2. Old English historical background

The history of the English language begins in the fifth century AD when the Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, who up to that time had lived in Western Europe between the Elbe and the Rhine, started their invasion of the British Isles.

Until 410 AD most of Britain had been under Roman control, although the native inhabitants were Celts speaking various forms of Celtic. After the military conquest of Britain by the Romans in 55 BC – 43 AD followed by the Romanization of the island there were many people in Roman Britain who habitually spoke Latin or upon occasion could use it. But its use was not sufficiently widespread to cause it to survive, as the Celtic language survived. The use of Latin probably began to decline after 410 AD when the last of the Roman troops were officially withdrawn from the island.

About the year 449 began the invasion of Britain by Germanic (Teutonic) tribes, the founders of the English nation. The Celts who first came to Britain gradually spread to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Their languages are represented in modern times by Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. A later wave of Celtic tribes, having occupied for some centuries the central part of England, were in turn driven westwards by Germanic invaders, and their modern language representatives are Welsh, Cornish and Breton.

The invaders, or Barbarians, as they were generally called, who came to the Isles were representatives of a by far inferior civilisation than the Romans. A bulk of the invaders came from the most backward and primitive of the Germanic tribes. They were an agricultural rather than a pastoral people.

The relations of the newcomers and the native population were different in different areas of Britain. In some districts where the inhabitants were few the Teutons probably settled down beside the Celts in more or less peaceful contact. In others, as in the West Saxon territory, the invaders met with stubborn resistance and succeeded in establishing themselves only after much fighting. In any case such civilization as had been attained under Roman influence was largely destroyed. The Roman towns were burnt and abandoned.

3. The dialects in Old English

In Old English four dialects are distinguished: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish. Northumbrian and Mercian are found in the region north of the Thames settled by the Angles. Of these Northumbrian was spoken north of the Humber River and Mercian between the Humber and the Thames. Kentish is the dialect of the Jutes in the southeast. West Saxon is the dialect of the West Saxon kingdom in the southwest. Nearly all of Old English literature is preserved in manuscripts transcribed in this region. With the ascendancy of the West Saxon kingdom the West Saxon dialect became a literary standard of the OE period.

Records of the 8^th and 9^th centuries reveal that Englisc, as it was collectively called, had by that time emerged as an independent language. The geographical separation of England from the Continent was a factor favouring the further development of those characteristic features that already distinguished English from its parent Germanic language.