a long, or aa; (aa): (1) at the end of an open syllable, as age (aa·jə); (2) before s or ce, as caas or cas (kaas); face (faa·sə).
ai, ay (ei). Ex. array (arei·); fair (feir). As in modern English[[22]]. Note that modern English does not distinguish pray from
prey in pronunciation; and spells way, from A.S. weg, with ay instead of ey.
au, aw (au). Ex. avaunt (avau·nt), riming with mod. E. count; awe (au·ə).
c, as (k), except before e and i: as (s), before e and i. As in modern English. Hence, we find some scribes writing selle for celle (sel·lə), mod. E. cell; and conversely, the 'Ellesmere' scribe writes celle for selle in A 3822, causing a great difficulty; see the note to the line.
ch (ch); cch (tch). Ex. chambre (chaam·brə); cacche (cat·chə).
e short; (e). Ex. fetheres (fedh·rez); the middle e being dropped. It is often convenient to use the symbol '[e.]' to denote an e that is lost in pronunciation. Thus we might print 'feth[e.]res' to shew the loss of the middle e in this word.
e final, unaccented: (ə). This final e marks a variety of grammatical inflections, and is frequently either elided or very slightly sounded, and sometimes wholly suppressed in some common words. Ex. swete (swee·tə), sweet. The word wolde, would, is often a mere monosyllable: (wuld).
e long and open, or ee; (ae) or (èè). Ex. heeth (haeth), or (hèèth). This open e came to be denoted by ea, and the symbol, though not the sound, is commonly preserved in mod. English; as in heath (hiith). Note that this long e, at the end of an open syllable, is usually written with a single letter, as in clene (klae·nə), or (klèè·nə), clean. But cleene also occurs in the MSS.
e long and close, or ee; (ee) or (éé). Ex. weep (weep), or (wéép). Note that this long e, at the end of an open syllable, is usually written with a single letter, as in swete (swee·tə), sweet. But sweete is also found in MSS.