Old English Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as during this period the English language
Anglo-Norman language (corporation), (court)). Place-names in Norman are few, but there is Buttevant (from the motto of the Barry family: , "Push to the Fore"), the village of Brittas (from the Norman , "boarding, planking") and the element "Pallas" (Irish , from Norman , "boundary fence": compare palisade, The Pale). Others exist with English or Irish roots, such as Castletownroche, which combines the English "Castletown" and the Norman , meaning rock. Only a handful of Hiberno-Norman-French texts survive, most notably the "The Song of Dermot and the Earl" (early 13th century) and the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366). Anglo-Norman language Anglo-Norman, also known