Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book: With Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary

This book is a gateway to the origins of English. It is a time machine to the language of Beowulf, of King Alfred, of the Anglo-Saxon world that gave birth to everything we speak and write today. Smith builds methodically from sounds to inflections to syntax, each chapter layering understanding onto the last. The reading selections from Early West Saxon literature are the true prize: actual Old English texts that let you encounter the language in its raw, untranslated form. The exercises reinforce what you've learned, and the glossary serves as your key to texts that have waited over a millennium to be read again. Originally published in the late 19th century for newcomers to Anglo-Saxon study, it remains a patient and thorough guide for anyone willing to do the work of listening to English before it was English. This is not passive reading. It is the closest thing to apprenticing yourself to the medieval scribes who first wrote the words that would become our words.