Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

parasite vowels

I was looking for information on parasite vowels in Old English when I stumbled across this lovely online introduction to the language of the Angles, Saxons, and the Jutes. It's a part of the Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies and Manuscript Research. Oh, and by the way:

Sometimes what is rather unattractively called a “parasite vowel” gets inserted before ġ or w, and we then end up with forms like heriġas [instead of herġas ‘armies’] and beaduwa [beadwa ‘battles’].

[Section 6.2.3]