Old English

This article is part of a series on: Old English

Dialects Kentish Mercian Northumbrian West Saxon Use Orthography (Runic alphabet · Latin alphabet) Grammar Phonology Morphology (Declension · Pronouns · Prepositions) Literature Old English literature (Beowulf · Anglo-Saxon Chronicle · Cædmon's Hymn) History History of English Development of Old English (Influences: Germanic · Latin · Old Norse) Legacy Middle English Early Modern English Modern English See also: Changes to Old English vocabulary

Old English (Englisc, Anglisc, Ænglisc) or Anglo-Saxon^[1] is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon.

It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old Frisian. It also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related North Germanic group of languages.

Development

Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of approximately 700 years^[2] – from the Anglo-Saxon migrations that created England in the 5th century to some time after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when the language underwent a dramatic transition. During this early period it assimilated some aspects of the languages with which it came in contact, such as the Celtic languages and the two dialects of Old Norse from the invading Vikings, who occupied and controlled large tracts of land in northern and eastern England, which came to be known as the Danelaw.

Germanic origins

The most important force in shaping Old English was its Germanic heritage in its vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, which it shared with its related languages in continental Europe. Some of these features are shared with the other West Germanic languages with which Old English is grouped, while some other features are traceable to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are believed to derive.

Like other Germanic languages of the period, Old English was fully inflected with five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental, though the instrumental was very rare), which had dual plural forms for referring to groups of two objects (but only in the personal pronouns) in addition to the usual singular and plural forms. It also assigned gender to all nouns, including those that describe inanimate objects: for example, sēo sunne (the Sun) was feminine, while se mōna (the Moon) was masculine (cf. modern German die Sonne and der Mond).

Latin influence

A large percentage of the educated and literate population of the time were competent in Latin, which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Europe at the time. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the entry of individual Latin words into Old English based on which patterns of linguistic change they have undergone. There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. The second began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin speaking priests became widespread.

The third and largest single transfer of Latin-based words happened after the Norman Conquest of 1066, when an enormous number of Norman words began to influence the language. Most of these Oïl language words were themselves derived from Old French and ultimately from classical Latin, although a notable stock of Norse words were introduced or re-introduced in Norman form. The Norman Conquest approximately marks the end of Old English and the advent of Middle English.

One of the ways the influence of Latin can be seen is that many Latin words for activities came to also be used to refer to the people engaged in those activities, an idiom carried over from Anglo-Saxon but using Latin words. This can be seen in words like militia, assembly, movement, and service.

The language was further altered by the transition away from the runic alphabet (also known as futhorc or fuþorc) to the Latin alphabet, which was also a significant factor in the developmental pressures brought to bear on the language. Old English words were spelt as they were pronounced. The "silent" letters in many Modern English words were pronounced in Old English: for example, the c in cniht, the Old English ancestor of the modern knight, was pronounced. Another side-effect of spelling words phonetically was that spelling was extremely variable. A word's spelling reflected differences in phonetics of the writer's regional dialect. Words also endured idiosyncratic spelling choices of individual authors, some of whom varied spellings between works. Thus, for example, the word and could be spelt either and or ond.

Norse influence

The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:       Old West Norse dialect       Old East Norse dialect       Old Gutnish dialect       Crimean Gothic       Old English       Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility

The second major source of loanwords to Old English was the Scandinavian words introduced during the Viking invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries. In addition to a great many place names, these consist mainly of items of basic vocabulary, and words concerned with particular administrative aspects of the Danelaw (that is, the area of land under Viking control, which included extensive holdings all along the eastern coast of England and Scotland).

The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a language related to Old English in that both derived from the same ancestral Proto-Germanic language. It is very common for the intermixing of speakers of different dialects, such as those that occur during times of political unrest, to result in a mixed language, and one theory holds that exactly such a mixture of Old Norse and Old English helped accelerate the decline of case endings in Old English.

Apparent confirmation of this is the fact that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the north and latest in the southwest, the area farthest away from Viking influence. Regardless of the truth of this theory, the influence of Old Norse on the English language has been profound: responsible for such basic vocabulary items as sky, leg, the pronoun they, the verb form are, and hundreds of other words.

Celtic influence

Traditionally, many maintain that the influence of Celtic on English has been small, citing the small number of Celtic loanwords taken into the language. The number of Celtic loanwords is of a lower order than either Latin or Scandinavian. However, a minority view is that distinctive Celtic traits can be discerned in syntax from the post-Old English period.^[3]

Dialects

Old English should not be regarded as a single monolithic entity just as Modern English is also not monolithic. Within Old English, there was language variation. Thus it is misleading, for example, to consider Old English as having a single sound system. Rather, there were multiple Old English sound systems. Old English has variation along regional lines as well as variation across different times. For example, the language attested in Wessex during the time of Æthelwold of Winchester, which is named Late West Saxon (or Æthelwoldian Saxon), is considerably different from the language attested in Wessex during the time of Alfred the Great's court, which is named Early West Saxon (or Classical West Saxon or Alfredian Saxon). Furthermore, the difference between Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon is of such a nature that Late West Saxon is not directly descended from Early West Saxon (despite what the similarity in name implies).

The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon.^[4] Each of those dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia and all of Kent that were successfully defended were then integrated into Wessex.

After the process of unification of the diverse Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in 878 by Alfred the Great, there is a marked decline in the importance of regional dialects. This is not because they stopped existing; regional dialects continued even after that time to this day, as evidenced both by the existence of Middle and Modern English dialects later on, and by common sense—people do not spontaneously adopt another dialect when there is a sudden change of political power.

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript

However, the bulk of the surviving documents from the Anglo-Saxon period are written in the dialect of Wessex, Alfred's kingdom. It seems likely that with consolidation of power, it became necessary to standardise the language of government to reduce the difficulty of administering the more remote areas of the kingdom. As a result, documents were written in the West Saxon dialect. Not only this, but Alfred was passionate about the spread of the vernacular, and brought many scribes to his region from Mercia to record previously unwritten texts.^[5]

The Church was affected likewise, especially since Alfred initiated an ambitious programme to translate religious materials into English. To retain his patronage and ensure the widest circulation of the translated materials, the monks and priests engaged in the programme worked in his dialect. Alfred himself seems to have translated books out of Latin and into English, notably Pope Gregory I's treatise on administration, Pastoral Care.

Because of the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is little or no written evidence for the development of non-Wessex dialects after Alfred's unification.

Grammar

Phonology

The inventory of classical Old English (i.e. Late West Saxon) surface phones, as usually reconstructed, is as follows.

The sounds marked in parentheses in the chart above are allophones:

• [dʒ] is an allophone of /j/ occurring after /n/ and when geminated
• [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ occurring before /k/ and /ɡ/
• [v, ð, z] are allophones of /f, θ, s/ respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants
• [ç, x] are allophones of /h/ occurring in coda position after front and back vowels respectively
• [ɣ] is an allophone of /ɡ/ occurring after a vowel, and, at an earlier stage of the language, in the syllable onset.

The front mid rounded vowels /ø(ː)/ occur in some dialects of Old English, but not in the best attested Late West Saxon dialect.

Morphology

Unlike modern English, Old English is a language rich with morphological diversity. It maintains several distinct cases: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and (vestigially) instrumental, remnants of which survive only in a few pronouns in modern English.

Syntax

Word order

The word order of Old English is widely believed to be subject-verb-object (SVO) as in modern English and most Germanic languages. The word order of Old English, however, was not overly important because of the aforementioned morphology of the language. As long as declension was correct, it did not matter whether you said, "My name is..." as "Mīn nama is..." or "Nama mīn is..."

Questions

Because of its similarity with Old Norse, it is believed that the word order of Old English changed when asking a question, from SVO to VSO; i.e. swapping the verb and the subject.

"I am..." becomes "Am I...?"

"Ic eom..." becomes "Eom ic...?"

Orthography

The runic alphabet used to write Old English before the introduction of the Latin alphabet.

Old English was first written in runes (futhorc) but shifted to a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries^[7] from around the 9th century. This was replaced by insular script, a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline) replaced the insular.

The letter yogh ‹ȝ› was adapted from Irish ecclesiastical forms of Latin ‹g› ; the letter ðæt ‹ð› (called eth or edh in modern English) was an alteration of Latin ‹d›, and the runic letters thorn ‹þ› and wynn ‹ƿ› are borrowings from futhorc. Also used was a symbol for the conjunction and, a character similar to the number seven (‹⁊›, called a Tironian note), and a symbol for the relative pronoun þæt, a thorn with a crossbar through the ascender (‹ꝥ›). Macrons ‹¯› over vowels were rarely used to indicate long vowels. Also used occasionally were abbreviations for following m’s or n’s. All of the sound descriptions below are given using IPA symbols.

Conventions of modern editions

A number of changes are traditionally made in published modern editions of the original Old English manuscripts. Some of these conventions include the introduction of punctuation and the substitutions of symbols. The symbols ‹e›, ‹f›, ‹g›, ‹r›, ‹s› are used in modern editions, although their shapes in the insular script are considerably different. The long s ‹ſ› is substituted by its modern counterpart ‹s›. Insular ‹ᵹ› is usually substituted with its modern counterpart ‹g› (which is ultimately a Carolingian symbol).

Additionally, modern manuscripts often distinguish between a velar and palatal ‹c› and ‹g› with diacritic dots above the putative palatals: ‹ċ›, ‹ġ›. The wynn symbol ‹ƿ› is usually substituted with ‹w›. Macrons are usually found in modern editions to indicate putative long vowels, while they are usually lacking in the originals. In older printed editions of Old English works, an acute accent mark was used to maintain cohesion between Old English and Old Norse printing.

The alphabetical symbols found in Old English writings and their substitute symbols found in modern editions are listed below:

Doubled consonants are geminated; the geminate fricatives ‹ðð›/‹þþ›, ‹ff› and ‹ss› cannot be voiced.

Literature

Old English literature, though more abundant than literature of the continent before AD 1000, is nonetheless scant. In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, Dr. James Hulbert writes:

In such historical conditions, an incalculable amount of the writings of the Anglo-Saxon period perished. What they contained, how important they were for an understanding of literature before the Conquest, we have no means of knowing: the scant catalogs of monastic libraries do not help us, and there are no references in extant works to other compositions....How incomplete our materials are can be illustrated by the well-known fact that, with few and relatively unimportant exceptions, all extant Anglo-Saxon poetry is preserved in four manuscripts.

Old English was one of the first vernacular languages to be written down. Some of the most important surviving works of Old English literature are Beowulf, an epic poem; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early English history; the Franks Casket, an early whalebone artifact; and Caedmon's Hymn, a Christian religious poem. There are also a number of extant prose works, such as sermons and saints' lives, biblical translations, and translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers, legal documents, such as laws and wills, and practical works on grammar, medicine, and geography. Still, poetry is considered the heart of Old English literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as Bede and Caedmon.

Comparison with other historical forms of English

Old English is often erroneously used to refer to any form of English other than Modern English. The term Old English does not refer to varieties of Early Modern English such as are found in Shakespeare or the King James Bible, nor does it refer to Middle English, the language of Chaucer and his contemporaries. The following timeline helps place the history of the English language in context. The dates used are approximate dates. Language change is gradual, and cannot be as easily demarcated as are historical or political events.

• 450–1100: Old English (Anglo-Saxon) – The language of Beowulf and Alfred the Great.
• 1100–1500: Middle English – The language of Chaucer.
• 1500–1650: Early Modern English (or Renaissance English) – The language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
• 1650–present: Modern English (or Present-Day English) – The language as spoken today.

Examples

Beowulf

The first example is taken from the opening lines of the epic poem Beowulf. This passage describes how Hrothgar's legendary ancestor Scyld was found as a baby, washed up on the shore, and adopted by a noble family. The translation is quite literal and represents the original poetic word order. As such, it is not typical of Old English prose. The modern cognates of original words have been used whenever practical to give a close approximation of the feel of the original poem. The words in brackets are implied in the Old English by noun case and the bold words in parentheses are explanations of words that have slightly different meanings in a modern context. Notice how what is used by the poet where a word like lo or behold would be expected. This usage is similar to what-ho!, both an expression of surprise and a call to attention.

A semi-fluent translation in Modern English would be:

Lo! We have heard of majesty of the Spear-Danes, of those nation-kings in the days of yore, and how those noblemen promoted zeal. Scyld Scefing took away mead-benches from bands of enemies, from many tribes; he terrified earls. Since he was first found destitute (he gained consolation for that) he grew under the heavens, prospered in honours, until each of those who lived around him over the sea had to obey him, give him tribute. That was a good king!

The Lord's Prayer

This text of the Lord's Prayer is presented in the standardised West Saxon literary dialect.

Charter of Cnut

This is a proclamation from King Cnut the Great to his earl Thorkell the Tall and the English people written in AD 1020. Unlike the previous two examples, this text is prose rather than poetry. For ease of reading, the passage has been divided into sentences while the pilcrows represent the original division.

See also

• Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law
• Anglo-Saxon literature
• Beowulf
• Dictionary of Old English
• Exeter Book
• Go (verb)
• History of the English language
• History of the Scots language
• I-mutation
• List of generic forms in British place names
• List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents
• Old English declension
• Old English pronouns

Notes

1. ↑ The term Anglo-Saxon came to refer to all things of the early English period by the 16th century, including language, culture, and people. While this is still the preferred term for the latter two aspects, the language starting from the 19th century began to be called Old English. This is because the language itself began to be studied in detail, and scholars recognised the continued development of the English language from the Anglo-Saxon period to Middle English and through to the present day. However many authors still use the term Anglo-Saxon to refer to the language.
   Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521530334. 
2. ↑ See Timeline of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and takeover of Britain
3. ↑ http://www.rotary-munich.de/2005-2006/theo-vennemann.pdf
4. ↑ Campbell, Alistair (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-19-811943-7. 
5. ↑ Moore, Samuel, and Knott, Thomas A. The Elements of Old English. 1919. Ed. James R. Hulbert. 10th ed. Ann Arbor, Michigan: George Wahr Publishing Co., 1958.
6. ↑ It is uncertain whether the diphthongs spelt ie/īe were pronounced [i(ː)y] or [i(ː)e]. The fact that this diphthong was merged with /y(ː)/ in many dialects suggests the former.
7. ↑ Crystal, David (1987). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 203. ISBN 0521264383. 
8. ↑ See also Pronunciation of English th.
9. ↑ The spelling ‹qu› is much more common in later Middle English.
10. ↑ Lit. a participle: "guilting" or "[a person who is] sinning"; cf. Latin cognate -ant/-ent.

Bibliography

Sources

• Whitelock, Dorothy (ed.) (1955) English Historical Documents; vol. I: c. 500–1042. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode

General

• Baker, Peter S. (2003). Introduction to Old English. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23454-3. 
• Baugh, Albert C.; & Cable, Thomas. (1993). A History of the English Language (4th ed.). London: Routledge.
• Earle, John (2005). A Book for the Beginner in Anglo-Saxon. Bristol, PA: Evolution Publishing. ISBN 1-889758-69-8.  (Reissue of one of 4 eds. 1877–1902)
• Hogg, Richard M. (ed.). (1992). The Cambridge History of the English Language: (Vol 1): the Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hogg, Richard; & Denison, David (eds.) (2006) A History of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jespersen, Otto (1909–1949) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. 7 vols. Heidelberg: C. Winter & Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard
• Lass, Roger (1987) The Shape of English: structure and history. London: J. M. Dent & Sons
• Lass, Roger (1994). Old English: A historical linguistic companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43087-9. 
• Millward, Celia (1996). A Biography of the English Language. Harcourt Brace. ISBN 0-15-501645-8. 
• Mitchell, Bruce, and Robinson, Fred C. (2001). A Guide to Old English (6th edition ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-22636-2. 
• Quirk, Randolph; & Wrenn, C. L. (1957). An Old English Grammar (2nd ed.) London: Methuen.
• Strang, Barbara M. H. (1970) A History of English. London: Methuen.

External history

• Robinson, Orrin W. (1992). Old English and Its Closest Relatives. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2221-8. 
• Bremmer Jr, Rolf H. (2009). An Introduction to Old Frisian. History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
• Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Orthography/Palaeography

• Bourcier, Georges. (1978). L'orthographie de l'anglais: Histoire et situation actuelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Campbell, A. (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Elliott, Ralph W. V. (1959). Runes: An introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Keller, Wolfgang. (1906). Angelsächsische Paleographie, I: Einleitung. Berlin: Mayer & Müller.
• Ker, N. R. (1957). A Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Ker, N. R. (1957: 1990). A Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon; with supplement prepared by Neil Ker originally published in Anglo-Saxon England; 5, 1957. Oxford: Clarendon Press ISBN 0198112513
• Page, R. I. (1973). An Introduction to English Runes. London: Methuen.
• Scragg, Donald G. (1974). A History of English Spelling. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Phonology

• Anderson, John M; & Jones, Charles. (1977). Phonological structure and the history of English. North-Holland linguistics series (No. 33). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
• Brunner, Karl. (1965). Altenglische Grammatik (nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers neubearbeitet) (3rd ed.). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Campbell, A. (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Girvan, Ritchie. (1931). Angelsaksisch Handboek; E. L. Deuschle (transl.). (Oudgermaansche Handboeken; No. 4). Haarlem: Tjeenk Willink.
• Halle, Morris; & Keyser, Samuel J. (1971). English Stress: its form, its growth, and its role in verse. New York: Harper & Row.
• Hockett, Charles F. (1959). "The stressed syllabics of Old English". Language, 35 (4), 575–597.
• Hogg, Richard M. (1992). A Grammar of Old English, I: Phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Kuhn, Sherman M. (1961). "On the Syllabic Phonemes of Old English". Language, 37 (4), 522–538.
• Kuhn, Sherman M. (1970). "On the consonantal phonemes of Old English". In: J. L. Rosier (ed.) Philological Essays: studies in Old and Middle English language and literature in honour of Herbert Dean Merritt (pp. 16–49). The Hague: Mouton.
• Lass, Roger; & Anderson, John M. (1975). Old English Phonology. (Cambridge studies in linguistics; No. 14). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Luick, Karl. (1914–1940). Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache. Stuttgart: Bernhard Tauchnitz.
• Maling, J. (1971). "Sentence stress in Old English". Linguistic Inquiry, 2, 379–400.
• McCully, C. B.; & Hogg, Richard M. (1990). "An account of Old English stress". Journal of Linguistics, 26, 315–339.
• Moulton, W. G. (1972). "The Proto-Germanic non-syllabics (consonants)". In: F. van Coetsem & H. L. Kurfner (Eds.), Toward a Grammar of Proto-Germanic (pp. 141–173). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Sievers, Eduard (1893). Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Max Niemeyer.
• Wagner, Karl Heinz (1969). Generative Grammatical Studies in the Old English language. Heidelberg: Julius Groos.

Morphology

• Brunner, Karl. (1965). Altenglische Grammatik (nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers neubearbeitet) (3rd ed.). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Campbell, A. (1959). Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Wagner, Karl Heinz. (1969). Generative grammatical studies in the Old English language. Heidelberg: Julius Groos.

Syntax

• Brunner, Karl. (1962). Die englische Sprache: ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung (Vol. II). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Kemenade, Ans van. (1982). Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English. Dordrecht: Foris.
• MacLaughlin, John C. (1983). Old English Syntax: a handbook. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Mitchell, Bruce. (1985). Old English Syntax (Vols. 1–2). Oxford: Clarendon Press (no more published)
  • Vol.1: Concord, the parts of speech and the sentence
  • Vol.2: Subordination, independent elements, and element order
• Mitchell, Bruce. (1990) A Critical Bibliography of Old English Syntax to the end of 1984, including addenda and corrigenda to "Old English Syntax" . Oxford: Blackwell
• Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. (1972). A History of English Syntax: a transformational approach to the history of English sentence structure. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Visser, F. Th. (1963–1973). An Historical Syntax of the English Language (Vols. 1–3). Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Lexicons

Bosworth-Toller

• Bosworth, J.; & Toller, T. Northcote. (1898). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Based on Bosworth's 1838 dictionary, his papers & additions by Toller)
• Toller, T. Northcote. (1921). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Campbell, A. (1972). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Enlarged addenda and corrigenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Clark Hall-Merritt

• Clark Hall, J. R.; & Merritt, H. D. (1969). A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Toronto

• Cameron, Angus, et al. (ed.) (1983) Dictionary of Old English. Toronto: Published for the Dictionary of Old English Project, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1983/1994. (Issued on microfiche and subsequently as a CD-ROM and on the World Wide Web.)

External links

• Old English/Modern English Translator
• The Electronic Introduction to Old English
• First steps in Old English - a course for absolute beginners
• Old English (Anglo-Saxon) alphabet
• Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon dictionary
• Downloadable Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon dictionary Application
• Old English Made Easy
• Old English - Modern English dictionary
• Old English Glossary
• Shakespeare's English vs Old English
• Downloadable Old English keyboard for Windows and Mac
• Another downloadable keyboard for Windows computers
• Guide to using Old English computer characters (Unicode, HTML entities, etc.)
• The Germanic Lexicon Project
• An overview of the grammar of Old English
• The Lords Prayer in Old English from the 11th century