Ænglisc Old English
Old English is the language of early medieval England—think Beowulf, homilies, charters, and riddles. It’s also a great on-ramp to historical linguistics and the evolution of modern English.
Link legend: links marked “(archived)” open an Internet Archive snapshot because the original site is down or unreliable.
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Dictionaries
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Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
- Notes: An excellent online dictionary with a wealth of information.
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- Notes: Easy to search, links to pages with definitions and other information.
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- Notes: Somewhat difficult to navigate, for obvious reasons.
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- Notes: From Google Books.
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- Notes: A backwards way to find things.
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- Notes: Look up words used in the exercises.
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Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
- Notes: Also on the Germanic lexicon site.
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Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary PDF
- Notes: From Google Books.
Grammars
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- Notes: Includes lessons and reference materials, plus texts.
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- Notes: A few selected explanations.
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- Notes: Same as the first grammar link above.
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Electronic Introduction to Old English
- Notes: A companion to a book. Very nice!
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- Notes: Different lessons and explanations.
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- Notes: A complete online course with texts.
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Old English Aerobics Interactive
- Notes: An excellent, interactive site to test your reading and grammar knowledge.
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Old English Aerobics Workbook PDF
- Notes: Many exercises to test your knowledge.
Charts & Aids
- Old English Magic Sheet
- Format: PDF
- Notes: A one-page summary of many grammatical concepts and conjugations.
Texts
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- Format: PDF
- Notes: A PDF download of about 22.2 MB.
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Anglo-Saxon Individual Gospels
- Notes: This link goes to Matthew.
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- Notes: Search by category and find primary texts written in the language.
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- Notes: Search this page for “old english” and “anglo-saxon” to see the offerings.
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Old English Aerobics Anthology
- Notes: Extremely useful—interactive readings and grammar helps to learn the language right.
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- Notes: Much better than that awful movie.
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- Notes: Divided by centuries.
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Complete Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Poetry
- Notes: Many different items.
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- Notes: On Judith, Esther, and Maccabees. Includes grammar helps and a glossary. See also the “teaching texts” in the upper left, which provide some more commentary.
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- Notes: The link to the texts is on the left, called “Homilies.” Be sure to view them as glossed (link is at the top after choosing a text) to get vocabulary help.
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- Notes: From the Germanic lexicon page.
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- Notes: From Google Books.
Other Resources
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List of English Manuscripts 1060-1220
- Notes: A long list with descriptions and other information.
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- Access: Registration
- Notes: A register of written sources used by Anglo-Saxon authors. Like all good sites, has a Latin name.
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Boethius in Early Medieval Europe
- Notes: Seems like an interesting project, but hard to find online what they’ve actually produced.
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- Notes: With images and text.
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- Notes: Free access to articles.
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Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
- Notes: A wonderful project which features a database of the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon England.
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- Notes: For all those interested in Anglo-Saxon culture.
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- Notes: For Anglo-Saxon Studies and Manuscript Research.
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- Notes: A reenactment society! Come on, you know this is what you were really looking for. Book them for your next party or bar mitzvah!
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- Notes: Don’t lie, you just can’t wait to suit up and swing a sword.
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- Notes: Listen to the language of our ancestors.
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