History of English History of English English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon settlers from what is now northwest Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands, displacing the Celtic languages that previously predominated. The Old English of the Anglo-Saxon era developed into Middle English, which was spoken from the Norman Conquest era to the late 15th century. A significant influence on the shaping of Middle English came from contact with the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavians who conquered and colonized parts of Britain during the
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