6. Old English Period. Historical Background. Germanic Settlement of Britain. Old English Dialects. Written Records and Manuscripts

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 must have been inhabited for at least fifty thousand years. Archeological research has uncovered many layers of prehistoric population. The earliest inhabitants of the British Isles were Iberian people. They were not Indo-Europeans. In the eight century B.C. the Gaels from the Celtic tribes appeared in Britain. Other Celtic tribes (the Gaels, the Britons, the Belgae) came to Britain in three waves and immediately preceded by Teutons. Economically and socially 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 millenium B.C. was the period of Celtic migrations and expansion. Traces of their civilization are still found all over Europe. 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.

In the 1^st century B.C. Gaul was conquered by the Romans. Having occupied Gaul Jukius Caesar made two raids on Briatin, on the 55 and 54 B.C. The British Isles had long been known to the Romans as a source of valuable tin ore. Caesar attacked Britain fir economic reasons – to obtain tin, pearls and corn, - and also for strategic reasons, since rebels and refugees from Gaul found support among their British kinsmen. Although Caesar failed to subjugate Britain, Roman economic penetration to Britain grew: traders and colonists from Rome came in large numbers to settle in the south-eastern towns. In 45 A.D. Britain was again invaded by Roman legions under Emperor Claudius and towards the end of the century was made a province of the Roman Empire. A great number of military camps were established. They eventually developed into English cities (Manchester, Winchester).

The Roman occupation of Briatin lasted nearly 400 years; it came to an end in the early 5^th c. A.D. In 410 A.D. the Roman troops were oficially withdrawn to Rome by Constantine. This temporary withdrawal turned out to be final, for the Empire was breaking up due to internal and external causes, particularly the attacks of barbarian tribes (including Teutons) and the growth of independent kingdoms on former Roman territories. The expansion of Franks to Gaul in the 5^th c. cut off Briatin from the roman world.

After the departure of the Roman legions the richest and most civilised part of the island, the south-east, was laid waste. Many towns were destroyed. Constant feuds among local lanlords as well as the increased assaults of the Celts from the North and also he first Germanic raids from the North Sea proved ruinous to the civiliation of Roman Britain.

Undoubtedly, the Teutons had made piratical aids on the British shores long before the withdrawal of the last Roman legions. The Britons fought among themselves. The 5^th c. A.D. was the age of increased Germanic expansion. About the middle of the century several West Germanic tribes overran Briatian and, for the most part, had colonised the island by the end of the century, though the invasion lasted in the 6^th century.

Reliable evidence of the period is extremely scarce. The story of the invasion is told be Bede (673-735), a monastic scholar who wrote the first history of England. According to Bede the invaders came to Briatian in 449 A.D. under the leadership of the Germanic kings, Hengist and Horsa. The invaders came in multitude, with families and clans, to settle in the occupied territories like Celts before them. The Germanic invasion was different from the Roman military conquest, although it was by no means a peaceful affair.

The invaders of Briatin came from the western subdivision of the Germanic tribes. The newcomers were of the three strongest races of Germany, the Saxon, the Angles and the Jutes. The first wave of the invaders, the Jutes or the Frisians, occupied the extreme south-east: Kent and the Isle of Wight. The second wave of immigrants was largely made up of the Saxons, who had been expanding westwards across Frisia to the Rhine and to what is now known as Normandy. The final stage of the drift brought them to Britain by way of the Thames and the south coast. They set up their settlements along the south coast and on both banks of the Thames and depending on location were called South Saxons, West Saxons and East Saxons. The Saxons consolidated into a number of petty kingdoms, the largest and the most powerful of them being Wesswx, the kingdom of West Saxons.

Last came the Angles from the lower valley of Elbe and southern Denmark. They made their landing on the east coast and moved up the rivers to the central part of the island to occupy the districts between the Wash and the Humber and to the north of the Humber. They founded large kingdoms which had absorbed their weaker neighbours: East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria.

There were probably little intermixture between the newcomers and the Celtic aborigines. The invadres certainly prevailed over the natives so far as language was concerned. After the settlement West Germanic tongues came to be spoken all over Britain. The migration of the Germanic tribes to the British Isles and the resulting separation from the Germanic tribes on the mainland was a decisive event in their linguistic histiry. Geographical separation as well as mixture and unification of people are major factors in linguistic differentiation and in the formation of languages. Being cut off from related Old Germanic languages the closely related group of West Germanic dialects developed into a separate Germanic language – English. That is why the Germanic settlement of Britain can be regarded as the beginning of the independent history of the English language.

The history of Anglo-Saxon Briatin form the 5^th to the 11^th c has been reconstructed from multiple sources: Bede’s History, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon historical chronicles some legal documents. According to Bede the invaders came to Briatin in 449 A.D. under the leadership of two Germanic kings, Hengest and Horsa. Vortigen invited them because he wanted then to help in the local war. The first wave of newcomers occupied the extreme south-east Kent and the Isle of Wight.

The period from the 5^th till 11^th was a transitional period from the tribal and slave-owning system to feudalism.The basic economic unit was a feudal manor, it was a self-contained economic unit as it grew its own food and carried on some small industries to cover its needs. Consequently there was little intercourse between population of neighbouring areas. Tribal and clan division was gradually supressed by townships. These conditions were reflected in the development of the West Germanic tongues brought to Britain. The economic isolation of the regions as well as the political disunity of the regions led to the formation of new geographical boundaries between the speech of different localities.