Long Consonants in Old English

Old English had long consonants. In English, however, they have been lost. Nevertheless, traces of the long consonant remain in the spelling.

Long consonants are retained in Swedish and Norwegian. Swedish has long consonants in the words äpple (apple), mellan (between) and sommar (summer). In Norwegian, long consonants appear in words such as  klokke (clock), mellom (between) and sommer (summer).

Old English had long consonants in words such as bettra (better), middel (middle) and sunne (sun). The long consonants occurred intervocalically between a stressed vowel and an unstressed one. At one time long consonants also occurred word finally, but the change in spelling indicates that word-final long consonants disappeared before intervocalic ones.

The word beddes (beds) had an intervocalic long consonant. The singular was once written bedd, but it later became bed. The change in spelling is evidence that long consonants later only appeared intervocalically.

English does not have long consonants. However, English spelling indicates that they were once part of the language. Germanic languages such as Norwegian and Swedish still retain them, not only intervocalically but also word-finally.