If English people are more Celtic than Germanic why don't they speak a Celtic language anymore?

Question

Does anyone know why when did people in what is now England stop speaking a Celtic language if English people are more Celtic than Germanic how come they speak a Germanic language instead of a Celtic language the Scottish the Welsh and the Irish still speak a Celtic language as well their national language which is Germanic i'm just wondering why English people don't speak a Celtic language as well as a Germanic language their national language is Germanic how come they don't speak both a Celtic language and a Germanic language like the Scottish the Welsh and the Irish do.

Answer 1

First of all, the majority of English have not been Celts since the 500's. The Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic tribes pushed the Celts to the western parts of what is now "Great Britain" in the 400-500's. As with any conquering group, the Germanic tribes forced their language onto the conquered peoples. Only in outlying areas did people retain their original Celtic language and customs. People in towns and most of the country started speaking Germanic languages.



When Alfred the Great started unifying parts of England, his area's dominant dialect became the standard English. The "German-ness" of English became further entrenched when the Norsemen came into England in the 800-900's, dominated many areas, and added words from their dialect to form Old English.



This process happens everywhere: why do you think English is an official language in India? Here's a list of countries where English is the/an official language; they are all over the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_official_language

Answer 2

Leaving the genetics aside for a minute, let's turn to archaeology. Where did the earliest settlers come from? The biggest likelihood for post ice age resettlement of Britain would be from the Spanish mountains which provided the nearest refuge. Once the ice receded people swarmed up what is now the western seaboard,chasing the big game; their genes are spread from Iberia to Norway, but are particularly strong in Britain,particularly the Welsh and Cornish and in ireland. Later, neolithic farmers came up the same route, from the mediterranean areas, with the Iberia and Brittany (France) trade routes being their 'jumping point' into Britain and Ireland.We have VERY good evidence of this--similarities of monuments and culture (megalithic tombs/art/even Stonehenge may have breton features), daggers of Spanish copper, even,with new testing methods, actual skeletons of people who came from Brittany and Iberia. Why does it seem so odd to some folk that these early settlers' genes would still be most prevalent today? It makes perfect sense because they were not a large group at the time and this would cause the same genetic markers to flood the extant population and spread.By the time the Saxons arrived the 'natives', plus bronze age beaker folk and a few continental celtic tribes (very few--there's no evidence of huge Iron age celtic migrations into Britain either) had swelled from a population of a few thousand to three million--do you really think it is possible to eradicate that many people with no physical evidence? And taking into account the number of Saxons was somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 (including women/children.) Anyway, as it happens most Europeans descend from one of 9 different women (with only 7 groups being very common), so all of us, celt, saxon,norseman,Italian etc share a close ancestry if you go back 15-20 thousand years or so!

Answer 3

There could be two reasons. The Belgae,an influential celtic tribe in England,possibly may have actually spoken a germanic tongue. Second, before the saxons came, England was Romanised, and some scholars think a considerable amount of people had adopted Latin as their language.Old English is closer to Latin than any difficult celtic language.With the saxons as a ruling aristocracy they would define what would be the language of trade and commerce.

remember when the Normans came, Norman french became the official language of court and law. Although the average Englishman didn't speak it, even so many French words were adopted into English,changing it forever.

In the celtic areas even though the old languages are still spoken, it has taken some effort to keep them alive. Not all people there speak them, but all speak English...though they are still celtic.

Answer 4

Cultural domination and apartheid.



The only parts of England that are more 'Anglo Saxon' than the rest are the east and south east, the English are mainly descended from the Briton tribes that were in England.



Language can be very easily destroyed, Wales and Cornwall at one point nearly stopped speaking their Celtic languages completely, but a celtic revival helped boost them back, it is no wonder that an army of Germanic invaders could easily force their way of life onto them.



You might already have seen the DNA results and analysis from England proving similar genetics to the Welsh, but back to the language...



Well, there are indeed some parts of England that clearly have celtic language history - there was evidence of a Devon (Dewdansek) Cornish (Kernow) and even a Cumbrian langauge (Cumbria is a large county in the North of England).



There is also complete lack of Archaelogical evidence for mass ethnic cleansing from the Anglo Saxons, it is expected that 2 million Britons would be slaughtered, however - no documents, no mass burial grounds, no nothing.



Bear in mind that English is a language that has been heavily 'Latinised', and also has various Viking origin words, indeed if you went back 1100 years and tried to speak modern English to the inhabitats at the time, you and they would not understand a word one another was speaking.



Ireland Scotland and Wales were never heavily invaded by Germanic tribes, although it is clear that some Irish settlement names and words have some norse orgin.



As for Scotland - there was a point that Scottich gaelic was almost a lost language but thakfully never truly died out.



The reason why England could not try to revive their old celtic language is because they would have no idea what it would have sounded like, in honesty, Welsh probably sounds nothing like what the celtic tribes would have spoken, various Celtic (Brythonik) tribes spoke several various dialects of the language, there is even more reason to believe this because of the difference (and similarities of course) between Cumbric, Devonian Cornish and Welsh. You may also see that Gaelic and Brythonik are completely miles apart in terms of language structure.

Answer 5

Because the bulk of England proper was occupied and dominated by various continental European powers, while the fringes like Ireland, Wales, and Scotland were spared most of this.



The fringes were able to keep their native languages, while main of England gradually adopted and melded the various other occupiers' Germanic based languages into what is known today as "English"

Answer 6

Speaking a language doesn't mean anything...



Alot of French , if not most of them are ethnically Celts.