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

language.

This is episode 26, Imperial Crisis and the Gods.

This time we're going to explore a period of Roman history which is sometimes called

the Imperial Crisis.

And this period coincides with the rise of a group of Germanic tribes who invaded Rome

during the same time frame.

And these tribes included the ancient gods.

And the gods are particularly important to us because they were the first Germanic tribe

to provide us with a detailed written account of their own language.

And that makes their language very important in the overall context of the Germanic languages.

But before I begin, let me note that this episode turned out a little longer than usual,

and that's part of the reason for the delay in getting it to you.

But rather than break it into two separate episodes, I've decided to present it to you

in one part.

And that's because the overall subject matter relates to events that were taking place

at the same time around the third and the fourth centuries.

By this point in history, the original common Germanic language had begun to fracture into

various regional dialects.

And for the first time in recorded history, we have references to the Saxons.

So by now, we can safely assume that the earliest Saxon dialects were being spoken in and

around northern Germany.

...