Book contents
- The Long Journey of English
- The Long Journey of English
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue: A View from the Birthplace
- 1 Where It All Started: The Language Which Became English
- 2 The Journey Begins: The First Movement South
- 3 Interlude: A View from the Celtic Island
- 4 Heading West Again: The North Sea Crossing, 400–600
- 5 Anglo-Saxons and Celts in the British Highlands, 600–800
- 6 And Further West: Across the Irish Sea, 800–1200
- 7 Atlantic Crossing: On to the Americas, 1600–1800
- 8 Onwards to the Pacific Shore
- 9 Across the Equator: Into the Southern Hemisphere, 1800–1900
- 10 Some Turning Back: English in Retreat
- 11 Meanwhile … Britain and the British Isles from 1600
- 12 Transcultural Diffusion: The New Native Englishes
- Epilogue: Sixteen Hundred Years On
- References
- Index
- References
4 - Heading West Again: The North Sea Crossing, 400–600
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2023
Book contents
- The Long Journey of English
- The Long Journey of English
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Prologue: A View from the Birthplace
- 1 Where It All Started: The Language Which Became English
- 2 The Journey Begins: The First Movement South
- 3 Interlude: A View from the Celtic Island
- 4 Heading West Again: The North Sea Crossing, 400–600
- 5 Anglo-Saxons and Celts in the British Highlands, 600–800
- 6 And Further West: Across the Irish Sea, 800–1200
- 7 Atlantic Crossing: On to the Americas, 1600–1800
- 8 Onwards to the Pacific Shore
- 9 Across the Equator: Into the Southern Hemisphere, 1800–1900
- 10 Some Turning Back: English in Retreat
- 11 Meanwhile … Britain and the British Isles from 1600
- 12 Transcultural Diffusion: The New Native Englishes
- Epilogue: Sixteen Hundred Years On
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
During the late AD 300s and early AD 400s, 1,000 years after the arrival of Germanic-speaking tribes on the eastern shores of the North Sea and 300 years after the arrival of the Romans in Britain, boatloads of West Germanic people started crossing the North Sea to the eastern shores of Britain. Some arrivals had almost certainly come well before that, because the Romans had been employing Germanic mercenaries in their garrisons in Britain since the second century AD. These Germanic people were mostly members of the tribal groupings that we now refer to as the Jutes, Angles, Saxons and Frisians.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Long Journey of EnglishA Geographical History of the Language, pp. 42 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
References
Further Reading
Higham, Nicholas, & Ryan, Martin. 2013. The Anglo-Saxon world. London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Holman, Katherine. 2007. The Northern Conquest: Vikings in Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Signal Books.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Hans Frede. 1998. The continental backgrounds of English and its insular development until 1154. Odense: Odense University Press.Google Scholar