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Old English : Age Of The Island

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Old English (500 AD to 1100 AD)

Before England became the England that we know today, the island knew several other languages that we now call Old English. The earliest inhabitants of the island lived there anywhere from 50,000 to 250,000 years ago. The first recorded language in early England was spoken by the Celts until 43 AD when Emperor Claudius conquered the island, but never made it as far north as Wales and Scotland. Latin inscriptions have been found all over the island, but interestingly, the Celtic language remained relatively the same. Four hundred years later the Germanic tribes, the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, on the mainland began invading England and the areas that we now know as Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Eventually, the Angles and Saxons took over the British Isles, which is where we get the term Anglo-Saxon. These people settled peacefully by the Celts and established their own communities.

The Anglo-Saxons were the first group of people to use the word English to describe the language they spoke. This came from the West Germanic tribes being called the Angli and Anglia in Latin tests. The Anglo-Saxons called their own spoken language Englisc which came from the names Angles. The people who spoke this language were called the Angelcynn which translates into the people or the kin of the Angles. Around the year 1000, the island became known as the land of the Angles or Englaland. Interestingly, the language, English, is an older word than England. The

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