Introduction to Old English

Richard Hogg was formerly Smith Professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Manchester. Rhona Alcorn is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and CEO of Scots Language Dictionaries Ltd. She is also Deputy Director of the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics. She was the first receipient of the Richard M. Hogg Prize, awarded annually by the International Society for the Linguistics of English since 2008.

The new edition represents some of Richard Hogg’s last work, and usefully updates earlier editions by incorporating recent research on OE dialect variation, and the historical and social context in which OE functioned. It remains a comprehensive introduction to OE, suitable for undergraduate students who have mastered basic phonological, morphological, and syntactic concepts. It is more comprehensive than traditional grammars of OE, covering issues of variation in OE (chapter 9), and OE’s relationship to later periods of English (chapter 10), as well as providing an accessible and logically structured outline of the grammar of the language. It is also far more accessible than traditional OE grammars. The text has a very student-friendly, direct, and explanatory style throughout, and successfully avoids being either too erudite or too patronizing. Instead, it makes OE interesting by setting it in its historical and linguistic context, and includes well-designed exercises, which can be used both for independent as well as class-directed study.