[0:23]2,000 years ago on the shores of northwest Europe lived a tribe called the Angli, ancestors of the English-speaking peoples.
[0:37]The Roman historian Tacitus said they were one of seven tribes who sacrificed to the goddess Mother Earth by drowning people in bogs.
[0:49]In Denmark more recently, the descendants of those people, digging for peat have made some remarkable discoveries. Victims of these tribes have been perfectly preserved in the bog. This man was strangled. This man's throat was cut.
[1:21]It's hard to imagine that the language of this savage people would one day become the most widely spoken in the world.
[2:10]A Hindu temple might seem a strange place to start the story of English.
[2:20]But chanting in the holy language, Sanskrit, these worshipers are closer to English than you might imagine. Our word divine resembles their word deva.
[2:37]The surprising connection between English and Sanskrit was discovered at the end of the 18th century by a British judge stationed in Calcutta.
[2:49]Sir William Jones found that the English father resembles the Sanskrit Pitar, the Greek Pater, and the Latin Pater. Other basic words like mother, three, me, new, and seven, convinced Jones that they were all part of the same language family.
[3:28]Perhaps as old as Stonehenge. The prehistoric origins of what Jones called this common source are as remote and obscure as this neolithic ruin. This common source is the parent of what scholars call the Indo-European group of languages, reaching out as far as India and the Hebrides. It's given us European languages like Latin and its descendants, French and Spanish, the Celtic languages of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, the Slavic languages of Russia and Poland, and the Germanic tongues, like Danish, Dutch, and English.
[4:14]The Indo-Europeans probably lived in Central Europe. Gradually the Germanic tribes, the ancestors of English, moved Westwards. Eventually settling along the shores of northern Europe, they included the Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Frisians, in what is now Denmark, Germany, and Holland.
[4:37]Today there are still 300,000 Frisian speakers in Northern Holland.
[4:47]Martin Sitema speaks a language that is often closer to English than Dutch, closer still to Old English. It's so close, there's even a rhyme that works in both languages. It goes Good butter and good cheese are good English and good freeze.
[5:07]Most people associate Friesland with cows. They might be surprised to know that Frieslanders use the same word. That is cow. And the words for bread or lamb. That is a lamb. And for wheat, sheep, or goose.
[5:28]That is an uh goos. And ox or foal. That is a foal. And how about house or boat? It is a boat. And similar words for fork, bull or pole. That is a pole. And corn or dung. It is a done. And green or rain. It is a rain. And even a cup of coffee. It is a cup of coffee.
[5:54]The English language arrived in Britain in AD 449.
[6:07]The invading Frisians, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes spoke closely related languages, which came to be known as Anglo-Saxon. In the words of the chronicler, Angles and Saxons came from the East across the broad sea, they sought Britain.
[6:34]Proud warmongers overcame the strangers. The mighty Earls conquered the land, eager for glory.
[7:00]Britain had recently been abandoned by the Romans, leaving the Celtic inhabitants to look to their own defenses. Porchester was part of a defensive chain built by the Romanized Britons because of the growing frequency of Saxon attacks. So frequent that this coast came to be known as the Saxon Shore. Perhaps the most successful resistance to the Anglo-Saxons was mounted by one Artorius, the legendary King Arthur. But in the long run, the Anglo-Saxons were unstoppable. In the bloody wars that ensued, the native Britons were driven into the forests and hills of the West. There was so little cultural contact that English, which has borrowed from virtually everyone, took fewer than a dozen words from the original Britons. The final insult was that the Anglo-Saxons called the people they had conquered the Wailas, meaning foreigners, from which we get Wales.
[8:03]The names of Celtic rivers, Avon, Thames, and places like Kent and Dover have survived. And a few words for unfamiliar landscape features like coom for valley and crag for high rock were borrowed by the invaders.
[8:23]When the Anglo-Saxons invaded, the Celts fled in many directions, to Ireland, France, and to Wales.
[8:35]The Celtic Britons were also part of the Indo-European language tree. Echoes of their language are heard in modern Welsh.
[9:04]Jean Le Rou is a Breton-speaking onion seller from Brittany, who still makes an annual visit to Wales.
[9:18]Breton and Welshmen speak varieties descended from the same Celtic language.
[9:27]Even today these Celtic cousins still use words that are common to both languages.
[9:50]Another Celtic tradition is the making of coracles.
[10:02]Peter and Ronnie Davis prefer to discuss their ancient craft in Welsh, and when they speak English, it's with strong Welsh accents. My family's been fishing with coracles for about 300 years. Well, you just can't pick it up at once for somebody who doesn't know anything about it. It always turns around and goes around in circles. Well, the net we use, you see, has got rings across the top and a rope goes through them. So when the fish hits the back of the net, we just close the net, pull the rope and it closes, and the fish is in the bag then.
[11:04]When you've finished the shot you're doing, you can carry it back, and it's used because of the lightness of the craft to carry it back. But they're not making them all the time. I enjoy making them, that's all. I make a couple every year just to keep the tradition going of coracle.
[11:29]Celtic Wales was united with Anglo-Saxon England in the 16th century. Today the country is officially bilingual.
[11:48]This Celtic past influences the writing of Elined Phillips, twice winner of the Aistedfood crown for poetry.
[12:01]You can always tell when a Welshman is writing in English because of the flamboyance of their descriptions as a rule. I think that comes down from the Celt, because the old Celtic warriors used to go into battle not only with terror in their veins, but with with red hot waves of ecstasy. And I think that comes out clearly in the writing, in the, the Welsh English writing.
[12:38]For generations, the Celtic languages have been fighting for survival in France, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
[12:51]But that survival is threatened by English. Only 20% of the population now claim Welsh as a first language, and most of them live in the country.
[13:44]The Welsh language survives because more than a thousand years ago it was excluded by the Anglo-Saxons, who built this defensive ditch along what became the border between England and Wales.
[14:03]In England itself, the invaders settled into several kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia, Kent, and Wessex, dividing the country along accent lines, which survive to this day.
[14:26]It's the language of Wessex, the Kingdom of the West Saxons that is still studied today. Of course, we no longer speak Old English, and it's often taught like a foreign language. But when you listen to it spoken, it doesn't sound foreign, it sounds oddly familiar. Oh, there was a whale hunter. Oh, there was a whale hunter. He was a very wealthy man. He was a very wealthy man. He was one of the first men in that land. He was one of the first men in that land. In that land were Lapps. In that land were Lapps. In that land were Lapps. The Lapps were fishermen and bird catchers. The Lapps were fishermen and bird catchers. The Lapps were fishermen and bird catchers. But oh, there was a whale hunter. But oh, there was a whale hunter. But oh, there was a whale hunter. That land is Helgoland. That land is Helgoland. That land is Helgoland. With overtones of modern Dutch and English and especially German, Old English has familiar Germanic words like cunning for king and straw for speak. So Kunning Afford and will, the Augustina. And speak with him that that he there wander.
[15:56]The Old English for The King is Sir Kunning. Of the King is Thas Kunninges. To the King is Tham Kunninge. It's the endings which convey much of the grammar in an inflected language like Old English, not the prepositions. Take a simple Old English sentence like The King meets the Bishop. Sir Kunning meteth Thone Bishop. Here Sir Kunning is the subject of the sentence. Thone Bishop is the object. It's the form of the words, not word order, which give the sentence its meaning. In fact, if you change the word order, the meaning of the sentence remains the same. Thone Bishop meteth Sir Kunning still means The King meets the Bishop. Dr. Christopher Page of Oxford University has studied the music and poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. He points out that much of modern English comes from these first invaders. Many of the basic tools of our language, words like the, this, that, I, me, him, it, those are Anglo-Saxon words. Which means that although we've lost a lot of vocabulary, in any passage of English, the density of words of Anglo-Saxon origin is likely to be quite high. And it's possible to construct sentences without particularly trying hard to do so in which every word is of Anglo-Saxon origin. Page illustrates his point with a simple story of West Country life. Every single word you will hear is directly descended from Old English as Page's translation shows. The story is read for us by a Forest Ranger from the West Country, named Edwin George.
[18:07]Deep in the heart of the old Saxon kingdom of Mercia lies a small hamlet of Botnall. Deer and other game thrive in this wooded land. Or as they would have said in Old English. In the ham wooded land. I lived and worked here all my life. On live for me no earn. Towards the end of each year I have to kill some of the deer which feed on the leafy shoots and brambles at night. Only have for, and bramble on it. About 90% of our commonest words come from Old English, words like through, look, and slowly. Edwin's West Country accent also retains many echoes of Anglo-Saxon speech. He says buck for buck and he sounds his Rs. Before the sun is high, I walk by fields and meadows, where horses, cows and sheep sometimes graze. I go into Wimbledon Woods, fall Dolesbrook, and find the deer. I follow them up a hill. I walk very slowly now so as not to frighten the game. And look out across a glade. Carefully sighting a buck.
[19:50]I shoot. The buck falls to the ground. There will be a great deal of meat for my wife and children today.
[25:28]The power of English to stand up to invasion, war, and social upheaval faced the supreme test in 1066. Harold Godwinson was to be the last English-speaking king for nearly 300 years.
[25:50]The third and most famous invasion in this story began in France. Duke William of Normandy assembled a fleet and launched his forces across the channel. In the words of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, then William Earl of Normandy came to Pevensey.
[26:15]Harold the King gathered then a great army. William came against him unawares before his people were assembled.
[26:39]There was slain King Harold and many good men, and the French wielded power over that place of slaughter.
[27:00]The word castle comes from French, and this was now the language spoken by the Norman knights in their English strongholds. As one chronicler put it, when England fell into Norman hands, they spoke French as they did at home.
[27:29]These twin traditions, Saxon and Norman, have given us a vocabulary at least twice as large as French, Spanish, Italian, or German. So anyone who writes and speaks in English has a vast menu of words to choose from.
