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The first languages we know about in the British Isles are the Celtic ones like Welsh and Scottish Gaelic.
These people probably settled here about
600BC, that is more than 2500 years ago. -
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In 55BC there was an invasion by the Romans who spoke Latin.
They gave Latin names to places and some of these names are still used today. -
The first people who spoke English
conquered England in about the Year 450.
These people were known as Anglo-Saxon
and their language is also often called
Anglo-Saxon or Old English. -
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From about 800 the Vikings started to invade Britain.
The Vikings came from countries like Denmark and
Norway and spoke a language which later developed
into Norwegian and Danish -
In 1066 Normans invaded England from Normandy in France.
They spoke an earlier version of French and this became the high status language in England. -
Books have been written in English since the 9th century, but it was with the introduction of the printing press by Thomas Caxton in 1476 that publishing really took off.
With the printing also came an interest
in a standard way of writing English. -
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