АКЦИЯ!!!

INTRODUCTION When did English begin? The question is often asked, but the answer is surprisingly dull. The standard view is that English began when the Anglo-Saxons began to settle in Britain. Who, then, were the Anglo-Saxons? Where did they come from? And when did they come to Britain? From the accounts of Roman historians, especially Tacitus, we know that Germanic tribes had spread over northern Europe by the time of Christ. Such tribes did not form any unified confederation. Rather, they seemed to have been organized on a small group basis. Before the fifth century, the spread of these tribes did not include any part of Britain. Until AD 410 most of Britain had been under Roman control, although the native inhabitants were Celts, speaking various forms of Celtic, which give us present-day Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and (in Brittany) Breton, as well as the now-dead languages Cornish and Manx. No doubt many Celts also spoke Latin, the language of the Roman Empire.