About Anglo-Saxons
The term “Anglo-Saxons” applies to the British inhabitants speaking English during the period from around the 5th century until towards the period of Norman Conquest, which marked the end of the Anglo-Saxons line of kings in England. Venerable Bede maintains that these Anglo-Saxons reached the British island during Martian reign; he became the co-empire of the Roman Empire in 449 and reigned for seven years. Prior to this period, Celtic language speakers had greatly inhabited Britain with Picts and Scots occupying the northern region while leaving the south for various small groups, which were under the Roman rule following their subjugation and rule by Roman Emperor Claudius in A.D. 43. At the commencement of the 5th century, advancing Barbarians mounted increasing pressure on the Roman Empire. The Roman strongholds in Britain were getting weaker as more troops were relocated to areas close to home ground (Godden, Keynes and Blackburn 101-144).
In A.D. 410, when the Visigoths invaded and defeated Rome, the Romans withdrew their remaining troops, which forced Britain to protect their own territory by themselves. The Britons in a move to combat the hostility posed by the northern Picts and the Scots, and the eastern Germanic raiders settled on to take into service the Germanic armed force to battle the northern inhabitants by creating enmity between these two groups. The just instituted mercenaries arrived during Martian’s reign. They came from were from Germanic nations located near the northern coasts of Europe: the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes. Bede explains that these mercenaries succeeded promptly in overpowering the Scots and Picts.
However, genetic research, which disputes Bede’s narrative on the origin of Anglo-Saxons, proposes that neither the Anglo-Saxons incursion nor any other initiated the substitution of the British populace, which has been stable for several years. Probably, the ruling and landholding class were vastly replaced, but the larger proportion remained and adopted Germanic ethnicity.
Where their language came from
According to Bede, these Anglo-Saxons originated from Germania, which he used to describe the large and ill-defined region east of Rhine and North of Danube, all through to the present day Poland and to Sweden and Norway. The inhabitants of this territory were closely related by culture and language. The languages spoken by Germania inhabitants stemmed from the Indo-European family languages, which are believed to have developed from a single language spoken relatively 5000 years ago in an unidentified area, probably Caucasus. This ancient language is the origin of several languages spoken in Europe and some parts of South Asia: the Italic languages (Italian, French, Spanish and Romanian), the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic), Germanic languages, the Slavic languages, the Baltic languages, the Indo-Indiana languages and the individual languages that are not members of these groups (Rouse112-201).
The Germanic section of the Indo-Indiana family has three major group divisions namely the North Germanic, which consists of the Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, Danish and Iceland; East Germanic, which consist of the now extinct Gothic; and the West Germanic that includes High and Low German, English, Frisian, Flemish and Dutch. The languages spoken by both the Germanic-Briton immigrants and those left behind in the continent was the same, but the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons differed in the later years of the 8th century. This distinct language is called Old English.
The Old English
The language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons during and shortly after the time of their migration to Britain was uniform. Old English gradually developed into other four dialects: Mercian, which is spoken in midlands; Northumbrian, common in north of rive Humber; West Saxon, which is spoken in the southwest; and Kentish that is common in Kent-the far southeastern section of the island. All these dialects have traces in the Modern English and American preset-day regional dialects. The Mercian dialect has a major impact on the modern English since it was London’s dialect. Most English literature stems from the West Saxon dialect since most poetry was in this dialect.
Works Cited:
Godden M. Keynes S. and Blackburn M. Anglo-Saxons England Vol 38. location Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.
Rouse A. R. Idea of Anglo-Saxon England In Middle English Romance: Volume 3 of Studies in Medieval Romance Series. Volume 3 of Studies in Medieval Romance Studies in Medieval Romance. Suffolk: DS Brewer, 2005. Print.
