As part of the resource library for the project, I am making a series of downloadable files, in pdf format, available on a fair use basis. The first of these that is ready is the glossary. This was created by Nils-Lennart Johannesson using a concordance programme which extracted every word from the text and gave the number of every line in which that word was found. This makes the glossary completely comprehensive and it includes all spelling variations. It is usually not possible to say what the exact origin of Orrm's vocabulary is. This is because the variety of Old English from the part of England in which he lived is quite sparsely recorded. The best-attested variety is from the south-west of England, over a hundred miles away. We do, however, have some records and we understand the sound changes which took place in the various dialects of Old English. However, Orrm's language is not just descended from Old English. Much of his vocabulary comes from Anglo-Norman, which was a dialect of French, and from Latin, which was the language of the liturgy. As Orrm is a monk and is writing about religion, these words turn up a lot. However, a great deal of the uniqueness of Orrm's writing comes from the fact that his basic language is a mix of Old English and a North Germanic variety which is sometimes called "Old Norse." Usually when we talk about Old Norse, we are discussing the best-attested variety, Old Icelandic, which mostly started to be written in earnest 300 years after the Danelaw was settled, a little later than Orrm. However, Old Icelandic was not spoken the Danelaw. That language, a dialect of Old East Norse related to Danish, has disappeared, leaving no written trace. Therefore, when words are cited in the glossary, they are only intended for comparison. It is not in practice possible to specify exactly which word is the ancester of one used by Orrm. The nearest languages are Old Danish and Old Swedish, but these do not start being written much before 1400, 200 years after Orrm, and 600 years after the first Danish settlers began speaking in England. Similarly, the dialects of Old English went through a dramatic change after the Norman Conquest, so it is not always possible to show direct descent from one OE word to one of Orrm's words. This is further complicated by the fact that there was so much traffic across the north sea that Middle High German, Middle Low German, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch also had an effect on Orrm's vocabulary. It is a rich area of study, and I hope that the glossary and the information it contains is of use to scholars working with material from this time and place, as well as readers of the Ormulum.

As the original files are very substantial, I have split the glossary into sections alphabetically. While Orrm's carolingian barred G, which represents a velar stop, has its own section, the other two G's, the yogh, representing a palatal glide, and the unbarred carolingian G, are combined. This is due to the fact that only one word gyn, starts with the unbarred G. Similarly, as the section for Q is very small, I have attached it to the section for P, and I have placed Y and Z together for the same reason. At some point, as the project develops, I hope to have accessible versions present in the web browser for ease of use. In addition to this, I have added a quick reference pamphlet describing the orthography and phonology, editorial punctuation and abbreviations used in the glossary and edition text.

                                                                                           -Andrew