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

This is episode 30, the Celtic Legacy.

In this episode, we're going to explore the impact of the Celtic languages on modern

English, and we're going to look at the ultimate fate of the native Britons when they encounter

the English accents.

Now this may seem like a straightforward topic, but actually it's a topic that's perplexed

historians for centuries.

The true legacy of the Celts in Anglo-Saxon England is still the subject of much debate.

So I'll try to put the pieces together for you as best I can to determine how much modern

English owes to those original Celtic Britons.

Now last time, we looked at the actual evidence from the period of the Anglo-Saxon invasion

to try to determine what happened between the years 410 and 600.

Now that two-century period marks the time during which the Anglo-Saxon's conquered

much of the area we know today is England, and based upon that evidence and the accounts

of later writers, a very general view emerged.

And that view was that an Anglo-Saxon onslaught began some time around the year 450, give

or take a few years, and over the next few decades the Anglo-Saxon's conquered much

of the region of Eastern Britain, and in the process, the native Romano-Britons and

Celtic Britons were either killed or displaced.

The result was the complete Anglo-Saxon dominance and control over Eastern Britain.

And then the Anglo-Saxons began to move westward, expanding their territory, but sometime

around the year 500, the native Britons began to piece together some significant victories

...