Ways of denoting long vowels

OE writing did not differentiate between long and short vowels. The first attempt to make such distinctions was made in the 12^th century by the monk named Orm. He wrote a religious poem notable for its peculiar spelling. Short vowels in this poem are denoted by doubling the following consonant, while long vowels are followed by one consonant only.

This poem begins in the following way:

Þiss boc iss nemmedd Orrmulumm

Forrþi þatt Orrm wrohhte.

(This book is called Ormulum, because Orm wrote it).

However Orm’s spelling did not become popular, and in later years other ways to show a long vowel were worked out.

Long [u:] came to be denoted by the French digraph ou (by analogy with the French words like trouble), e.g.: hous, out, mous. When [u:] was found in the final position it was denoted by ow, e.g.: now, how.

Long [e:] came to be spelt by several digraphs:

ie (by analogy with the French words like chief): field, thief;

ei (by analogy with the French words like receive):;

ee:, feet, teeth.

Long open [ε:] which developed from OE [æ:] was represented by the digraph ea, e.g.: sea, sleapen.

Similar means were implied to denote closed [o:] and open [O:]. The digraph oo was used to indicate [o:], the digraph oa represented [O:], e.g.: foot, book, tooth, road, boat.

Digraphs with “h”

The tendency towards a wide use of digraphs was not restricted to vowels only. Several digraphs were introduced to denote consonants. These were built with the help of the letter h, which appeared in the following symbols: ch, sh, th, gh, wh.

The digraph ch came from the French language and was used to denote the sound [t∫]. By analogy with ch several other digraphs were built: sh for [∫]; th for [0] and [ð], gh for [x], e.g.: child, chin, fish, shinen (shine), thanken (thank), that, broughte (brought), night.

The digraph wh developed from the OE cluster hw (h) the elements of which exchanged their places, e.g.: OE hwila > ME while; OE hwilc > ME which; OE hwan > ME whan. It should be noted that through the ME period this digraph retained its original pronunciation - [hw].

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