Old English Keyboard Guide (macOS)
It is not necessary to download any special keyboard to enter Old English (Anglo-Saxon) on macOS.
The following uses the ABC - Extended Input Source which includes the extra characters here and can still be used as your everyday keyboard for English. It’s also usable for Old Norse.
Note that wynn ƿ and yogh ȝ are not included, nor is the Tironian et ⁊.
In the table below, ⌥ is the option key, so ⌥-a means hold down the option key and press a.
Note that the dead key and hold-to-select-alt methods produce single, precomposed characters whereas the combining character method produces two separate characters: the base plus a combining diacritic. This should be indistinguishable in display but may behave differently in text editors or when processing.
single characters | dead key method | combining character method | hold-to-select-alt method | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ā | ⌥-a a | a ⌥-shift-a | hold a press 8 | |
ē | ⌥-a e | e ⌥-shift-a | hold e press 2 | |
ī | ⌥-a i | i ⌥-shift-a | hold i press 3 | |
ō | ⌥-a o | o ⌥-shift-a | hold o press 4 | |
ū | ⌥-a u | u ⌥-shift-a | hold u press 4 | |
ȳ | ⌥-a y | y ⌥-shift-a | ||
æ | ⌥-' | hold a press 5 | ||
ǣ | ⌥-a ⌥-' | ⌥-' ⌥-shift-a | ||
þ | ⌥-t | |||
ð | ⌥-d | |||
ċ | ⌥-w c | c ⌥-shift-w | ||
ġ | ⌥-w h | g ⌥-shift-w |