Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages history of the Germanic languages but discusses the Finnic languages, Romance languages and Celtic languages extensively. Compared with other academic studies in historical linguistics, it is written in a usually plain and accessible style. Chapter 2, 'The Rise of English', focuses on the much debated question of whether English, and particularly Old English, shows any sign of contact between the West Germanic-speaking immigrants who became the Anglo-Saxons and the speakers of British Celtic and Latin whom these immigrants encountered during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain around the fifth century CE. The chapter argues that Middle English betrays the belated appearance
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.