Robert E. Diamond

The author presents Old English as a language to be learned as easily as possible - reducing the phonological obstacles (leaving in some of the umlauts), using uniform orthography, and simplified grammar.

Exemplary prose and poetry includes: The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, The Story of King Cynewulf, The Wars of King Alfred against the Vikings, Alfred's Preface to the Pastoral Care, descriptions of battle, The Dream of the Rood, The Seafarer, The Wife's Lament, and Maxims (from the Exeter Gnomes), and The Panther.

Old English has grammatical gender for all nouns, without reference to the nature of the thing referred to -- "woman" is the neuter noun WIF.

All nouns, pronouns, and adjectives have one of four grammatical Cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative. The ambiguity of Modern English is impossible -- as in "The king called the man a servant." [16]

The Verbs have only two Tenses: Past and Present. to express futurity, the present is forced (called a "preterite").… (meer)