2. The main historical events of the ancient period.

The history of the English language begins with the invasion of the British Isles by Germanic tribes in the 5^th c. of our era.

Prior to the Germanic invasion the British Isles were inhabited for at least fifty thousand years. Archeological research has uncovered many layers of prehistoric population. The settlement of Britain began in New Stone Age (Neolitic times) with tribal groups coming from the Iberian Peninsula. They came by sea from about 4000 B.C. settling near the coasts of south and west Britain as well as in Ireland. They brought with them the agricultural methods which had been developed around the Mediterranean coasts, the raising of cattle and planting of wheat. As the lowlands of Britain were still covered with forests, these settlers lived on hills such as the chalk uplands of southern England. These tribes did not use metals yet, but they made axes and arrowheads from flint which was mined in the chalk of Norfolk in East Anglia. In this period the large stone circles of Stonehenge on the chalk plateau of Salisbure Plane were begun constructing. This stone monument consists of concentric circles of stones. It was used as observatory for planning the times of farming operations in a society with no calendar.

Some time later after about 2,000 B.C. similar farming people came from the east and south east, the present day France and Belgium. They brought the use of bronze and a special kind of pottery. These people seem to have mixed peacefully with the former settlers. After most of the British Isles had been populated by these tribes, further settlers came from Rhine valley. They were successive tribes of Celts. The earliest inhabitants whose linguistic affiliation has been established are the Celts. The Celts came to Britain in the three waves and immediately preceded the Teutons. Celtic tribes invaded Britain about 500 B.C. Economically and socially the Celts were a tribal society made up of kins, kinship groups, clans and tribes; they practised a primitive agriculture, and carried on trade with Celtic Gaul. The first millennium B.C. was the period of Celtic migrations and expansion. Traces of their civilization are still found all over Europe. Celtic languages were spoken over extensive parts of Europe before our era; later they were absorbed by other IE languages and left very few vestiges behind. The Gaelic branch has survived as Irish (or Erse) in Ireland, has expanded to Scotland as Scotch-Gaelic of the Highlands and is still spoken by a few hundred people on the Isle of Man (the Manx language). The Britonnic branch is represented by Kymric or Welsh in modern Wales and by Breton or Armorican spoken by over a million people in modern France( in the area called Bretagne or Britanny, where the Celts came as emigrants from Britain in the 5^th c.); another Britonic dialect in Great Britain, Cornish, was spoken in Cornwall until the end of the 18^th c.