Reading it vs hearing is deceiving. The orthography shifted markedly after the Norman invasion when French speaking elites imposed a continental Romance / Frenc

Reading it vs hearing is deceiving. The orthography shifted markedly after the Norman invasion when French speaking elites imposed a continental Romance / French language spelling system over top of the ordinary people's Germanic language. In actual spoken language there was likely far more continuity, we just don't have good records of it because the ruling elite was disdainful of English and used French at the court. So someone who is a modern German or Dutch speaker will have an easier time reading Anglo-Saxon than an English speaker, perhaps. But that's a bit deceiving. Many of the sounds written there had a very different spoken sound than their modern German or Dutch counterparts, and are actually closer to their modern English variants. (ge in particular pronounced "ye" not hard-g, so words like yesterday were spelled with "gest" similar to modern German, but not spoken that way at all). Simon Roper on YouTube does a better job of this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842OX2_vCic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842OX2_vCic