British English English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who conquered and colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These
Anglo-Norman language has been spelled as "s'uvisera" and "s'advisera", and "Reyne" as "Raine". Among important writers of the Anglo-Norman cultural commonwealth is Marie de France. Much of the earliest recorded French is in fact Anglo-Norman French. In Northern France, almost nothing was at that time being recorded in the vernacular because Latin was the language of the Church and consequently of education and historiography, and was thus used for the purpose of records. Latin also remained in use in medieval England by the Church, the royal government and much local administration, as it had been before 1066, in parallel with Middle English.