Abstract
In the fourth chapter of Mother Tongue (Penguin 31/10/1991), "The First Thousand years", Bill Bryson highlights the history of the development of the English tongue. In a small area of northern Germany, the country language is very closed to the Old English. This place was indeed the former seat of the Angles, a Germanic tribe which went to Britain 1,500 years ago. Similarly, in a small corner of northern Holland and western Germany exists a dialect, the Frisian, which looks very like English. In fact, this dialect corresponds to the old German, which has been very little altered by time.
In about A.D. 450, the Angles, Frisian, Saxons and Jutes moved from Germany, after the withdrawal of Roman troops from Britain. They set up in different parts of Britain, establishing seven small kingdoms and bringing divergences in speech. The Saxons became the dominant group. The Angles and Jutes disappeared, even if the new nation has been named "England" and its language "English". There is not any testimony available of this time because the Anglo-Saxons were illiterate. They used a runic alphabet but not as a way of communicating. The first trace of a written sentence dated from between A.D. 450 and 480. The Anglo-Saxons were also pagan and their gods gave the name to the days of the week.
