Introduction

This is episode 35, English Sounds and Roman Letters. Last time we looked at how the sounds of early English began to change shortly after the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain. These changes coincided with the first attempts to write down the language with the Roman alphabet. In this episode, we'll look at how those first scribes adapted the alphabet to the English language. We'll also see the ultimate origin of some of the strange spellings we have in modern English.