Grammar girl here. I'm in yon Fog Fog Fog your friendly guide to the English

language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. After I recently mentioned that I was

surprised when I learned that French was the official language of England for hundreds of years,

Stephen Bell on Mastodon asked if I'd ever done a show on the topic and I had not.

No idea why because it's a great topic so I'll do it today.

Thanks for asking Stephen.

But before we get started I have an announcement for the people

who normally listen to the show using Google Podcasts. That service is shutting down

soon. So if you want to keep listening and I hope you do, you can find Grammar Girl on all the other

podcasting platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Cast Box, Overcast, Pocketcasts,

Samsung Podcasts, YouTube, and more.

So don't despair.

And don't let Google stop you from listening to podcasts.

Find another podcast home and search for Grammar Girl.

The story of English starts way back in the 5th century

after the end of the Roman Empire when the indigenous

Celts who lived in Great Britain were losing a war and invited three Germanic

tribes to come to their land to help. The Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes.

But after they drove out the aggressors, these warriors decided, hey, this place is kind of nice,

and the Celts are pretty weak.

Let's just take it for ourselves.

Now, I'm not quite sure what happened to the Jutes,

...