The Anglo-Saxons arrived in the British shores as permanent settlers in the 5th century. They encountered native Britons who spoke Latin and Celtic languages. The two groups soon fought for control of the region we know today as England. We explore this period of ‘lost’ history by examining the few pieces of written and archaeological evidence which survive.
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30,000 in 300 acres? That’s really dense.
*30,000 people living within 300 acres in Londinium seems really dense.
Hi John. It has been quite a long time since I researched this episode, so I don’t have my sources for those numbers. Here is a link to demographia.com which shows the population of London over time:
http://www.demographia.com/dm-lon31.htm
There was a general decrease in the population during the late Roman period, and the population didn’t reach that level again until the post-Norman period. But you are correct, the population density during the Roman period must have been quite significant.
Hi Kevin! Don’t know if you look into this later on but, from my understanding, the Cornish are doing their best to re-introduce their language, much like was done with Welsh recently. Might be something interesting to look up more about… Love the podcast!
Regarding the Jutes, the place where I live, the New Forest, was known well into late medieval times as Ytene. This is believed to be the area referred to by Bede as “opposite the Isle of Wight”. http://newforestcommoner.co.uk/2014/04/22/new-forest-the-importance-of-names/
Re the naming of the invaders. You are probably aware that the English are referred to as “Saeson” by us Welsh and their language is “Saesneg”.
So no change there.
The Breton language is very close to Cymraeg and is reasonably easily understood by us, in it’s written form at least. My one attempt to speak to a Breton guy involved a lot of French and English words but given time I believe it would have been fruitful.
Thanks for the podcast
Diolch am y podlediad.
Ian
In case you ever go back and fix these things, at around 29’10” there’s a slight slip where you say the Saxons were conquered by the Britons.
I’m loving this podcast, dude. It’s a work of exceptional quality. ?
Thanks for the note.
I’m a latecomer to this party. Kevin your podcasts have greatly increased my running distances as I float along in a linguistic trance.
Just a point on episode 29 – re the 2 unique oddities of English usage , in particular the present continuous (” I am writing this”). In fact this also happens in Italian and Spanish eg Sto guardando ( It.” I am looking” )using the same combination of to be and the gerund.
Amending my own posting on a technicality!
It should be ..combination of ” to be” and a Present Participle.