Anglo Saxon Language

AngloSaxonLanguage has now evolved into EnglishLanguage. The old form is now an extinct GermanicLanguage, which resembles an ancient language much more closely than modern English does - an inflected language with noun declensions and complex verb conjugations, much like Latin.

Some words have survived and evolved into modern English words, but others were replaced with foreign words during the conquests of England.

After the Norman conquest, England took on many old French words and features, and became Middle English. Middle English, in turn, became modern English by standardizing its spelling, and by taking on an onslaught of loanwords and neologisms that continues to this day.

However, English uses the Latin alphabet - Anglo-Saxons were barbarians and did not have a written language. They and the Vikings invaders (about 600-1066) "borrowed" the alphabet from the Britons which, although Celtic as most of the European mainland, used Latin in government, law, and most common forms of communications taken from the 400 years plus they were a Roman province (40 - 400+). The Anglo-Saxon and, later, Viking started their own process of civilizing, by adopting the Roman ways from the Britons, such as using the Latin alphabet to make their language written to be able to communicate without "having to be there" as some of the Germanic barbarians put it. Furthermore more than 60% of English words are Latin, as well as basic grammar rules since the Germanic people obviously did not have any uniform system - each small "clan/tribe" would use different speaking rules. Also, English can be compared to the so-called RomanceLanguages - Spanish, French, German, etc. - in that it is a combination of Latin and a barbarian language. Spain is Latin and Visigoth, French is Latin and mainly Frankish, German is Latin and a combination of Alemany, and others (Suevi, Alanni, etc.) and although declensions are not prevalent in these languages (perhaps more in German today than in the others) the consideration of being called "Latin" languages should also be applicable to English and German.

Find computer terms in Anglo-Saxon here: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ctb/wordhord.html.

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