Originally posted by Mongoloid Cow
Loaf Warden, I want the world to start using the 'Æ' again.
I want English-speakers to start using the letters 'þ' and 'ð' again. Many of the names I listed are supposed to include them, but I left them out because only an Icelander or an Anglo-Saxon enthusiast would have been able to read them.
How do you say half the names you wrote (out of interest) such as Edwy, Heahbert and Hlothere (kinda like Hello there?)?
Well, since you asked . . .
This is not the time or place for a complete lesson in Old English pronunciation, but to summarize:
-
Æ was like the 'a' in 'bat' (
not the same sound as the Latin 'Æ').
-
Y was like the modern German 'ü'.
-
C sometimes sounded like 'k' and sometimes like the 'ch' of 'children'.
-
H, after a vowel, was like the German 'ch'.
-The vowel combination
ea is pronounced as 'æ' plus a schwa in a single, gliding sound. That's the simplest way I could describe it. Imagine yourself starting to say 'hat', then switching in mid-vowel to an 'uh' sound, then finishing off with a 'ch' like in the name 'Bach'. That's how to say the 'Heah' part of Heahbert. With '-bert', thank Woden, what you see is what you get.
-There were no silent letters. Any letter you see in an Anglo-Saxon name is pronounced. So 'Hlothere' is three syllables: 'hlo + the + re'. An 'H' before a consonant was rather common then, and I am
almost certain this name is supposed to go smoothly from the 'H' to the 'L' without any vowel noises in between.