Foreign language influences in English Foreign language influences in English The core of English language descends from Old English, the language brought with the Angles, Saxon, and Jutish settlers to what was to be called England in and after the 500s. The bulk of the language in spoken and written texts is from this source. As a statistical rule, around 70 percent of words in any text are Anglo-Saxon. Moreover, the grammar is largely Anglo-Saxon. A significant portion of the English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources. Estimates of native words (derived from Old English) range from 20%–33%, with the rest made up of
Anglo-Saxon art often needed to see the excavated and worn remains that survive as they once were. Perhaps the best known piece of Anglo-Saxon art is the Bayeux Tapestry which was commissioned by a Norman patron from English artists working in the traditional Anglo-Saxon style. Anglo-Saxon artists also worked in fresco, stone, ivory and whalebone (notably the Franks Casket), metalwork (for example the Fuller brooch), glass and enamel, many examples of which have been recovered through archaeological excavation and some of which have simply been preserved over the centuries, especially in churches on the Continent, as the Vikings, Normans and Reformation iconoclasm