The first speaker of English did not fathom like you or me . That ’s becauselanguage changesall the time . You have belike noticed that thelanguage of your grandparentsdiffers from yours . you could imagine how very different English was when it was first spoken in Britain many centuries ago .
The earliest speakers of English speak Old English . I am using the countersign " speakers " because there must have been more than one speaker ; after all , we apply language to lecture to others .
Old English make grow in a roiled menstruation of British history . This was just after theRomans had bequeath Britain , around 1,600 years ago . The Romans had colonise Britain but they abandoned the country in the fifth hundred because the papistic empire was burst all around them .
The Romans who rule Britain spoke their own language , Latin . But most of the people who live in Britain when the Romans were there — and before that too — spokea Gaelic language . This Celtic language was like Welsh , but again much older than the present - solar day Welsh language .
After the Romans go out Britain , Teutonic tribes who were on the move throughout Europe in the 5th and sixth hundred invaded . These tribes were theAngles , the Saxons and the Jutes . The spoken language they spoke is known asNorth Sea Germanic .
The First English Speakers
Once they fall in Britain it becameOld English , which is also sometimes called " Anglo - Saxon . " From the Angles do the word " English " and from the Angles and Saxons together comes the word " Anglo - Saxon . " I teach Old English to students of English at university .
So Old English or Anglo - Saxon is the honest-to-god form of the English linguistic process that was spoken and write in England in the former Middle Ages , the period from about 450 C.E. to 1050 C.E. Very few Gaelic words were taken over into Old English . The Book " brock " ( meaning " badger " ) is one of the rare exception .
Do we know the names of the first speakers of Old English ? Two name are advert in ancient legend that tell the story of how the Angles and the Saxons arrived in Britain .
According to these fable , the British ( when they were still Celtic speakers ) ask two Germanic leaders , Hengist ( also spelled Hengest ) and Horsa , to go to Britain to help protect the land after the Romans entrust .
Hengist and Horsa go far in Britain with many other people from their tribe and conquered the ground . We have no style of knowing if these legends are true , but if they are , Hengist and Horsa could be the two chieftains who get the Old English words to Britain .
An Old English Poet
There is one other name that deserves to be mention andthat is Caedmon . Caedmon is the first poet in English whose name is have it off . The story of his life is told by themonk and historian Bede , who know in the north of England from around 673 to 735 C.E.
Bede not only tell the story of Hengest and Horsa , but he also tells usabout Caedmon , who was a cowherd . Bede wrote that Caedmon could not read or save and received the ability to compose beautiful poesy as a endowment from God . The first poem that Caedmon was pep up to indite is in praise of God .
The first two origin of this poem will give you a taste of Old English :
In modern English , this mean : " Now we must praise the guardian of the celestial kingdom , the swayer ’s might and his architectural plan . "
You might think this really is n’t English at all . But we still use some of the words used in Old English ; " and " and " his " are both in these two lines of verse . Other words have survived too , though we often spell and sound out them otherwise .
Caedmon expect after the cattle in a monastery in Whitby in Yorkshire . One of my university students studying Old English comes from Whitby and she told me that her school is advert after our first name English poet : Caedmon College . His fable inhabit on .
Ad Putteris a professor of medieval English lit at the University of Bristol .
This article is republish fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons permission . you could find theoriginal articlehere .
