Irish Influence in the Consonantal Spellings of Old English
Journal Title: Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies - Year 2017, Vol 26, Issue 2
Abstract
The consonantal spellings of Old English (OE) were signifi cantly infl uenced by the consonantal spellings of Old Irish (OI). 1) <th/þ> vs. (post-vocalic) <d/ð>: though OE did not have a distinction between /θ/ and /ð/, OI did, spelling this as <th> vs. (postvocalic) <d>. 2) <h> vs. <ch>: though OE did not have a distinction between /h/ and /x/, OI did, spelling the latter as <ch>. 3) <ch> and <th>: both spellings appear to be from Irish. 4) <cg>: spellings of the “mixed voice” type, including “cg”, occur in OI, where they can spell either single or geminate voiced plosives. 5) <bb> (and <cg>): almost certainly in fi nal position <bb, cg> in OE represent singles, not geminates, as they can in OI. 6) Spelling rules referring to post-vocalic position: all cases show OE spelling having had, like OI spelling, rules referring to post-vocalic position, which appear to be additionally evidenced by “illogical doubling” in Northumbrian. 7) The meaning of <g> before front Vs: in OE spelling as in OI spelling, but not as in Roman Latin spelling, <g> before front Vs spells a palatal approximant rather than a palatal aff ricate. The overall conclusion is that the OE spelling system was developed by Irish missionary linguists.
Authors and Affiliations
David L. White
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP249595
- DOI -
- Views 9
- Downloads 0
Old English without Short Diphthongs: An Alternative Historical Phonology
As there are serious questions about whether short diphthongs are possible phonemes, the question arises as to what the prehistory of Old English would be without short diphthongs. The most important question is what bre...
British Colonial Education and the Rise of Nationalism in Malaya: Tracing the Route of the Merdeka Generation in Adibah Amin’s This End of the Rainbow
Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (1961) asserted the importance of colonial education for the emergence of “native intellectuals” who will be able to represent the masses and participate in the national agenda a...
On Im/Pure Rhymes in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis
The pronunciation of Early New English, a period of the language when William Shakespeare lived and worked, still hides many puzzles. Although linguists have worked out a model of pronunciation of at c1600, there still r...
Andrzej Wajda’s Two Hamlets and One Macbeth: The Director’s Struggle with Shakespearean Tragedy in the Changing Contexts of Polish History
Andrzej Wajda is a renown Polish theatre and film director, whose achievements have been recognised by theatre and film artists and critics all over the world (he has been awarded an Oscar). He has directed four versions...
The Clones’ Apprenticeship: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go as a Bildungsroman
This article considers as a Bildungsroman the 2005 novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which depicts the education of young clones in a boarding school in a 1990 suchronic England. It studies the main theoretical wo...