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The Beginnings of English language

•    English emerges out of a mix of Germanie languages and dialects in the period roughly aroirnd the 6^lh and 7* centuries.

•    Out earliest recorded documents in the British Isles are from the late 7* and early 8^,h centuries, but tliey give us insight into the kind of language spoken and written up to a centuiy earlier.

•    This form of English, which we know as Old English (OE), was spoken and written by the settlers from the Continent: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes (possibly the Frisians). Their c ul turę came to be known as Anglo-Saxoa

We may define the language known as Old English in four ways:

•    Geographically - as a language spoken by the Germanie settlers in the British Isles.

•    Historically - from the time of the settlement in the 5^,h centuiy until the Norman Conquest in 1066.

•    Genetically - as a Lowlands branch of tlie West Germanie group of languages.

•    Typologically - as a language with a partieular sound system (phonology), grammatieal endings (morphology), word order pattems (syntax), and wocabulary (lexis).

Old English is bounded by geography

A.    The earliest inliabitants of the British Isles, whose language we can reconstruct, were Celtic speakers who migrated from Europę sometime in the second half of the first millennium B. C.

B.    The Romans colonized England under Julius Caesar and kept it as a colony until the middle of tlie 5* century A. D.

•    Latin became the prestige language of administration, edueation and soeial life.

C.    During the last decades of Roman colonial rule in England, groups of Germanie -speaking tribes and raiders began to settle portions of the British Isles.

•    By the middle of the 5^dl century, raids and settlements became morę frequent and by the end of the century, settlements began to spread from the south and southeastem coasts into the Southwest (in the area known now as Wessex).

•    By the year 547, a kingdom was established in the north of England, north of the Humber river, by groups descended from the Angles, a Germanie tribe (they became known as Anglians).

D.    By the middle of the 7* century, smali kingdoms were being established throughout England

•    Some of the kingdoms were smali outposts, really little morę than extend villages; others were larger, with mlers of great power and wealtli.

E.    As these settlements developed, Old English emerged as a distinctive language, but it also developed four major dialects.

•    Each dialect here, as well as subsequent dialects in England, had both natural and man - madę borders.