Old English looks strange on the page, but it is much less mysterious once you hear it. Its spelling was fairly phonetic: scribes wrote what they heard, and almost every letter was pronounced. There were no silent letters of the kind that make modern English spelling so frustrating. The k in cniht ("knight") was sounded, and so was the w in wrītan ("to write"). If you learn a handful of rules, you can read a line of Old English aloud with reasonable confidence.

This guide follows the conventions used in standard textbooks such as Mitchell and Robinson's A Guide to Old English and Peter Baker's Introduction to Old English. Like those books, it uses two editorial marks that medieval scribes did not write: a macron over long vowels (ā, ē) and a dot over palatal consonants (ċ, ġ).

Vowels: Short and Long

Old English vowels came in short and long pairs. The difference mattered for meaning: god means "god", while gōd means "good". Modern editions mark long vowels with a macron. The vowels sounded roughly like those of continental European languages, not like modern English:

• a as in German Mann; ā as in father
• æ as in cat; ǣ the same sound held longer, as in a drawn-out bad
• e as in bet; ē like the vowel in German See (close to hay, but without the glide)
• i as in sit; ī as in machine
• o as in hot (British); ō like German so
• u as in put; ū as in food
• y like German ü (say i with rounded lips); ȳ its long counterpart

Old English also had diphthongs, written ea, eo, and ie (each short or long). A beginner can treat them as two vowels glided together, with the stress on the first: ēa as "ay-uh", ēo as "ay-oh".

Consonants That Change

Most consonants sound as you would expect. A few depend on their surroundings.

c and ċ. Plain c is always hard, like k: cyning ("king"), cuman ("come"). Next to front vowels it was often softened to the sound of ch in church; editors mark this as ċ: ċild ("child"), ċiriċe ("church").

g and ġ. Plain g is hard, as in go: gōd, gān. Marked ġ sounds like the y in yes: ġēar ("year"), dæġ ("day"). Between back vowels, g became a softer, breathy fricative, a little like the g in Dutch, though many beginners simply use a hard g.

sc. Almost always pronounced sh: scip ("ship"), fisc ("fish"), Englisc ("English").

cg. Pronounced like the dge in edge: ecg ("edge"), brycg ("bridge").

h. At the start of a word, h is a normal h. Elsewhere it is a rasping fricative like the ch in Scottish loch or German Bach (or German ich after front vowels): niht ("night"), dohtor ("daughter").

hw, hl, hr, hn. These clusters were genuinely pronounced, with a breathy h before the consonant. Hwæt starts with a puff of air before the w, like the old-fashioned pronunciation of which that distinguishes it from witch. Hlāf ("loaf") and hring ("ring") begin with a voiceless, breathy l and r.

Double consonants were held longer, as in Italian: sunne ("sun") has a lengthened n, and biddan ("to ask") a lengthened d.

F, S, and Þ Between Vowels

Old English had no separate letters for v and z. Instead, f, s, and þ/ð were voiceless (f, s, th as in thin) at the start or end of a word or next to a voiceless consonant, but voiced (v, z, th as in this) between voiced sounds, usually between vowels.

• fīf ("five") is "feef", but ofer ("over") is "over"
• hūs ("house") ends in s, but rīsan ("to rise") has a z
• þing ("thing") begins as in thin, but ōþer ("other") is voiced as in this

This one rule explains many modern pairs: wife/wives, house/houses, bath/bathe. The letters þ and ð themselves were used interchangeably for both sounds, so their spelling tells you nothing about voicing.

Stress: Hit the First Syllable

Old English stressed the first syllable of a word almost without exception: CYning, FÆder, Englisc. The main exception is verbs and some other words beginning with unstressed prefixes such as ġe-, be-, and for-, where the stress falls on the root: ġe-HÝRan ("to hear"), be-CUMan. Compound nouns are stressed on the first element: GĀR-Dena.

Unstressed vowels at the ends of words were still pronounced fully. Nama ("name") is two clear syllables, "NA-ma", not "NAYM".

If you are working with a passage and want to check what a word means before you read it aloud, an Old English translator with a dictionary can help you match spellings to their meanings while you practise the sounds.

Worked Example: The Opening of Beowulf

Here are the first three lines of Beowulf as they appear in modern editions:

Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in ġeārdagum,

þēodcyninga, þrym ġefrūnon,

hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.

"Listen! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes' kings in days of old, how those princes did courageous deeds."

Now read it word by word:

Word — Rough pronunciation — Notes
Hwæt — HWAT — breathy hw; æ as in cat
Wē — WAY — long ē, no glide
Gār-Dena — GAHR-den-a — hard g; long ā; trilled r
in — in —
ġeārdagum — YAY-ar-dah-gum — ġ = y; stress on first syllable
þēodcyninga — THAY-od-kü-nin-ga — þ as in thin; c hard; y = ü
þrym — thrüm — y = ü
ġefrūnon — ye-FROO-non — prefix ġe- unstressed
hū — hoo — long ū
ðā — thah — ð as in this in practice, since the word is unstressed
æþelingas — AH-the-ling-ahs — þ voiced between vowels; ng as in finger
ellen — EL-len — double l held
fremedon — FREM-e-don — all syllables sounded

Notice the alliteration that holds the verse together: the stressed syllables Gār and ġeār in the first line, þēod and þrym in the second. Old English poetry was built on stressed sounds repeated at the start of words, so reading aloud with first-syllable stress is the best way to hear the poem's rhythm.

Putting It Into Practice

Start with short, familiar words such as mōna, sunne, scip, and niht, and say them slowly. Then try a line of verse, marking the stressed syllables first. Do not worry about perfection: scholars still debate fine details, and regional accents varied across Anglo-Saxon England. What matters is that you sound every letter, respect long vowels, and lean on the first syllable. Do that, and Old English stops being a puzzle on the page and becomes a living language again.