Orthographic changes over time
Old English was originally written in a Germanic writing system called runes, and used the Runic alphabet. The Roman alphabet never really suited the way English was written or how people spoke. The Latin alphabet was soon taken up in place for the Runic alphabet after the christians spread amongst the Anglo-Saxons. The pure Latin alphabet was not fully embraced , as the first monks made many changes and additions to the adopted alphabet, although some Runic letters still remained. Characters from the Old English alphabet would be totally unrecognisable to the English speakers of today. There was no standardisation of how to spell words during this era.
Middle English alphabet
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Old English alphabet
Middle English is the parent alphabet to what we know today as Modern English. Middle english very irregular and inconsistent, with the same word being spelled in different ways, sometimes even in the same sentence. All vowels were pronounced and know silents letters were omitted. The alphabet would defiantly be recognisable to Modern English speakers or today, with only a few Old English characters remaining. Spelling started to become standardised also.
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The Modern English alphabet is made up of 26 characters, which a derived directly from the Latin alphabet. There are many silent vowels/letters which are omitted in the current language. Spelling is extremely structured with no flexibility, although changes do occur depending on the dialect.
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Modern English alphabet
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