Go to the simple version, suitable for primary schools
from 1 to 10 in Modern English |
 |
from 1 to 10 in Old English |
| Click on the buttons below to hear how we pronounce each number today.  |
Click on the buttons below to hear how each number was spoken
by our Old English ancestors: the Angles and the Saxons. |
|
| 1.
|
used
to be pronounced
  back in time
back in time
back in time
back in time
|
 Frau Take, born in 1918 in Scharrel, Cloppenburg, Lower Saxony. |
| 2.
|
Anonymous speaker of West Frisian, from the area of the Netherlands bordering on Lower Saxony. |
|
| 3.
|
Bob, from Fittie, Aberdeenshire, saying "three" in Doric Scots. |
|
| 4.
|
Frau Take, born in 1918 in Scharrel, Cloppenburg, Lower Saxony. |
|
| 5.
|
Man born in 1888, in Hankensbüttel, Gifhorn, Lower Saxony. Man born in 1896, in Melle, Osnabrück Landkreis, Lower Saxony. |
|
| 6.
|
Man born in 1897, in Dill Kreis, Hesse. |
|
| 7.
|
Woman born in 1893 in Danziger Niederung, East Prussia (now in Poland). |
|
| 8.
|
Frau Drost, born in 1921 in Borkum, in the East Frisian Islands, Lower Saxony. |
|
| 9.
|
Woman born in 1878 in Immensen, Burgdorf, near Hannover, Lower Saxony. |
|
| 10.
|
Man born in 1888 in Hankensbüttel, Lower Saxony. Woman born in 1893 in Danziger Niederung, East Prussia. |
  |
| Phonetics
Laboratory |
@sounds_ancient
Sources: Modern English recordings — University of Oxford Phonetics Laboratory collection; recordings from Germany — Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim; recordings of Frisian twā and Icelandic þrjú — Paul Heggarty (www.languagesandpeoples.com); Doric Scots recordings — BBC Voices, via the Scots corpus; animated "time machine" picture — BC Archives; gramophone picture — YouTube user grafhohenegg (https://www.youtube.com/user/grafhohenegg); steampunk time machine thanks to Dmitriy Khristenko (http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/dmitriy-khristenko.html); audio buttons — adapted from script by John Pybus.