Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English

language.

This is episode 19, The Romanization of Britain.

In this episode, I'm going to look at the emergence of the Roman Empire following the

death of Julius Caesar, and then I'm going to look at what happened when the Romans decided

to make another attempt to conquer Britain.

As you probably already know, the Romans had more luck this second time around.

Britain finally became part of the Roman Empire, at least part of it did, and so I'm going

to explore how Roman economics and culture began to transform Celtic Britain into a new

Romanized Britain.

And along the way, I'll look at how modern English reflects some of these changes.

So this episode will focus on the early period of the Roman Empire and the Roman occupation

of Britain.

As for the end of the Roman Empire, at least in Western Europe, that part of the story

is closely associated with the rise of the Germanic tribes to the north.

And so next time, I'm going to begin looking at those Germanic tribes in detail.

And I've intentionally delayed any detailed discussion of those tribes up to this point.

But after this episode, we'll be ready to look at the ultimate Germanic roots of English.

But let me note that Latin will continue to be an integral part of the story of English.

So we won't be leaving Latin behind, not by any means.

But the overall focus will shift across the Rhine next time into Germany and the Germanic

tribes.

...