When the Germanic invaders succeeded the Roman legions in fifth century Britain, they brought with them а runic alphabet. The alphabet was called the futharc after the first six letters. The letters

When the Germanic invaders succeeded the Roman legions in fifth century Britain, they brought with them а runic alphabet. The alphabet was called the futharc after the first six letters. The letters were very angular, presumably because they most often had to be cut into stone or wood.

When the Christian missionaries from the Continent converted Britain in the seventh century, they naturally enough brought with them their Latin script, which quickly replaced the pagan futharc.

The Anglo-Saxons adopted two symbols from the runic futharc: thorn which represented either [] or []. They also borrowed wynn, < >, which at first represented the sound now symbolized by (w). They also adapted a Latin letter, <d>, with a line through it, < >, and called it eth. It also came to represent the two interdental sounds, < > and < >.

Other major differences in the inventory of OE letters from ModE included the presence of the Latin ligature (two letters written as one) called asch: < >, representing / / as in cat. Also present was an Irish form, yogh: <3>, first used to represent a high front sound close to the /y/ in yes, later some other sounds, all usually represented in modern OE texts with (g). Entirely absent from the OE alphabet were the letters for <q>, <z>, <x>, and <w>. <k> was infrequent. Originally, the English used (uu), "double u" to represent the /w/ sound, but later replaced it with wynn. But the double-u convention was adopted on the Continent, the letters turned into a ligature, and rein traduced into England by Norman scribes. <qu> was also introduced later by Norman scribes to transliterate OE <cw>. <x> occurred in OE, but only in foreign words.

The Norman scribes were also responsible for introducing (or reintroducing) various digraphs: <th> for [ ]and [ ], <sh> for [ ]; <ch> for [ ], <ph> for the /f/ sounds in Greek words and the <gh> for <h> in words like riht-rigkt, cniht-hngfa, and so on. They also reversed the <hw> to <wh> in words like hwil-white. By the end of the Middle English period, under the influence of continental scribal practice, the symbols < эт>, <эш>, <торн>, and <вюн> had disappeared and a new set of spelling conventions had replaced them, <z>, <q>, and (w) had also been introduced.

Not until the 16th century, however, did the spelling system come to what we know now.

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