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small journey will help you to imagine the beauty of this country. You have got th geographical and historical information about four countries which the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland consists of, learn something about British character and about the capital of Britain. We believe that you have decider! for yourself what is worth seeing in this country.
THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Shaihullina Neilja, gr. 45-81 (Yurina N.I.)
From the earliest known times to about900 years ago a long succession of invaders and colonizers moved westward towards the British Isles, which lay within easy reach of the continent of Europe. Thence came the Iberians from Iberia (now Spain and Portugal), the Celts; known as Ancient Britons, who by about 450 B.C (before Christ [kraist]) occupied the whole of the British Isles; Then the Romans who, first landing in 55 B.C., occupied the British Isles till about 410 A.D. Then the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came over from north-central Europe in vast numbers. They drove many of the Celts into the mountainous northern and western regions of the islands or absorbed those who remained into their own way of life.
The Norsemen and Danes from Scandinavia were invaders who mingled their blood with the Angles and Saxons.
The last of the invaders were the Romans, who had settffed in the Northern France under William the Conqueror. They gradually broke their ties with France and mingled with Anglo-Saxons. The marriage of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French tongues became the language of most of England, and Lowlands of Scotland.
Thus, English is not the language that has always been spoken in the British Isles, not is it the only language that is spoken today. We can say that English is descended from the language of the Angles and Saxons, the two German tribes from the north coast of present-day Germany. They spoke different dialects of the same language.
Anglo-Saxons, or Old English remained the language of England from about 450 A.D. to about 1150 A.D.
Two further invasions of the islands - the first, the Norsemen of Vikings from Scandinavia, — then, the Normans from Normandy in France, served to modify Old English and to change it in the next three centuries, into Middle English.
The English language was not to be used on polite society or as a means о learning for centuries. In the schools and churches Latin was used an the Norman lords spoke French. When Norman lords replaced Englishmen in all important pos of government, the Church, the monasteries and the schools, the English languag ceased to be except by the poorer people as they went about their humble every У jobs. Not for two hundred years was any important literature produced excep French or Latin. ^
The government of the country affected everyone, and when it was cameo a new language a flood of new words came into general use, and very к English words to do with rank and government have survived. Strangely enoug1
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