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A Phonemic Change in Early Old English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Herbert Penzl
Herbert Penzl*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

In the oldest OE texts—the Epinal glossary, the Corpus glossary, and the oldest documents—b is written medially where other Germanic languages have /b/, and f is written where other Germanic languages have /f/; e.g. obær, halbæ, libr, hræbnes, ebor (Ep.), giaban (doc.), uulfes, cefr, hofr. The same distinction is found in final position; e.g. hualb, stæb, reab, uuf (Ep.), gib (doc.). In later OE texts, f is universally used both medially and finally; e.g. lifr, ofer, hræfn, efor, stæf, reaf. Some isolated spellings in Epinal indicated the coming change in spelling practice: unofercumenræ, sifunsterri, nabfogar. Corpus has even more cases, e.g. halfe, forscrifen, as well as reverse spellings like ceber, where b appears for f.

Information

Type
Miscellanea
Information
Language , Volume 20 , Issue 2: April-June , June 1944, pp. 84 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © 1944 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Cf. Altangelsächsisch F und B, PBB 11.542 ff. (1886); also Anglia 13.15; Angelsächsische Grammatik 191 f. Cf. also F. Dieter, Laut- und Formenlehre der altgermanischen Dialekte 247 f.

2 Bülbring, Altenglisches Elementarbuch §484 Anm. 1; Kluge, Geschichte der englischen Sprache §77; Wright, Old English grammar §§293, 296.

3 Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache §§639, 658. Cf. also Sievers, Zu Cynewulf, Luick-Festgabe 69 f.

4 On the phonemic interpretation of naive spellings and rimes cf. Lang. 18.148, 300 (1942).

5 Cf. Phonological remarks concerning the Scandinavian runic writing, TCLP 8.292 ff. Cf. also Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 62 f.; English Studies 20.26 ff.

6 Proceedings of the British Academy 14.349.

7 In the North the voiceless spirant would be substituted in final position; cf. R. Jordan, Handbuch der mittelenglischen Grammatik §217.