LECTURE - Prehistory of English
LECTURE - Prehistory of English
LECTURE - Prehistory of English
https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_before.html
Hellenic
Italic
Indo-Iranian
Celtic
Germanic
Armenian
Balto-Slavic
Albanian
These broad language groups in turn divided over time into scores of new languages,
from Swedish to Portuguese to Hindi to Latin to Frisian. So, it is astounding but true
that languages as diverse as Gaelic, Greek, Farsi and Sinhalese all ultimately derive
from the same origin. The common ancestry of these diverse languages can
sometimes be seen quite clearly in the existence of cognates (similar words in
different languages), and the recognition of this common ancestry of Indo-European
languages is usually attributed to the amateur linguist Sir William Jones in 1786.
Examples are:
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The Romans
The Romans first entered Britain in 55 BC under Julius Caesar,
although they did not begin a permanent occupation until 43 AD,
when Emperor Claudius sent a much better prepared force to
subjugate the fierce British Celts. Despite a series of uprisings
by the natives (including that of Queen Boudicca, or Boadicea
in 61 AD), Britain remained part of the Roman Empire for almost
400 years, and there was a substantial amount of interbreeding
between the two peoples, although the Romans never
succeeded in penetrating into the mountainous regions of
Wales and Scotland.
Latin did not replace the Celtic language in Britain as it had done in Gaul, and the use of Latin by native Britons during the peiod of Roman rule was
probably confined to members of the upper classes and the inhabitants of the cities and towns. The Romans, under attack at home from Visigoths,
Ostrogoths and Vandals, abandoned Britain to the Celts in 410 AD, completing their withdrawal by 436 AD. Within a remarkably short time after this
withdrawal, the Roman influence on Britain, in language as in many other walks of life, was all but lost, as Britain settled in to the so-called Dark
Ages.