What is the real origins of the English language?

The real origin of the English language is German. The Germanic languages are those that are most closely related to English. In 449 AD, the first permanent tribes setting in Britain. These tribes gave themselves the name of “Jutes.” The Jutes were on of the three most powerful tribes of the Nordic Iron Age. The other two were the Saxons and the Angles. The leaders of the Jutes were Hengist and Horsa. Six years after landing on the Isle of Thanet, the Jutes established Germanic peoples are an Indo-European Ethno Linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages. The term Germanic originated out of classical times, when tribes were living in Upper, Lower, and Greater Germany. It was the Roman authors who first referred to these people as German. The Romans did not base their terms on languages, but on the physical characteristics of the people. The Romans considered these tribes less civilized.

The second settlement of invaders into Britain was in 477 AD. A group of invaders from Northern Germany made a second settlement in Sussex. These were the Saxons, and their leader was Ella. Sometimes, his name is spelled Aelle. According to the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Aelle and three of his sons landed at a place called Cymensora and fought against the local Britons. The Britons were an ancient Celtic people who lived in Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Roman and Sub-Roman periods. They spoke a language that is now called Common Brittonic. The Saxons defeated the Britons in 491. Aelle held Lordship over the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. Sussex was a Kingdom of South Saxon on the south coast of England. Some archaeologists believe that some Germanic tribes may have settled in Britain before 477 AD. Archaeological evidence includes grave goods and potter with the designs of similar items in the German homelands.

The third invasion into Britain was in 495 AD, also from northern Germany. These invaders landed on the coast of Hampshire. These invading tribes were also Saxons. They established the Kingdom of Wessex. Their leader was Cerdic. Cerdic reigned as King of the Anglo-Saxons from 519 to 534 AD. Cerdic landed in Hampshire in 495 with his son Cynric in five ships. He fought a Brythonic King named Natan Leod. Cerdic killed the King thirteen years later in 508. Natan Leod ruled over an area that is now known as Netley Marsh in Hampshire. Cerdic was the conqueror of the Isle of Wight. It was later given to his kinsmen, Stuf and Wihtgar. Cerdic died in 534 and was succeeded by his son Cynric. Descent from Cerdic became a necessary criterion for late Kings of Wessex. Egbert of Wessex and Progenitors of the English Royal House claim him as an ancestor. Ironically, the name Cerdic is of Brittonic origins and not Germanic.

Cissa was one of the three sons of Aelle and one of the invasion forces that landed at Cymensora in AD 477. Most of the information that have about these invasions comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which is a series of journals written in Old English. Alfred the Great commissioned the texts. One of the main purposes of the texts was to provide genealogies of the West Saxon Kings. The city of Chichester is named after Cissa. Sussex is a historic county in the south east of England. Archaeological evidence does show that Saxons began settling Britain in the 5th Century. The Saxons were an old Germanic tribe first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, which used to be called Old Saxony. Significant numbers of the Saxons invaded and settled Britain in the Early Middle Ages. many Saxons did remain in Germania under the leadership of Widukind.

In 547 AD, a tribe of Angles invaded the southeastern counties of Scotland. The Schwentine is a river in Northern Germany, The Angles were said to come from this region. The Angles were one of the major groups to invade and settle Britain. They found several of the Kingdoms of Anglo Saxon England. Their name is the root for our word England. The name comes from the District of Angeln, an area located on the Baltic shore of what is now Schleswig-Holstein, the most northern state in Germany. The earliest mention of the Angles was in Tacitus’s Germania. Tacitus said that the Angles were one of the remote Suebic tribes who lived on the Elbe River. These tribes were well known to the Romans. These tribes lived behind rivers and woods and were less accessible to attack. These tribes worshipped Nerthus, Mother Earth. Most historians believe that the Angles lived on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Widukind was a Germanic leader of the Saxons and the chief opponent to the Frankish King Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 777 to 785. Charlemagne ultimately prevailed, organized Saxony as a Frankish province and ordered conversions of the Pagan Saxons to Roman Catholicism. Widukind would become a Saxon legend based on Saxon independence. Widukind’s name means “child of the wood.” The Franks saw him as an insurgent and a traitor. How he campaigned as a Saxon military leader is unknown. In AD 772, the Franks fought Saxony. Charlemagne ordered the destruction of the Irminsul Sanctuary. An Irminsul was a pillar that played an important role in Germanic Paganism as practiced by the Saxon people. The Saxon Wars continued when Westphalian tribes devastated the church of Deventer and Angrarii laid siege to the Frankish siege of Fritzlar. The King retaliated against the local nobility, enforcing the consent to incorporat Saxon lands.

There is direct evidence that Germanic tribes inhabited England prior to AD 447. Marcus Antoninus transplanted many Germans to Britain. Out of the numerous tribes and nations of Germany, three have been mentioned the most as settling Britain: Jutes, Saxons, and Angles.