Speaking like an Anglo Saxon

When the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came to the shores of Britain they were speaking a language called old English that is close to Old German – the language that evolved back in their homelands. 16 centuries later modern English has evolved through the impact of invasion, religion  and time. Following the coming of the Augustine mission in the late 6th century Latin came into use in the churches and monasteries that sprang up. This had  a major impact on the terms and phrases used to talk about churches services whilst the common day to day life still went on in Old English. In the 9th and 10th centuries it was the mixing in of Norse as a result of the Viking invasions and settlements that brought many new words along.  A century or two later the Normans invaded bringing the French language with them. The language was used by the ruling classes and for pretty much all legal goings on. The blending of Old English and French brought us Middle English, the language of Chaucer. Middle English continued to evolve over the centuries to Modern English.

So after all this time is there much left of Old English? Well the answer is more than you might think.

Although pretty much all our technical words come from Latin, Greek or French  the common words that we all us every day and make up the bulk of the words in a sentence can be traced back to Old English.  Of course over that time words order and sentence structure has altered. We no longer use cases much in English. Never the less we can list many words that come from that distant time.