Answers the questions: What is old English, Why learn Old English, and Why is Old English so different from modern English. By Murray McGillivray

Covers basic grammatical terms and concepts. All examples in modern English. Useful for those about to start learning Old English grammar. By Peter Baker.

Explains the structures common to all Old English poems: half-lines, metrical patterns (Sievers? types), alliteration, kennings, and variations

Robert Stevick's study of case and other grammatical elements of Old English.

An electronic discussion group dedicated to writing and communicating in Old English. Includes event announcements and links.

Junicode is a font for medievalists created by Peter Baker. If a computer is unable to display certain characters that can appear in online Old English texts, the Junicode font supplies all the needed characters. It can be downloaded from this site and then installed on the computer.

Describes the use of alliteration in Old English poems and the rhythmic patterns employed in the individual lines of these poems. By Peter Baker.

Shows the form and pronunciation of each letter in the Old English alphabet. Includes a sample text from a manuscript, a transcription of this text, and a modern English translation.

Merriam-Webster Online article uses a passage from Aelfric's Homily on St. Gregory to show the similarities and differences between Old English and Modern English. Also compares Middle English to Modern English and describes the Germanic roots of Old English.

A site dedicated to editions of Old English texts that include the graphotactics of original manuscripts and to studies of these texts. Graphotactics concerns the incidence and measure of spacings between strings of written symbols of a text. In such texts both the graphic symbols and the spacings carry linguistic information. Site includes text and syntactical study of Beowulf.

Introduction to Old English from the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Covers Germanic origins; Latin, Norse, and Celtic influence; dialects, phonology, and orthography; and grammar.

Several images from the Exeter Book. Items shown include passages from poems, drawings of an angel's head, a manuscript correction, an ornamented capital letter, and other images.

Gives descriptive information for each of the approximately 200 Old English manuscripts containing a significant amount of Anglo-Saxon. Includes a brief introduction to Old English manuscripts.

Shows how selected literary texts exemplify characteristic features of Old English syntax.

Explains the stylistic characteristics of Old English poems, including a vocabulary found only in poems, the use of variation in poetic sentences, and the formulaic nature of poetic phrases and themes. By Peter Baker.

Provides essential information for reading Old English manuscripts as opposed to the transcriptions used in edited texts. Covers the Old English alphabet, manuscript abbreviations, punctuation, capitalization, word and line divisions, and errors and corrections. By Peter Baker.

Explains who the Anglo-Saxons were, where their language came from, and what their language was like. Also describes the relationship of Old English to other Germanic languages and to modern English. By Peter Baker.

Describes the features of grammar in Old English poetry that distinguish it from the grammar of prose. Covers inflections, syntax, and word order. By Peter Baker.

Covers the origins of Old English words, including West Germanic, Latin, Scandinavian, and Celtic borrowings. Also provides a diagram of the family tree of the Germanic languages, which shows all the stages of descent from Proto-Germanic to modern English and other modern Germanic languages. By Tony Jebson.

Robert D. Stevick's account of the Old English sound system. Includes exercises.

Abstract of a paper by Susan Pintzuk, arguing that the syntax of Old English nominal and prepositional phrases is the same in poetry as it is in prose, except when the demands of meter interfere with normal word order.

Displays the current day, date, and time in Old English.

Gives tips for making the translation of Old English easier. These tricks involve an understanding of certain grammatical constructions that are very common in Old English: modal plus infinitive, partitive genitive, locative dative, and the "ge" prefix of verbs. By Michael Drout.

Studies the position of the verb in Old English word order and shows the influence of this ?V2? (verb-second) syntax on the word order of Middle English dialects.

Explains how political and cultural events changed the Anglo-Saxon language into the English spoken today. By Michael Drout.