The early medieval Germanic languages started to be written down in the Roman alphabet when their speakers converted to Christianity and adopted parts of Late Antique culture. For the West Germanic dialects spoken in England and on the Continent, this process took place essentially from the late 7th to the early 9th century. The scripting of these languages included the transfer and adaptation of the alphabet to the vernacular languages. Some of the specifically Germanic sounds caused spelling problems since there were no characters available for them in the Roman alphabet. The analysed data reveal surprisingly sophisticated spellings, demonstrating both a high degree of phonological awareness as well as an intimate knowledge of Latin orthography on the part of the writers. The study demonstrates that these early writing systems, though highly idiosyncratic, are more regular than has previously been known: The first writers of German and English follow the orthographic rules that they set up for themselves with unexpected consistency.

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Annina Seiler Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Englischen Seminar der Universität Zürich. Ehemalige Mitarbeiterin am Nationalen Forschungsschwerpunkt (NFS) 'Medienwandel - Medienwechsel - Medienwissen. Historische Perspektiven'.

THE SCRIPTING OF THE GERMANIC LANGUAGES From spoken to written word The scripting of West Germanic West Frankish Old English Old High German Old Saxon Corpus of the present study Old English sources Early Anglo-Saxon charters The Épinal glossary The Old English material in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Later Old English sources Old High German sources Early Old High German glosses Vocabularius Sti Galli Part Ka of the Old High German Abrogans glossary OHG Isidore translation Later Old High German sources Old Saxon sources Old Saxon Creed Later Old Saxon sources Spelling problems The consonants of the West Germanic languages Scripting with the Latin alphabet HISTORICAL GRAPHEMICS Methodological problems of graphemic research “Deficiencies” of writing The reading process Circular reasoning Phonographic and morphographic Method and terminology The concept of the sound position Characters, graphs and graphemes Quantification and the concept of the leading graph Some methodological consequences and problems GRAPHEMIC ANALYSIS I: MISSING LETTERS Outline Gmc. */w/ in OE, OHG, OS Phonology Sound positions Old English Old High German Old Saxon Summary and conclusions Gmc. */þ/ in OE, OHG, OS Phonology Sound positions Old English Old High German Old Saxon Summary and conclusions Gmc. */?/ in OE, OS, OHG and Gmc. */k/ in OHG Phonology Sound positions Old English Old High German Old Saxon Summary and conclusions Gmc. */b/ in OE, OS, OCFr Phonology Sound positions Old English Old Saxon Summary and conclusions Spellings for OHG /tz/ and /zz/ (< Gmc. */t/) Phonology Sound positions Old High German Summary and conclusions GRAPHEMIC ANALYSIS II: “SUPERFLUOUS” LETTERS Outline The letter k The letter q The letter x The letter z Summary and conclusion RESULTS Towards a history of spelling Old English Overview Contextualisation of analysed texts Old High German Overview Contextualisation of analysed texts Old Saxon Summary and conclusion Variability of early medieval scripts Measures of variability and consistency Consistency and the identification of leading graphs Summary and conclusion