158-1475: Nutt is an English surname. List of people surnamed Nutt [ edit ] Alfred Nutt (1856–1910), British publisher Alfred Young Nutt (1847–1924), English architect and artist Commodore Nutt (1844–1881), American dwarf who worked for P. T. Barnum Danny Nutt , American football coach David Nutt , British scientist David Nutt (disambiguation) ; multiple people Dennis Nutt , American basketball player Dickey Nutt , American basketball coach Edwin C. Nutt (1868–1933), American farmer and politician Eliza Hall Nutt , American philanthropist and schoolteacher Emma Nutt , first female telephone switchboard operator Gordon Nutt (1932–2014), English footballer Grady Nutt , American writer Houston Nutt , American football coach Jim Nutt , American artist John Nutt , English pirate John Nutt (disambiguation) ; multiple people Levi G. Nutt (1866–1938), American Treasury Department agent Mart Nutt (1962–2019), Estonian politician and historian Roy Nutt , American businessman Samantha Nutt , Canadian co-founder of War Child Canada William Nutt (1836–1909), American Civil War colonel See also [ edit ] Nut (disambiguation) Nutt. taxonomic author abbreviation of Thomas Nuttall (1786–1859), English botanist Nutt, New Mexico [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with
316-553: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that
474-644: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become
632-535: A conquest remains very influential. In contrast, Gildas did not explain what happened to the Saxons after the initial wars. (Gildas, in discussing the spiritual life of Britain does however mention that because of the partition ( divortium ) of the country caused by barbarians, citizens ( cives ) were prevented from worshipping at the shrines of the martyrs in St Albans and Caerleon . ) He reported instead that Britain
790-417: A continuation in sub-Roman Britain, with control over its own political and military destiny for well over a century, is that of Kenneth Dark, who suggests that the sub-Roman elite survived in culture, politics and military power up to c. 570 . Bede, however, identifies three phases of settlement: an exploration phase, when mercenaries came to protect the resident population; a migration phase, which
948-753: A defence against an invasion of Picts and Saxons in 429. By about 430 the archaeological record in Britain begins to indicate a relatively rapid melt-down of Roman material culture, and its replacement by Anglo-Saxon material culture. At some time between 445 and 454 Gildas , writing some generations later, reported that the Britons also wrote to the Roman military leader Aëtius in Gaul, begging for assistance, with no success. In desperation, an un-named "proud tyrant" subsequently invited Saxons to Britain to help defend it from
1106-658: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative
1264-490: A diversity associated with language. Beyond these, in the early Anglo-Saxon period, identity was local: although people would have known their neighbours, it may have been important to indicate tribal loyalty with details of clothing and especially fasteners. It is sometimes hard in thinking about the period to avoid importing anachronistic 19th-century ideas of nationalism: in fact it is unlikely that people would have thought of themselves as Anglo-Saxon – instead they were part of
1422-490: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English
1580-496: A framework assuming that many Brittonic-speakers shifted to English, for example over whether at least some Germanic-speaking peasant-class immigrants must have been involved to bring about the language-shift ; what legal or social structures (such as enslavement or apartheid -like customs) might have promoted the high status of English; and precisely how slowly Brittonic (and British Latin) disappeared in different regions. An idiosyncratic view that has won extensive popular attention
1738-410: A glimpse into the relationship between people, land, and the tribes and groups into which they had organised themselves. The individual units in the list developed from the settlement areas of tribal groups, some of which are as little as 300 hides. The names are difficult to locate: places such as East wixna and Sweord ora . What it reveals is that micro-identity of tribe and family is important from
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#17327810888641896-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in
2054-433: A native British chieftain and his war band adopting Anglo-Saxon culture and language. The incidence of British Celtic personal names in the royal genealogies of a number of "Anglo-Saxon" dynasties is very suggestive of the latter process. The Wessex royal line was traditionally founded by a man named Cerdic , an undoubtedly Celtic name identical to Ceretic , the name given to two British kings, and ultimately derived from
2212-468: A new "Anglo-Saxon" culture (one with parallels in northern Germany) had indeed become prominent in Britain by the 430s, well before the 450s as reported by Bede. Historians such as Halsall have also pointed out that a Germanic population may have already been present under Roman rule for many years before 430 without this being obvious in the archaeological record, because of the prestige which Roman material culture still had. In Bede's semi-mythical account
2370-533: A number of hides to each one. A hide was an amount of land sufficient to support a household. The list of tribes is headed by Mercia and consists almost exclusively of peoples who lived south of the Humber estuary and territories that surrounded the Mercian kingdom, some of which have never been satisfactorily identified by scholars. The document is problematic, but extremely important for historians, as it provides
2528-517: A number of features of the Regnal List and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the fifth and sixth centuries clearly contradict the idea that they constitute a reliable record. Some of the information there may contain a kernel of truth if the obvious fictions are rejected (such as the claim that Portsmouth took its name from an invader, Port, who arrived in 501), such as the sequence of the events associated with Ælle of Sussex (albeit not necessarily
2686-695: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,
2844-684: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop
3002-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English
3160-758: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide
3318-414: A significant number of items now in phases before this historically set date. Archaeological evidence for the emergence of both a native British identity and the appearance of a Germanic culture in Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries must consider first the period at the end of Roman rule. The collapse of Roman material culture some time in the early 5th century left a gap in the archaeological record that
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#17327810888643476-659: A source with the Anglian list). The Regnal List was in turn a source for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , the relevant sections of which were edited into their surviving form in the later ninth century. The Chronicle also includes various more detailed entries for the fifth and sixth centuries that ostensibly constitute historical evidence for a migration, Anglo-Saxon elites, and various significant historical events. However, Barbara Yorke , Patrick Sims-Williams , and David Dumville , among others, have demonstrated how
3634-452: A tribe or region, descendants of a patron or followers of a leader. It is this identity that archaeological evidence seeks to understand and determine, considering how it might support separate identity groups, or identities that were inter-connected. Part of a well-furnished pagan-period mixed, inhumation-cremation, cemetery at Alwalton near Peterborough was excavated in 1999. Twenty-eight urned and two unurned cremations dating from between
3792-554: A type issued to late Roman forces, which have been found both in late Roman contexts, such as the Roman cemeteries of Winchester and Colchester , and in purely 'Anglo-Saxon' rural cemeteries like Mucking (Essex), though this was at a settlement used by the Romano-British. The distribution of the earliest Anglo-Saxon sites and place names in close proximity to Roman settlements and roads has been interpreted as showing that initial Anglo-Saxon settlements were being controlled by
3950-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in
4108-563: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than
4266-481: Is Stephen Oppenheimer 's suggestion that the lack of Celtic influence on English is because the ancestor of English was already widely spoken in Britain by the Belgae before the end of the Roman period. However, Oppenheimer's ideas have not been found helpful in explaining the known facts: there is no evidence for a well established Germanic language in Britain before the fifth century, and Oppenheimer's idea contradicts
4424-570: Is a list of 35 tribes that was compiled in Anglo-Saxon England some time between the seventh and ninth centuries. The inclusion of the ' Elmet -dwellers' suggests to Simon Keynes that the Tribal Hideage was compiled in the early 670s, during the reign of King Wulfhere , since Elmet seems to have reverted thereafter to Northumbrian control. It includes a number of independent kingdoms and other smaller territories and assigns
4582-466: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English
4740-610: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in
4898-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on
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5056-538: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c. 450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as
5214-461: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles English language English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is
5372-590: Is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become
5530-536: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by
5688-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in
5846-475: Is seen as Britain's first true historian, in that he cited his references and listed events according to dates rather than regnal lists. Because of this we know that he relied heavily on Gildas for early events. It has been suggested that Bede based his dating of the arrival of Horsa and Hengist upon the report in Gildas that the invitation to the foederati happened after the Britons first implored Aëtius when he
6004-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English
6162-599: Is strikingly different from, for example, post-Roman Gaul, Iberia, or North Africa, where Germanic-speaking invaders gradually switched to local languages. Old English shows little obvious influence from Celtic or spoken Latin: there are for example vanishingly few English words of Brittonic origin . Moreover, except in Cornwall , the vast majority of place-names in England are easily etymologised as Old English (or Old Norse , due to later Viking influence), demonstrating
6320-491: Is that political dominance by a fairly small number of Old English-speakers could have driven large numbers of Britons to adopt Old English while leaving little detectable trace of this language-shift. The collapse of Britain's Roman economy and administrative structures seems to have left Britons living in a technologically similar society to their Anglo-Saxon neighbours, making it unlikely that Anglo-Saxons would need to borrow words for unfamiliar concepts. If Old English became
6478-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from
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6636-550: Is too easy to consider Anglo-Saxon archaeology solely as a study of ethnology and to fail to consider that identity is "less related to an overall Anglo-Saxon ethnicity and more to membership of family or tribe, Christian or pagan, elite or peasant". "Anglo-Saxons" or "Britons" were no more homogeneous than nationalities are today, and they would have exhibited diverse characteristics: male/female, old/young, rich/poor, farmer/warrior—or even Gildas ' patria (fellow citizens), cives (indigenous people) and hostes (enemies)—as well as
6794-583: The Chronica Gallica of 452 , a chronicle written in Gaul , Britain was ravaged by Saxon invaders in 409 or 410. This was only a few years after Constantine "III" was declared Roman emperor in Britain, and during the period that he was still leading British Roman forces in rebellion on the continent. Although the rebellion was eventually quashed, the Romano-British citizens reportedly expelled their Roman officials during this period, and never again re-joined
6952-978: The Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into
7110-600: The Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are the source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under
7268-485: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English
7426-461: The Brittonic *Caraticos. This may indicate that Cerdic was a native Briton, and that his dynasty became anglicised over time. A number of Cerdic's alleged descendants also possessed Celtic names, including the ' Bretwalda ' Ceawlin . The last occurrence of a British name in this dynasty was that of King Caedwalla , who died as late as 689. The British name Caedbaed is found in the pedigree of
7584-546: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today
7742-628: The Danes , the " Huns " ( Pannonian Avars in this period, whose influence stretched north to Slavic-speaking areas in central Europe), the "old Saxons" ( antiqui Saxones ), and the " Boructuari " who are presumed to be inhabitants of the old lands of the Bructeri , near the Lippe river. The vision of the Anglo-Saxons exercising extensive political and military power which excluded Britons at such an early date remains contested. The most developed vision of
7900-552: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of
8058-545: The Picts and Scots . After a long war, he reported that the Romano-British recovered control. Peace was restored, but Britain was now ruled by tyrants. It had internal conflicts instead of conflicts with foreigners, but because of foreigners it was still difficult for Britons to travel to some parts of England and Wales. He gives no other information about Saxons or other Germanic people before or after this specific conflict. No other local written records survive until much later. By
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#17327810888648216-604: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as
8374-468: The most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English
8532-518: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in
8690-565: The phonology , morphology , and syntax of Old English (as well as on whether British Latin-speakers influenced the Brittonic languages, perhaps as they fled westwards from Anglo-Saxon domination into highland areas of Britain). These arguments have not yet, however, become consensus views. Thus a 2012 synthesis concludes that 'the evidence for Celtic influence on Old English is somewhat sparse, which only means that it remains elusive, not that it did not exist'. Debate continues within
8848-438: The surname Nutt . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nutt&oldid=1256358876 " Categories : Surnames English-language surnames Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description
9006-695: The "War of the Saxon Federates". It ended after the siege at 'Mons Badonicus' . (The price of peace, Higham argues, was a better treaty for the Saxons, giving them the ability to receive tribute from people across the lowlands of Britain. ) Gildas did not report the year of this invitation. Possibly referring to some phase in these same events, the Chronica Gallica of 452 records for the year 441: "The British provinces, which to this time had suffered various defeats and misfortunes, are reduced to Saxon rule." However, Bede, writing centuries later, reasoned that these soldiers arrived only in 449, and he named
9164-564: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to
9322-492: The "proud tyrant" as Vortigern . Bede's understanding of these events has been questioned. For example, he reports St Germanus coming to Britain after this conflict began, although he would have been dead by then. The Historia Brittonum , written in the 9th century, gives two different years, but was apparently based on the idea that it happened in 428, possibly based on the real date of the visit of Germanus in 429. In fact, both textual and archaeological evidence indicates that
9480-450: The 5th and 6th centuries, and 34 inhumations, dating from between the late 5th and early 7th centuries, were uncovered. Both cremations and inhumations were provided with pyre or grave goods, and some of the burials were richly furnished. The excavation found evidence for a mixture of practices and symbolic clothing; these reflected local differences that appeared to be associated with tribal or family loyalty. This use of clothing in particular
9638-617: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with
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#17327810888649796-553: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through
9954-524: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English
10112-547: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent
10270-600: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of
10428-557: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in
10586-706: The Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into
10744-538: The Picts and Scots. Gildas recounts how these Saxons, initially stationed in the east, claimed that the British were not providing sufficient monthly supplies, and eventually overran the whole country. "After a certain length of time the cruel robbers returned to their home." ( Tempore igitur interveniente aliquanto, cum recessissent domum crudelissimi praedones .) The British then united successfully under Ambrosius Aurelianus , and struck back. Historian Nick Higham calls this
10902-502: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after
11060-555: The Roman empire. Writing in the mid-sixth century, Procopius states that after the overthrow of Constantine "III" in 411, "the Romans never succeeded in recovering Britain, but it remained from that time under tyrants". The Romano-Britons nevertheless called upon the empire to help them fend off attacks from not only the Saxons , but also the Picts and Scoti . A hagiography of Saint Germanus of Auxerre claims that he helped command
11218-402: The Romano-British past, despite profound changes in material culture. A major genetic study in 2022 which used DNA samples from different periods and regions demonstrated that there was significant immigration from the area in or near what is now northwestern Germany, and also that these immigrants intermarried with local Britons. These studies indicate that in both the early medieval period and
11376-435: The Romano-British. Catherine Hills suggests it is not necessary to see all the early settlers as federate troops, and that this interpretation has been used rather too readily by some archaeologists. A variety of relationships could have existed between Romano-British and incoming Anglo-Saxons. The broader archaeological picture suggests that no one model will explain all the Anglo-Saxon settlements in Britain and that there
11534-547: The Saxons as invited soldiers in the past and says nothing of migrations, or of any ongoing conflict or even Saxon presence in his time. Instead, for their understanding of Anglo-Saxon settlement historians have often relied upon Bede the English monk, a much later author and scholar (672/673–735), who in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People , tried to compute dates for events in early Anglo-Saxon history. Although primarily writing about church history, Bede
11692-494: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In
11850-442: The adoption of the language—as well as the material culture and traditions—of an Anglo-Saxon elite, "by large numbers of the local people seeking to improve their status within the social structure, and undertaking for this purpose rigorous acculturation", is the key to understanding the transition from Romano-British to Anglo-Saxon. The progressive nature of this language acquisition, and the 'retrospective reworking' of kinship ties to
12008-415: The ancestors, and John Shephard has extended this interpretation to Anglo-Saxon tumuli. Eva Thäte has emphasised the continental origins of monument reuse in post-Roman England, Howard Williams has suggested that the main purpose of this custom was to give sense to a landscape that the immigrants did not find empty. In the 7th and 8th centuries, monument reuse became so widespread that it strongly suggests
12166-434: The archaeological and genetic information. Furthermore, British Celtic languages had very little impact on Old English vocabulary, and this suggests that a large number of Germanic-speakers became important relatively suddenly. On the basis of such evidence it has even been argued that large parts of what is now England were cleared of prior inhabitants. However, a view that gained support in the late 20th century suggests that
12324-435: The areas that they settled. In recent decades, a few specialists have continued to support this interpretation, and Peter Schrijver has said that 'to a large extent, it is linguistics that is responsible for thinking in terms of drastic scenarios' about demographic change in late Roman Britain. But the consensus among experts in the first decades of the twenty-first century, influenced by research in contact linguistics ,
12482-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,
12640-453: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of
12798-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c. 1385 Middle English
12956-462: The breakdown of the Roman economy, larger numbers arrived and their impact upon local culture and politics increased. Many questions remain about the scale, timing and nature of the Anglo-Saxon settlements, and also about what happened to the previous residents of what is now England. The available evidence includes not only the scant written record, which tells of a period of violence, but also
13114-524: The call to the "Angle or Saxon nation" ( Latin : Anglorum sive Saxonum gens ) was initially answered by three boats lead by two brothers, Hengist and Horsa ("Stallion and Horse"), and Hengist's son Oisc . They had a region assigned to them in the eastern part of Britain. A bigger fleet followed, from the three most powerful tribes of Germania, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, and these were eventually followed by terrifying swarms. According to one well-known passage by Bede: In another passage Bede clarified that
13272-408: The chapter undermine its credibility as a clue to sixth-century population in Britain." The work of Gildas is based around a constant theme of blaming the Romano-British people for being the cause of their own distresses, with the Saxon conflict only being one example. Leading up to these events they had been rebellious within the Roman empire, supporting many usurpers who attempted to take control of
13430-604: The collapse of the Roman economy and administration. In Higham's assessment, "language was a key indicator of ethnicity in early England. In circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance with the kindred, access to patronage, and the use or possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic inflection had considerable value". All linguistic evidence from Roman Britain suggests that most inhabitants spoke British Celtic and/or British Latin . However, by
13588-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of
13746-599: The continental ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons were more diverse, and they arrived over a long period. He named pagan peoples still living in Germany ( Germania ) in the eighth century "from whom the Angles or Saxons, who now inhabit Britain, are known to have derived their origin; for which reason they are still corruptly called Garmans by the neighbouring nation of the Britons": the Frisians , the Rugini (possibly from Rügen ),
13904-499: The culture of the Anglo-Saxons was not transplanted from there, but rather developed in Britain. In 400, the Roman province of Britannia had long been part of the Roman Empire . The imperial government and military forces had been divided by internal conflicts several times during the previous centuries, often because of usurpations beginning in Britain such as those of Magnus Maximus , and Constantine "III" . However, there
14062-510: The dates). Yet there is little basis for sifting truth from invention. As Dumville pointed out about the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , "medieval historiography has assumptions different from our own, particularly in terms of distinctions between fiction and non-fiction". Explaining linguistic change, and particularly the rise of Old English , is crucial in any account of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. According to Higham ,
14220-466: The de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by
14378-518: The dead in the early Anglo-Saxon landscape. Anglo-Saxon secondary activity on prehistoric and Roman sites was traditionally explained in practical terms. These explanations, in the view of Howard Williams , failed to account for the numbers and types of monuments and graves (from villas to barrows) reused. Anglo-Saxon barrow burials started in the late 6th century and continued into the early 8th century. Prehistoric barrows, in particular, have been seen as physical expressions of land claims and links to
14536-445: The deliberate location of burials of the elite next to visible monuments of the pre-Saxon past, but with 'ordinary' burial grounds of this phase also frequently being located next to prehistoric barrows. The relative increase of this kind of spatial association from the 5th/6th centuries to the 7th/8th centuries is conspicuous. Williams' analysis of two well-documented samples shows an increase from 32% to 50% of Anglo-Saxon burial sites in
14694-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered
14852-491: The development of a new Anglo-Saxon cultural identity and shared Germanic language , Old English , which was most closely related to Old Frisian on the other side of the North Sea . The first Germanic speakers to settle permanently are likely to have been soldiers recruited by the Roman administration, possibly already in the fourth century or earlier. In the early fifth century, after the end of Roman rule in Britain and
15010-476: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and
15168-405: The dominance of English across post-Roman England. Intensive research in recent decades on Celtic toponymy has shown that more names in England and southern Scotland have Brittonic, or occasionally Latin, etymologies than was once thought, but even so, it is clear that Brittonic and Latin place-names in the eastern half of England are extremely rare, and although they are noticeably more common in
15326-415: The dominant group led, ultimately, to the "myths which tied the entire society to immigration as an explanation of their origins in Britain". The consensus in the first decades of the twenty-first century was that the spread of English can be explained by a minority of Germanic-speaking immigrants becoming politically and socially dominant, in a context where Latin had lost its usefulness and prestige due to
15484-554: The downtrodden subjects of Anglo-Saxon oppression. This has been used by some linguists and archaeologists to produce invasion and settlement theories involving genocide, forced migration and enslavement. The depiction of the Britons in the Historia Ecclesiastica is influenced by the writing of Gildas, who viewed the Saxons as a punishment from God against the British people. Windy McKinney notes that "Bede focused on this point and extended Gildas' vision by portraying
15642-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially
15800-551: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from
15958-466: The eighth century, when extensive evidence for the post-Roman language situation is next available, it is clear that the dominant language in what is now eastern and southern England was Old English, whose West Germanic predecessors were spoken in what is now the Netherlands and northern Germany. Old English then continued spreading westwards and northwards in the ensuing centuries. This development
16116-640: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases
16274-417: The empire. These tyrants dominate the historical accounts of the fifth and sixth centuries and the work tells us much about the transition from magisterial to monarchical power in Britain. Gildas' remarks reflected his continuing concern regarding the vulnerability of his countrymen and their disregard and in-fighting: for example, "it was always true of this people (as it is now) that it was weak in beating off
16432-426: The end of Roman rule, and his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae is therefore the most detailed and contemporary account available. However, it is a highly stylized critique of Romano-British politics, society and religion, which treats the Saxons as a punishment sent by God, and gives few details such as dates, and the sections might not have been intended to represent one single sequence of events. Gildas described
16590-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in
16748-519: The extensive evidence for the use of Celtic and Latin. While many studies admit that a substantial survival of native British people from lower social strata is probable, with these people becoming anglicised over time due to the action of "elite dominance" mechanisms, there is also evidence for the survival of British elites and their anglicisation. An Anglo-Saxon elite could be formed in two ways: from an incoming chieftain and his war band from northern Germania taking over an area of Britain, or through
16906-488: The gradual death of Celtic and spoken Latin in post-Roman Britain. Likewise, scholars have posited various mechanisms other than massive demographic change by which pre-migration Celtic place-names could have been lost. Scholars have stressed that Welsh and Cornish place-names from the Roman period seem no more likely to survive than English ones: 'clearly name loss was a Romano-British phenomenon, not just one associated with Anglo-Saxon incomers'. Other explanations for
17064-721: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of
17222-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,
17380-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where
17538-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as
17696-531: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English
17854-475: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of
18012-534: The kings of Lindsey , which argues for the survival of British elites in this area also. In the Mercian royal pedigree, the name of King Penda and the names of other kings have more obvious Brittonic than Germanic etymologies, though they do not correspond to known Welsh personal names. Bede, in his major work, charts the careers of four upper-class brothers in the English Church; he refers to them as being Northumbrian , and therefore "English". However,
18170-423: The lack of works of archaeological synthesis for the Anglo-Saxon period in general, and the early period in particular. This is changing, with new works of synthesis and chronology, in particular the work of Catherine Hills and Sam Lucy on the evidence of Spong Hill , which has opened up the possible synthesis with continental material culture and has moved the chronology for the settlement earlier than AD 450, with
18328-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as
18486-522: The later Viking settlers , may have begun as piratical raiders who later seized land and made permanent settlements. Other settlers seem to have been much humbler people who had few if any weapons and suffered from malnutrition. These were characterised by Sonia Chadwick Hawkes as Germanic 'boat people', refugees from crowded settlements on the North Sea which deteriorating climatic conditions would have made untenable. Catherine Hills points out that it
18644-434: The migration involved relatively few individuals, possibly centred on a warrior elite, who popularized a non-Roman identity after the downfall of Roman institutions. This hypothesis suggests a large-scale acculturation of natives to the incoming language and material culture . In support of this, archaeologists have found that, despite evidence of violent disruption, settlement patterns and land use show many continuities with
18802-474: The modern period there were large regional variations, with the genetic impact of immigration highest in the east and declining towards the west. This evidence supports a theory of large-scale migration of both men and women, beginning in the Roman period and increasing in the early medieval period until the 8th century. This sits alongside evidence of rapid acculturation, with early medieval individuals of both local or migrant ancestry being buried near each other in
18960-543: The most prestigious language in a particular region, speakers of other languages may have found it advantageous to become bilingual and, over a few generations, stop speaking the less prestigious languages (in this case British Celtic and/or British Latin). A person or household might change language so as to serve an elite, or because it provided some advantage economically or legally. This account, which demands only small numbers of politically dominant Germanic-speaking migrants to Britain, has become 'the standard explanation' for
19118-937: The names of Saint Chad of Mercia (a prominent bishop) and his brothers Cedd (also a bishop), Cynibil and Caelin (a variant spelling of Ceawlin) are British rather than Anglo-Saxon. A good case can be made for southern Britain (especially Wessex, Kent, Essex and parts of Southern East Anglia), at least, having been taken over by dynasties having some Germanic ancestry or connections, but also having origins in, or intermarrying with, native British elites. Archaeologists seeking to understand evidence for migration and/or acculturation must first get to grips with early Anglo-Saxon archaeology as an "Archaeology of Identity". Guarding against considering one aspect of archaeology in isolation, this concept ensures that different topics are considered together, that previously were considered separately, including gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and status. The task of interpretation has been hampered by
19276-459: The pagan Anglo-Saxons not as God's scourge against the reprobate Britons, but rather as the agents of Britain's redemption. Therefore, the ghastly scenario that Gildas feared is calmly explained away by Bede; any rough treatment was necessary, and ordained by God, because the Britons had lost God's favour, and incurred his wrath." McKinney, who suggests that "Bede himself may not have been an ethnically 'pure' Angle," argues that his use of ethnic terms
19434-410: The passage of goods. Andrew Pearson suggests that the "Saxon Shore Forts" and other coastal installations played a more significant economic and logistical role than is often appreciated, and that the tradition of Saxon and other continental piracy, based on the name of these forts, is probably a myth. The archaeology of late Roman (and sub-Roman) Britain has been mainly focused on the elite rather than
19592-400: The peasant and slave: their villas, houses, mosaics, furniture, fittings, and silver plates. This group had a strict code on how their wealth was to be displayed, and this provides a rich material culture, from which "Britons" are identified. There was a large gap between richest and poorest; the trappings of the latter have been the focus of less archaeological study. However the archaeology of
19750-571: The peasant from the 4th and 5th centuries is dominated by "ladder" field systems or enclosures, associated with extended families, and in the South and East of England, the extensive use of timber-built buildings and farmsteads shows a lower level of engagement with Roman building methods than is shown by the houses of the numerically much smaller elite. Confirmation of the use of Anglo-Saxons as foederati or federate troops has been seen as coming from burials of Anglo-Saxons wearing military equipment of
19908-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it
20066-678: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from
20224-417: The replacement of Roman period place-names include adaptation of Celtic names such that they now seem to come from Old English; a more gradual loss of Celtic names than was once assumed; and new names being coined (in the newly dominant English language) because instability of settlements and land-tenure. Extensive research is ongoing on whether British Celtic did exert subtle substrate influence on
20382-505: The same new ways. One of the few written accounts of the period is by Gildas , who wrote in the early 6th century. His account influenced later works which became more elaborate and detailed, but which cannot be relied upon for this early period. He reported that a major conflict was triggered some generations before him, after a group of foreign Saxons was invited by the Romano-British leadership to help defend against raids from
20540-468: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout
20698-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and
20856-585: The start. The list is evidence for more complex settlement than the single political entity of the other historical sources. In the eighth century, if not the seventh, Anglo-Saxon scholars began writing lists and genealogies of kings which purport to record their ancestry through the settlement period and beyond, prominently including the Anglian King-list and the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List (which may share
21014-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into
21172-544: The time of Bede , more than a century after Gildas, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had come to dominate most of what is now modern England. Bede and other later Welsh and Anglo-Saxon authors apparently believed that the kingdoms of their time had always been distinctly Anglo-Saxon. However, many modern historians believe that the development of Anglo-Saxon culture and identity, and even its kingdoms, involved not only Germanic immigrants but also local British people and kingdoms. Although it involved immigrant communities from northern Europe,
21330-404: The use of peplos dress, or particular artistic styles found on artefacts such as those found at Alwalton, for evidence of pagan beliefs, or cultural memories of tribal or ethnic affiliation. The evidence for monument reuse in the early Anglo-Saxon period reveals a number of significant aspects of the practice. Ancient monuments were one of the most important factors determining the placing of
21488-553: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain The settlement of Great Britain by diverse Germanic peoples led to
21646-463: The weapons of the enemy, but strong in putting up with civil war and the burden of sin." Gildas used the correct late Roman term for the Saxons, foederati , people who came to Britain under a well-used treaty system. This kind of treaty had been used elsewhere to bring people into the Roman Empire to move along the roads or rivers and work alongside the army. Gildas called them Saxons, which
21804-460: The western half, they are still a tiny minority─2% in Cheshire , for example. Into the later twentieth century, scholars' usual explanation for the lack of Celtic influence on English, supported by uncritical readings of the accounts of Gildas and Bede, was that Old English became dominant primarily because Germanic-speaking invaders killed, chased away, and/or enslaved the previous inhabitants of
21962-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during
22120-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by
22278-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,
22436-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with
22594-622: Was "tied to the expression of tradition and religious ideas, to the loyalty of a people to authority, and subject to change as history continued to unfold. Therefore, it is a moot point whether all of those whom Bede encompassed under the term Angli were racially Germanic". A traditional semi-mythical account of the origins of English kingdoms was supplied by Bede and the still later Historia Brittonum . These accounts add many details to Gildas based upon unknown sources. These are however considered doubtful by modern scholars. Several other types of evidence are considered relevant. The Tribal Hideage
22752-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century
22910-451: Was an overall continuity and interconnectedness. Before 400, the Roman sources used the term Saxons to refer to coastal raiders who had been causing problems on the coasts of the North Sea . In what is now south-eastern England the Romans established a military commander who was assigned to oversee a chain of coastal forts which they called the Saxon shore . The homeland of these Saxon raiders
23068-408: Was being ruled by corrupt Romano-British tyrannies, that could no longer be relied upon for law and order. He explicitly noted that there was peace, and that there was only internal fighting instead of fighting with foreigners. There are very few historical records from Britain in the 5th or 6th centuries which can help historians to understand the settlements of the Anglo-Saxons. The Chronica Gallica
23226-558: Was considerable regional variation. Settlement density varied within southern and eastern England. Norfolk has more large Anglo-Saxon cemeteries than the neighbouring East Anglian county of Suffolk ; eastern Yorkshire (the nucleus of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira ) far more than the rest of Northumbria. The settlers were not all of the same type. Some were indeed warriors who were buried equipped with their weapons, but we should not assume that all of these were invited guests who were to guard Romano-British communities. Possibly some, like
23384-518: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in
23542-566: Was in his 3rd consulship, which was in 446. Another 6th century Roman source contemporary with Gildas is Procopius who however lived and wrote in the Eastern Roman Empire , and expressed doubts about the stories he had heard about events in the west. He states that an island called Brittia , which was supposedly not Britain, was settled by three nations: the Angili, Frissones, and Brittones, each ruled by its own king. Each nation
23700-505: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by
23858-570: Was not clearly described in surviving sources, but they were apparently the northerly neighbours of the Franks on the Lower Rhine . At the same time, the Roman administration in Britain (and other parts of the empire) was recruiting foederati soldiers from these same general regions in what is now Germany, and these are likely to have become more important after the withdrawal of field armies during internal Roman power struggles. According to
24016-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English
24174-420: Was probably the common British term for the settlers. Gildas' use of the word patria (fatherland), when used in relation to the Saxons and Picts, implies that some Saxons could by then be regarded as native to Britannia. Various sources, including Gildas, were used by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum , written around 731. Bede's view of Britons is partly responsible for the picture of them as
24332-414: Was probably written in south-eastern Gaul and only contains snippets of information. In this chronicle, the entry about raids upon Britain in 409 is introduced with a general comment about weakening Roman power, and the growing number of enemies. It is grouped with events in Gaul and Spain which suffered invasions during the same period. Gildas lived only a few generations later in the 6th century after
24490-487: Was quite rapidly filled by the intrusive Anglo-Saxon material culture, while the native culture became archaeologically close to invisible—although recent hoards and metal-detector finds show that coin use and imports did not stop abruptly at AD 410. The archaeology of the Roman military systems within Britain is well known but is not well understood: for example, whether the Saxon Shore was defensive or to facilitate
24648-765: Was so prolific that it sent large numbers of individuals every year to the Franks, who planted them in unpopulated regions of their territory. He never mentions the Saxons or Jutes, and the continental relatives of the Angles are named as the Warini , who he believed had a kingdom stretching from the Danube to the Ocean. Michael Jones , a historian at Bates College in New England, says that "Procopius himself, however, betrays doubts about this specific passage, and subsequent details in
24806-501: Was substantial as implied by the statement that Anglia was deserted; and an establishment phase, in which Anglo-Saxons started to control areas, implied in Bede's statement about the origins of the tribes. The manner in which a land of Romano-British kingdoms in the time of Gildas transformed into a land of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the time of Bede a century or so later is uncertain. Bede's scholarly and patriotic attempt to explain this as
24964-401: Was very symbolic, and distinct differences within groups in the cemetery could be found. Some recent scholarship has argued, however, that current approaches to the sociology of ethnicity render it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate ethnic identity via purely archaeological means, and has thereby rejected the basis for using furnished inhumation or such clothing practices as
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