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The first languages are the Celtic ones like Welsh and Scottish Gaelic.
These people settled the British Isles about
600 BC. That is more than 2500 years ago! Vocab: to settle -
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
arrived in England in about the year 450.
These people were the Anglo-Saxons
and their language was Old English. -
From about 800, the Vikings started to invade Britain.
The Vikings came from countries like Denmark and
Norway and spoke a language that developed
into Norwegian and Danish Vocab:
to invade
to develop -
In 1066, the Normans invaded England from Normandy in France.
They spoke an earlier version of French and this became the language of prestige in England. -
There were no more invasions of England. English became more important than French. A number of books were published in Middle English.
The most famous is a book of stories called
The Canterbury Tales (1400) by Geoffrey Chaucer. -
There are many important authors in Modern English, but one of the most famous writers is William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616). Do you know any other writers from
the British Isles?