In the 7th century the Christian faith was introduced and with it there came many Latin-speaking monks who brought with them their own Latin alphabet.

The Latin alphabet was used by the majority of the people who could read and write. It ousted [aust] (вытеснять – remove) the Runic alphabet. But the Latin alphabet could not denote all the sounds in the English language, for example, the sounds [w], [θ]. For that purpose some runes were preserved or some Latin letters were slightly altered.

This alphabet that is a combination of the Latin alphabet with runes and some other innovations is called "insular writing", i.e. the alphabet typical of the Isles. The majority of Old English records are written in this insular alphabet. The spelling in these early records is on the whole phonetic and reasonably consistent, so that it is possible to learn much about the early pronunciation.

As we've noted, the period from the 7^th through the early 9^th centuries was the era of Northumbrian efflorescence, marked by a rich religious and literary culture. The monasteries of Northumbria produced beautiful manuscripts of the Bible and other literary texts.

During the 9^th and early 10^th centuries, Wessex became the seat of Anglo-Saxon intellectual literary and political life.

In the 11th century, new schools were established for educating students in English and Latin. Anglo-Saxon England is the first place in Europe where students read and wrote in their own vernacular (родной язык). Students were considered literate if they read and wrote in English. It was unique in the world that measured literacy as Latin literacy. This idea of learning to write and read in OE is something that is born and then dies. By the end of the 11^th century, however, within a generation or two of the Norman Conquest, with the rise of French and the restoration of Latin as a prestige language, much of this literary and intellectual activity had disappeared. Anglo-Saxon bishops and priests were replaced by Norman French ones. By the middle of the 12^th century, Old English was virtually gone.

Let's now turn to some of the major linguistic features of Old English.

Phonetics

The phonetics of the Old English period was characterised by a system of dynamic stress. The fixed stress fell on the first root syllable:

agāne (gone); ʒesēon – j (see); ʒaderian γ – г (gather)

The vowels had the following characteristic features:

a) The quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its position in the word. Under stress any vowel could be found, but in unstressed position there were no diphthongs or long monophthongs, but only short vowels [a], [e], [i], [o], [u].

b) The length of the stressed vowels (monophthongs and diphthongs) was phonemic [fə'nimɪk] (фонематический), which means that there could be two words differing only in the length of the vowel:

metan (to measure) — mētan (to meet)

pin (pin) — pīn (pain)

god (god) — gōd (good)

c) There was an exact parallelism ['pærəlelɪz(ə)m] of long and short vowels:

Short: а о e u i æ у ea eo

Long: ā ō ē ū ī æ ÿ ēа ēо

The macron ( ¯ ) above a vowel indicates that the vowel is long: ē = [e:]	þēs [θe:s]
Within an OE diphthong the first element makes the nucleus and is therefore pronounced with more force and clarity than the second element	hēah [hea:χ]
у stands for a front vowel [y], like in the French word “rue”	суninʒ [kуniŋg]

The consonants were few. Some of the modern sounds were non-existent: [ʃ], [ʒ], [ʧ], [ʤ].

The quality of the consonant very much depended on its position in the word, especially the resonance - voiced and voiceless sounds: hlāf [f] (loaf) — hlāford [v] (lord, bread-keeper) and articulation - palatal and velar ['vilə] (велярный, задненёбный звук) sounds: climban [k] (to climb) — cild [k'] (child).

h	[h]	before vowels	hē [he:]
	[χ] (хорошо)	1. before consonants 2. at the end of words	hrinʒ [χriŋg] seah [seaχ]
	[χ'] (хитрый)	in contact with front vowels	ryht [ryχ't]
ʒ	[j]	1. before front vowels. But: ʒēs [ge:s] 2. at the end of words after front vowels	ʒeard [jeard] bysiʒ [‘byzij]
	[g]	1. before consonants 2. before back vowels. But: ʒunʒ [jung] 3. at the end of words after consonants except [r] and [1]	ʒrēne['gre:ne] ʒōd [go:d] с1урunʒ ['klypuŋg]
	[γ] (Bel. горад)	1. at the end of words after back vowels 2. between back vowels 3. after [r] and [1]	slōʒ [slo:γ] draʒan ['draγan] burʒ [burγ ] folʒa ['folγa]
^Сʒ	[gg']	in contact with front vowels	bгусʒ [brygg']
	[gg]	in other positions	docʒa ['dogga]
с	[k']	before front vowels	cild [k'ild]
	[k]	in other positions	cuman ['kuman]
n	[ŋ]	before з and с	sinʒan ['siŋgan]
	[n]	in other positions	nama ['nama]
f, s, þ	[v, z, ð]	1. between vowels. But: no voicing between vowels at a prefix-root junction. 2. between a vowel and a voiced consonant	wesan ['wezan] ʒe-fōn [je'fo:n] hæfde ['hævde]
	[f, s, θ]	in other positions	sēon [seo:n]

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The Old English spelling was mainly phonetic, i.e. each letter as a rule denoted one sound in every environment.