Events which have led to English as we know it now

The words which our pre-historic and distant ancestors spoke are unknown to us, but certain basic ideas held root in forms that are alike, cognate, in the languages which arose in their later migrations to various areas of the world.

From Sanskrit bhratar, Old Slavic brata, to Irish brothair, the words for "brother", are too much alike to be unrelated.

In most of the family languages mer (which appears in English maritime and in the Irish name Murphy) remains; it meant not the ocean but an inland sea. Snow, bee the numerals two to ten; sen for "old"; newo, "new", eu (su), "good"; dys, "bad": these are some of the basic word roots that some members of the human race took along on their migrations in the distant past.

About 3000 b.C., our male ancestors led their women-folk on their great migrations in two directions

The migrations had one branch which moved southward into Persia and India; while the other moved west and northwest, but by two different routes.

One group traveled to the shorelines and the island-blessed waters of the Mediterranean ("Middle of the Earth") Sea, to Greece, Italy, France, and Spain; while the second group went by land into the heart of Europe, following the course of the streams into the inviting northern lands, or through the wooded valleys, with their many lakes, of Middle Europe.

The Romans in Britain

In 55 B.C., the Romans under Caesar sailed to Britain, from which the Romans had been getting slaves and tin.

Under Claudius in 43 A.D., they established some settlements, and remained for four hundred years; but they lingered rather as conquerors than as colonists, and when they departed they left little for today beyond some well-constructed roads, the remnants of walls, and the ruins of baths, as at Chester on the border of Wales.

The Romans also left a few names in the language. Latin colonia, "colony", survives in Lincoln. Latin vicus, "village", remains in Warwick and Greenwich (Latin v was pronounced like our w).

The Roman "camp", castra, was more widespread, and took different sounds in different parts of the country. It is still used in Lancaster, in Westchester, and in Worcester. The last of these, a Celtic place name plus the Roman "camp", with the added Saxon word for "county", shire, has come into our current vocabulary as the name of a sauce.

The Romans left the Britains to defend their empire

When the Romans withdrew from Britain, drawn home by domestic disaster in about 450 A.D., the Celts renewed their strife. The King of Kent, Wytgoern, invited the Saxons from the continent, to aid him in the battle against the Picts and Scots.

The Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Frisians eagerly responded; and by the sixth century they had imposed their rule and their language upon Britain.

The newcomers, who gave England its name, "Angleland", gave the language not only their vocabulary, but also its framework. Most of English prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions are from the Low German which these people took to Britain.

Although in our current English dictionaries some three-fifths of the words are of Greek, Latin, and Romance origin, in our actual speech more than half the words in Modern English are from the Old English.

Some Saxon words were already, on the Continent, borrowed from Roman soldiers and traders: inch, mile, pound, street, wall, table, mule, chest, pillow, and wine; while the words love, come, live, eat, and speak come from native Saxon origins.