Old English pronunciation

We cannot know precisely how Old English sounded (especially since it embraces several dialects and ranges across six centuries from the fifth to the eleventh), but it’s certain that pronunciation, especially of the vowels, differed considerably from Modern English, so we offer an approximate, simplified guide here. We give equivalents from Standard English except where stated, and these are indebted to Kenneth Cameron, A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place-Names (1998).
The short line above a vowel (macron) indicates a long vowel.

Vowels

a (e.g. land ‘land’) as in German Mann
ā (e.g. āc ‘oak’) as in father
æ (e.g. æsc ‘ash’) as in hat
ǣ (e.g. wǣd ‘ford’) as in airy
e (e.g. feld ‘field’) as in set
ē (e.g. grēne ‘green’) as in German See
i (e.g. hlinc ‘bank’) as in sit
ī (e.g. hwīt ‘white’) as in see
o (e.g. cot ‘cottage’) as in hot
ō (e.g. hōh ‘heel, projecting land’) as in French beau
u (e.g. wudu ‘wood’) as in full
ū (e.g. tūn ‘farmstead’) as in fool
y (e.g. hyrst ‘wooded hill’) as in French tu
ȳ (e.g. hȳð ‘port, landing place’) as in French pur

Diphthongs

Old English diphthongs such as those in beorg ‘hill’ or lēah ‘woodland clearing’ were pronounced as single glides, but each of the vowels from which they were formed was heard, with the same or similar pronunciation to that of the vowel standing alone.

Consonants

All the Old English consonants were pronounced, so that ng = n + g, hl = h + l (similar to Welsh ll), hn = h + n, wr = w + r.

They were pronounced like their modern equivalents in Standard English with the following (simplified) exceptions:

c before e and i, and after i, as in child; elsewhere as in cold
cg as in judge
g before e and i and after æ, e and i, as in yet; elsewhere as in go, unless between back vowels (that is, a, o, u, as in for example e.g. haga ‘enclosure’), where g has a distinctive sound which developed into w.
h initially as in hat; elsewhere as in Scots loch
sc as in shall
f usually as in fill; between vowels as in oven
s usually as in sink; between vowels as in zinc
th between vowels as in father; elsewhere as in thin. Note that th does not often occur in Old English manuscripts, where þ (called thorn) and ð (called eth) are the norm. They are used indiscriminately to represent the two sounds in father and thin.