How Many Letters in the Old English Alphabet? Old English spoken in Anglo-Saxon was influenced by Latin-inspired Caroline Minuscule.

Finally, they started writing in Old English in the 10th century. The Anglo-Saxons adopted the writing style of the Irish people. Most of the language was written in West Saxon, which was one of the four main dialects spoken at that time. They live in the Engalaland and Angelcynn areas.Īlthough it has been in use since the 5th century, the language was only used in written form in the 8th century. The native speakers of old English are Englisc people such as Angelcynn, Angle, and Angelfolc. It was also known as West Germanic which was spoken in England from the 5th to the 11th centuries.

The Old English alphabet is often referred to as Anglo-Saxon or Ænglisc. The old English alphabet contains several letters derived from the Old Norse, Runic, and Gothic languages. The Old English alphabet is the precursor to the English language we know today.

Like most writing systems in the world, the history of old English alphabet is also very complicated because it is influenced by various things from the past. All rights reserved.What is the History of the Old English Alphabet? Data © of The Monotype Corporation plc/Type Solutions Inc. Typeface © of The Monotype Corporation plc. It looks remarkably like the famous Cloister Black designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1904. Little is known about the history of Old English Text, provided here by Monotype Typography, but it has been beautifully made. The Frakturs have an x that looks like an r with a mysterious disease, and the Blackletters have fiddly bits in the middle like those you see in this Old English Text. There are two main kinds of what people tend to call Gothic letters: the German Frakturs and the English Blackletter.

Old english font of letter c