# Old English pronunciation: treow



## aiyu

Hi! 
The old English word for tree is said to be _treow. 
_I'd like to know how natives speakers pronounce this 'treow'. 

Thanks for your help!


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## Egmont

There have been no native speakers of Old English for over a thousand years. 

That said, according to my old undergraduate textbook (_The Elements of Old English_ by S. Moore and T. Knott, 10th ed. revised by J. Hulbert, Wahr Publishing, 1960*) this word has a long "e," usually written today with a line over it. The diphthong "eo" with the long "e" (sorry, I don't think there's an easy way to make one with a standard 2011 computer) is pronounced as "a in _fate_ plus o in _poetic_" (page 13). They also say (pages 17-18) that the "r" is trilled, the "t" and "w" "were pronounced approximately as in Modern English." (I'm not sure how they know this, since recordings from the 8th century are a bit hard to come by, but I suppose they do.)

So:
t: as it is today
r: trilled
e: as "a" in _fate_
o: as "o" in _poetic_
w: silent, as it would be today

One has few opportunities to say this in regular conversation, of course. 

Might I ask what prompted this question?

______________________
*Granted, this was a while ago, but I don't think much has changed since in our understanding of this topic.


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## lucas-sp

Um... native speakers of English, in general, simply don't pronounce Old English. It's not our language, you see.

That being said, and reaching back to my undergraduate education, I think the OE "treow" would be pronounced pretty much like the words "tray-owe," but with some sliding in the middle between the two vowels.


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## aiyu

Thanks a lot Egmont and lucas-sp! It really helped


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## Au101

Egmont said:


> There have been no native speakers of Old English for over a thousand years.
> The long "e" (sorry, I don't think there's an easy way to make one with a standard 2011 computer)



Do you mean ē ?


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## Outsider

Another way to say it is that the digraph "ow" would be pronounced just like in modern English, and the letter "e" like a long "e" in Japanese.


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## Istriano

OED does not bring old pronunciation forms, only the etymology:
Tree


> *Forms:* *1.* _sing. nom._   OE *triow*,   OE *tryw* ,   OE–ME *treow*,   OE–ME *treu*,   OE ME *trew*...
> 
> *Etymology:*              Old English _tréow_, _tríow_, Old English, Middle English _tréo_, etc. = Old Frisian _trê_ (North Frisian _trê_, _træ̂_), Old Saxon _trio_, _treo_, _trew-_ (Middle Dutch in comb. _-tere_, _-tære_, Kilian); Old Norse _tré_ (Danish _træ_, Swedish _trä_ timber, _träd_ tree); Gothic _triu_, genitive _triw-is_ wood (wanting in Old High German and now also obsolete in Low German and Dutch)  <  Old Germanic _*trewo-_, cognate with Sanskrit _dru_ tree, wood, _ˈdāru_ wood, log, and with Greek _δρῦς_ oak, _δόρυ_ spear;


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## bibax

> ... cognate with Sanskrit _dru_ tree, wood, ....


... and with Protoslavic _dervo_, OCS _drěvo_, Czech _dřevo_, Russian _derevo_, etc.


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