part 2 question 15

15) What writing system(s) was (were) used in the Old English period (Chloe,Simon)

Old english first used a rune system named futhorc eventually however it shifted to a latin alphabet when
it was introduced by irish christian missionaries.

Futhorc is a runic alphabet used ealy in the old english history. it was used for recording old english and old
Frisian

The old english latin alphabet is generally believed to have 24 characthers
and was in use for writing Old English from the 9th to the 12th centuries.
it used both parts of latin and runic alphabet.

reference
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm

15) What writing system(s) was (were) used in the Old English period?
The writing system for the earliest English was based on the use of signs called runes, which were devised for carving in wood or stone.
Written English as we know had to wait for the establishment of the Church and the building of monasteries, at which time the monks wrote manuscripts in Latin, the language of the Church. This did not happen until the seventh century.
Original Old English are hard to decipher at first because some of the letters look different from the shapes familiar to us. In printing and writing Old English today, present-day shapes of Roman letter are used, with three additional non-Roman letters which were devised for Writing OE. These were necessary because some sounds in OE did not have an equivalent in Latin, and so no Roman letter was available.
The English language had its start about 449 when Germanic tribes came to
England and settled down there. They pushed some of the native inhabitants
westwards; however, initially they co-existed with them and adopted some customs
and possibly linguistic features. There were Latin influences on English by
missionaries from Rome as well as French influences after the Norman invasion in
1066 during this period. Some works in Old English are shown in the following:

Beowulf. Mixed dialect Northumbrian / West Saxon; manuscript from c. 1000 but
based on earlier version.
Lindisfarne Gospels. Northumbrian interlinear gloss; c.950.
Rushworth Glosses. Interlinear gloss; c. 970. Matthew is Mercian; Mark, Luke
and John are Northumbrian.
The Junius Manuscripts. Written between the 7th and 10th centuries (some argue
partly by the Caedmon poet); compiled towards the late 10th; contains Genesis,
Exodus, Christ and Satan.

The Exeter Book. Early poetry; contains Riddles, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wanderer,
and the Seafarer.
Gregory’s Pastoral Care. Early West Saxon, late 9th century, ascribed to King
Alfred. 5
Boethius and Orosius. Early West-Saxon, ascribed to Kind Alfred.
Homilies, by Aelfric. West Saxon, circa 1000.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Many versions, one composed in Peterborough that
continues to 1154.
The manuscripts are copied and illustrated by the scribes who worked mainly in
monasteries, and they are often exquisite work of art. Usually the originals were
written on vellum, expensive thin leather, and thus books were owned by a monastery,
a church, or a rich person and were typically versions of the Bible, prayer books,
school books, manuals of various kinds, and music. Take Lindisfarne Gospels for
example, it is written in Latin, using the Vulgate version made by St Jerome, who died
in about 420. Lindisfarne Gospels contain the oldest surviving translation of the
Gospels into the English language. In around 950-960 Aldred, a member of the
Community of St Cuthbert, added his Old English translation between the lines of
Latin.
The old English ended with the Norman invasion and was remplaced by middle English in 1066

Cheng, Li-Ting. The evolution of English writing system. University of Newcastle. http://research.ncl.ac.uk/ARECLS/vol4_documents/cheng.pdf
Freeborn, Dennis. From Old English to Standard English. University of Ottawa Press. 1992. Print