The Germanic settlers in the British Isles initially spoke a number of different dialects, which would develop into a language that came to be called Anglo-Saxon. It displaced the indigenous Brittonic Celtic (and the Latin of the former Roman rulers) in parts of the areas of Britain that later formed the Kingdom of England, while Celtic languages remained in most of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, and many compound Celtic-Germanic place names survive, hinting at early language mixing. [8] Old English continued to exhibit local variation, the remnants of which continue to be found in dialects of Modern English. [9] The four main dialects were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon; the last of these formed the basis for the literary standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop mainly from Mercian. Ormston, Rachel; Curtice, John (December 2010). "Resentment or contentment? Attitudes towards the Union ten years on" (PDF). National Centre for Social Research. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2011 . Retrieved 9 February 2011. Fresh call for English Parliament". BBC News. 24 October 2006. Archived from the original on 18 August 2012 . Retrieved 9 February 2011.

After the Norman conquest in 1066, Old English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (also known as Anglo-Norman French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. The conquering Normans spoke a Romance langue d'oïl called Old Norman, which in Britain developed into Anglo-Norman. Many Norman and French loanwords entered the local language in this period, especially in vocabulary related to the church, the court system and the government. As Normans are descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was influenced by Old Norse, and many Norse loanwords in English came directly from French. Middle English was spoken to the late 15th century. The system of orthography that was established during the Middle English period is largely still in use today. Later changes in pronunciation, however, combined with the adoption of various foreign spellings, mean that the spelling of modern English words appears highly irregular. Gretzinger; Sayer; Justeau; etal. (21 September 2022). "The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool". Nature. 610 (7930): 112–119. Bibcode: 2022Natur.610..112G. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2. PMC 9534755. PMID 36131019. The English language changed enormously during the Middle English period, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and in grammar. While Old English is a heavily inflected language ( synthetic), the use of grammatical endings diminished in Middle English ( analytic). Grammar distinctions were lost as many noun and adjective endings were levelled to -e. The older plural noun marker -en (retained in a few cases such as children and oxen) largely gave way to -s, and grammatical gender was discarded. Definite article þe appears around 1200, later spelled as the, first appearing in East and North England as a substitute for Old English se and seo, nominative forms of "that." [26] Roberts is eloquent on the great moments of courage and defiance by Presidents and Prime Ministers and by many other now forgotten men - except for Margaret Thatcher, there is scarcely a woman mentioned - in the desperate circumstances of his grand narrative.The exact nature of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and their relationship with the Romano-British is a matter of debate. The traditional view is that a mass invasion by various Anglo-Saxon tribes largely displaced the indigenous British population in southern and eastern Great Britain (modern-day England with the exception of Cornwall). This is supported by the writings of Gildas, who gives the only contemporary historical account of the period, and describes the slaughter and starvation of native Britons by invading tribes ( aduentus Saxonum). [55] Furthermore, the English language contains no more than a handful of words borrowed from Brittonic sources. [56] Over the last 1,200 years or so, English has undergone extensive changes in its vowel system, but many fewer changes to its consonants. It is unclear how many British people consider themselves English. The words "English" and "British" are often incorrectly used interchangeably, especially outside the UK. In his study of English identity, Krishan Kumar describes a common slip of the tongue in which people say "English, I mean British". He notes that this slip is normally made only by the English themselves and by foreigners: "Non-English members of the United Kingdom rarely say 'British' when they mean 'English'". Kumar suggests that although this blurring is a sign of England's dominant position with the UK, it is also "problematic for the English [...] when it comes to conceiving of their national identity. It tells of the difficulty that most English people have of distinguishing themselves, in a collective way, from the other inhabitants of the British Isles". [35]

Hazell, Robert (2006). "The English Question". Publius. 36 (1): 37–56. doi: 10.1093/publius/pjj012. Book Genre: American History, British Literature, Classics, European History, European Literature, Historical, History, Medieval, Nonfiction, North American Hi…, Politics, World HistoryDutch Beakers: Like no other Beakers". 19 January 2019. Archived from the original on 12 May 2021 . Retrieved 21 February 2022. Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 36.