English terms with diacritical marks
The Old English Latin alphabet began to replace the Runic alphabet in the 9th century, due to the influence of Celtic Christian missionaries to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The orthography of Old English – which was entirely handwritten in its own time – was not well standardized, though it did not use all the Latin letters, and included several letters not present in the modern alphabet. When reprinted (on a printing press or computer) in modern times, an overdot is occasionally used with two Latin letters to differentiate sounds for the reader:
History of English
Old English was first written using a runic script called the futhorc, but this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish missionaries in the 9th century. Most literary output was in either the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great's time, or the Late West Saxon (regarded as the "classical" form of Old English) of the Winchester school inspired by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester and followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham ("the Grammarian"). The most famous surviving work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", composed by an unknown poet.