġþum meodo-setla oftēah. pronounced as /[ˈmɒ.ne.ɣum ˈmæːj.ðum ˈme.duˌset.lɑ ofˈtæːɑ̯x]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Eġsode eorl, syððan ǣrest wearð pronounced as /[ˈej.zo.de eo̯rˠɫ ˈsɪθ.θɑn ˈæː.rest wæɑ̯rˠθ]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fēasċeaft funden; hē þæs frōfre ġebād, pronounced as /[ˈfæːɑ̯ˌʃæɑ̯ft ˈfun.den heː θæs ˈfroː.vre jeˈbɑːd]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: wēox under wolcnum, weorð-myndum þāh, pronounced as /[weːo̯ks un.der woɫk.num ˈweo̯rˠðˌmyn.dum ˈθɑːx]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: oð þæt him ǣġhwylċ þāra ymb-sittendra pronounced as /[oθ θæt him ˈæːj.ʍylt͡ʃ ˈθɑː.rɑ ymbˈsit.ten.drɑ]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ofer hronrāde hȳran sċolde, pronounced as /[ˈo.ver ˈr̥ɒnˌrɑː.de ˈhyː.rɑn ʃoɫ.de]/ | |
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: gomban ġyldan; þæt wæs gōd cyning. pronounced as /[ˈɡom.bɑn ˈjyl.dɑn θæt wæs ɡoːd ˈky.niŋɡ]/ |
The Lord's Prayer:
| Line | Original | Translation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Fæder ūre þū þe eart on heofonum, | pronounced as /[ˈfæ.der ˈuː.re θuː θe æɑ̯rt on ˈheo̯.vo.num]/ | Our father, you who are in heaven, | |
| [2] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Sīe þīn nama ġehālgod. | pronounced as /[siːy̯ θiːn ˈnɒ.mɑ jeˈhɑːɫ.ɣod]/ | May your name be hallowed. | |
| [3] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Tōbecume þīn rīċe, | pronounced as /[ˌtoː.beˈku.me θiːn ˈriː.t͡ʃe]/ | May your kingdom come, | |
| [4] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Ġeweorðe þīn willa, on eorðan swā swā on heofonum. | pronounced as /[jeˈweo̯rˠ.ðe θiːn ˈwil.lɑ on ˈeo̯rˠ.ðan swɑː swɑː on ˈheo̯.vo.num]/ | Your will be done, on Earth as in heaven. | |
| [5] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Ūrne dæġhwamlīcan hlāf sele ūs tōdæġ, | pronounced as /[ˈuːrˠ.ne ˈdæj.ʍɑmˌliː.kɑn hl̥ɑːf ˈse.le uːs toːˈdæj]/ | Give us our daily bread today, | |
| [6] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: And forġief ūs ūre gyltas, swā swā wē forġiefaþ ūrum gyltendum. | pronounced as /[ɒnd forˠˈjiy̯f uːs ˈuː.re ˈɣyl.tɑs swɑː swɑː weː forˠˈjiy̯.vɑθ uː.rum ˈɣyl.ten.dum]/ | And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. | |
| [7] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: And ne ġelǣd þū ūs on costnunge, ac ālīes ūs of yfele. | pronounced as /[ɒnd ne jeˈlæːd θuː uːs on ˈkost.nuŋ.ɡe ɑk ɑːˈliːy̯s uːs of ˈy.ve.le]/ | And do not lead us into temptation, but rescue us from evil. | |
| [8] | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Sōðlīċe. | pronounced as /[ˈsoːðˌliː.t͡ʃe]/ | Amen. |