The Formation of English

How was English formed?

English is not an ancient language like Greek or Hebrew.  It did not evolve from the original language of the original inhabitants of modern England.  Rather English was formed from a variety of foreign languages through a process that took over eight hundred years.

It all started with the Romans. 

The Romans first invaded Britain in 55 BC during their conquest of the Gauls in modern France, but they did not stay.

Then in 43 AD, the Romans returned and conquered the eastern two-thirds of modern England to form Roman Britain.  They built Londonium (London) at this time.  They also brought in the Latin language, which was not related to the Celtic language called British, that was spoken by the natives.

Christian missionaries came to the Roman Britain as early as 54 AD.  They began writing documents in a dialect of Latin influenced by Celtic British called British Latin.

Not long after that, the Romans encountered the Anglos, the Saxons, the Jutes, and the Frisians.

These tribes had their original homeland between the Roman Empire and the North Sea.  They spoke West Germanic languages.  Collectively they are called Anglo-Saxons, after the two largest groups.

According to Jerome, the Galatians and the people of Roman Germany spoke the same language.

So, Galatian or Roman German missionaries appear to have created a written language for the West Germanic tribes, based on the Old Latin used in the Vetus Latina, which contained the Gospels.  This  writing system is called Runic writing.

These missionaries could have easily taught the West Germanic tribes that bordered the Roman Empire to read this written language.  This Runic writing could have spread from there.

These missionaries might have also taught this written language to mercenaries from these West Germanic tribes hired by the Romans.  These mercenaries could have brought this writing system back with them to their homelands.

The Anglo-Saxons wrote their languages in Runic form like other Germanic tribes. The Germanic tribes had no written language prior to 150 AD. 

Eventually, the Romans introduced the Anglos to Roman Britain.  By this time, Celtic Christianity was already entrenched in Roman Britain and spreading among the Celtic people that bordered Roman Britain.

The Celtic British speakers called the West Germanic language of the Anglos, "Anglish" (English).

In 382 AD, Jerome began creating a translation of the entire Book of Truth (The Bible) in Latin.  This translation was called the Latin Vulgate, because it was written in the everyday Latin spoken by the common people, who were called "vulgar", by speakers of classical Latin.   He began with translating the Vetus Latina from Old Latin.

In 385 AD, persecution for his translation work forced Jerome to flee Rome and move to Bethlehem.  He continued working on his translation there, having access to many more source documents, including Hebrew copies of the entire Original Covenant (Tanakh aka The Old Testament) and Greek copies of the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka The New Testament).

According to Gildas the Wise, mercenary Saxons were first invited by a Roman treaty to settle in land in the east part of Roman Britain and to be given a stated amount of supplies, including food, in exchange for defending the British against the Picts and the Scoti (Scots) around 400 AD.

The Venerable Bede explains that the mercenary Saxons were really a mix of people from three different Germanic tribes - the Saxons, the Anglos, and the Jutes.  This mixed group, and the Frisians who came later, are collectively called the Anglo-Saxons, because the majority were either Anglos or Saxons.

Even though Christianity was well established in Roman Britain by this time, these Anglo-Saxons still worshiped the same deities as the most of the Celtic people outside of the Roman Empire.

Jerome finished his translation in 405 AD.  Soon, some the Children of Truth who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, returned to Roman Britain with copies of the Latin Vulgate.

Then Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 AD.

The Romans left Roman Britain in 411 AD, following the sack of Rome, according to Procopius.  At this time, the main languages were Celtic British and British Latin.

This led to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

According to Gildas, as soon as the Romans left off collecting taxes, the British quit supplying the agreed amount of food to the Anglo-Saxons.  So, the Anglo-Saxons sailed back to their homeland, only to return with an invading force.

Also, according to Gildas, wicked British kings ruled parts of former Roman Britain and had turned away from Christianity, after the Romans left.  He relates that the Anglo-Saxons were divine judgment upon those kings, only taking over their kingdoms, not all of modern England.

According to Bede, many Saxons, Anglos, and Jutes began immigrating to former Roman Britain at this time.  They spoke different, but closely related West German languages.

In fact, the Anglos almost completely abandoned their homeland and became the largest group of the invaders. The descendants of the remnant of the Anglos who did not migrate, still live in the area of Anglia, the land of the Anglos, along the northern coast of modern Germany.

The first of these West Germanic tribes to create a kingdom in former Roman Britain was the Jutes.  Their kingdom was called the Kingdom of Kent.

The British Children of Truth had little success in their efforts to bring the Good News to the Anglo-Saxons during this time.  

However, Saint Patrick, a speaker of Celtic British and British Latin, went to northern Ireland to take the Good News to the Celtic people there in 432 AD.  His arrival was more than just the luck of the Irish.

According to the Chronicles of Gallic of 452 AD, the Anglo-Saxons were ruling in the place of the Romans by 441 AD.  

According to Gildas, the Anglo-Saxons were also wicked.  They soon spread war all over the British Isle against the British kings.  This was further judgment on the British for turning against the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him).

The Anglo-Saxons were finally defeated in 482 AD, which ended with a treaty.  The Anglo-Saxons retreated to live in the land originally given to the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman treaty.  They also had to pay tribute to the British kings.

The Anglo-Saxon invaders continued to speak their West Germanic languages, while the rest of former Roman Britain spoke British Celtic or British Latin.

However, the Anglo-Saxons managed afterwards to take over the all of Roman Britain until they formed the Seven Kingdoms. 

The Seven Kingdoms became collectively known as England (land of the English (Anglos)).  The Seven Kingdoms were the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent, and East Anglia.

The West Germanic languages of the invaders, soon began to be learned by some of the British along side of Celtic British, inside the Seven Kingdoms.

In the years that followed, the boundaries of the Seven Kingdoms continually shifted as they fought for dominance over each other.  There also rose up lessor kingdoms along side or inside of the Seven Kingdoms during this period of constant internal war.  These lessor kingdoms were Celtic British kingdoms.

According to Bede, the Seven Kingdoms came be subject to one another, with the king of the dominant kingdom being the high king over one or more of the other kings.  The high king shifted from time to time, as one kingdom would get the advantage over the others.  Frequently there was more than one high king, each with different subject kings. 

After his death in 493 AD, the Irish congregations that Saint Patrick had started, began sending missionaries to the Celtic speaking people in the rest of the British Isles.

According to Procopious, by 550 AD, there were effectively three kingdoms south of Scotland that were each ruled by a different high king.

The first high king was over the British Celts west of former Roman Britain.  The second high king was over the Frisians (another Germanic Tribe that invaded after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, which spoke yet another West Germanic language) in the western half of former Roman Britain.  The third high king was over the Anglos, Saxon, and Jutes, in the eastern half of former Roman Britain.

Celtic British and British Latin continued to be spoken in all three kingdoms, but the West Germanic languages were being learned out of necessity in the kingdoms ruled by the Anglo-Saxon high kings.  Generally, West Germanic languages became less common and Celtic British became more common from east to west.  British Latin was mostly spoken by descendants of those who had lived in the cities of Roman Britain, which was a shrinking percentage of the population, and the religious professionals, since the Latin Vulgate was the only translation of the Book of Truth available at the time.

The people of these three kingdoms multiplied like rabbits.  So, the Franks kept inviting them to move into unoccupied lands in their kingdoms.  Many of them migrated, since there was not enough hides (the amount of land required to support a family - 120 acres) in modern England.

In 597 AD, a missionary from the False Church of Rome called Augustine the Monk, came to the kingdom of Kent.

Soon after Augustine arrived in Canterbury, the king of Kent, one of the Seven Kingdoms, converted to Christianity.  He had married a Christian from France, so he had being prepared for this day.  By Christmas of that year, almost everyone in the kingdom of Kent was mass baptized.  This was the first Christian kingdom, after the departure of the Romans.

However, Augustine was unable to get the native British missionaries of Kent to join the False Church of Rome.  They were still practicing Celtic Christianity in its original form.  Augustine found the same thing among the Children of Truth outside of Kent, including the descendants of those who had been taught by Saint Patrick in northern Ireland.

In 627 AD, King Edward, the king of Northumbria, another of the Seven Kingdoms, became a Christian as well.  However, afterwards he was killed in a battle with King Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, another of the Seven Kingdoms in 632 AD.  However, Christianity rebounded in Northumbria under the rule of the the kings after him.

By 656 AD, the new king of Mercia, Peada, also became a Christian and Christianity prevailed in his kingdom.

In 664, at the council of Whitby, King Oswy of Northumbria decided that his kingdom would follow the practices of the False Church of Rome, rather than those of Celtic Christianity.

The continual shifting of borders, alliances, and dominance of the Seven Kingdoms changed the languages of the Anglo-Saxon invaders.

Old Frisian, Old Anglo, Old Jute, and Old Saxon eventually became four dialects of a new language called Old English.  These four dialects of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon.

By 680 AD, Caedmon's Hymn, the oldest known literature written in Old English, was written using the Latin characters used to write British Latin.

By 700 AD, Sussex, another of the Seven Kingdoms, had became Christian as well due to the efforts of a missionary named Wilfrid.

By 731 AD, when Bede wrote his history of the English, in British Latin, all of the the Seven Kingdoms were all Christian kingdoms.

British Latin was no longer a spoken language by this point.  It was only used by religious professionals and the highly educated.  They had little choice since the only copies of the Book of Truth, and related materials, were all written in Latin.

Most of the British people in the Seven Kingdoms, who had spoken British Latin, now spoke Celtic British.  Some of the British people also spoke some Old English.  They spoke the dialect of Old English that was spoken by those who ruled the kingdom that they lived in.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Seven Kingdoms continued for over another hundred years.

The Seven Kingdoms continued to shift from dominance between multiple overlords, until Offa, king of Mercia, became overlord of all of the Seven Kingdoms, except Northumbria, by 790 AD.

Then in 793 AD, a Danish Viking ship showed up, sacked the island of Lindisfarne, and returned home.

After King Offa died in 796 AD, the kings of the Seven Kingdoms fought again for dominance.

In 802 AD, Ecgbert, the king of Wessex, began gaining dominance over the Seven Kingdoms.

In 829 AD, Northumbria submitted to King Ecbert.  He became the first high king over the Seven Kingdoms.  For the first time, there was a single high king over all of the Anglo-Saxons.

In 835 AD, Danish Viking ships began frequently making raids against the Seven Kingdoms.

After Ecgbert died in 839 AD, the Seven Kingdoms soon returned to fighting each other for dominance, while those kingdoms on the eastern coast were distracted by the Danish Viking raids.

In 860 AD, the Danish Viking ships suddenly stopped appearing.

However the Danish Vikings were not done with an England weakened by centuries of internal fighting between the Seven Kingdoms.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 865 AD, multitudes of Danish Viking ships appeared for a full-scale invasion with what the Anglo-Saxons called, "The Great Heathen Army".

By 869 AD, the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumbria were under Danish Viking control.

In 871 AD, the Danish Vikings received reinforcements with what the Anglo-Saxons called, "The Great Summer Army".

By 878 AD, the Danish Vikings controlled all of the Seven Kingdoms, except for a small part of the kingdom of Wessex.  The era of the Seven Kingdoms was over.

However, King Alfred made a surprise attack on the Danish Vikings in May of that year.  

His army soon had the Danish Vikings and their king, Guthrum, besieged in their stronghold.  The Danish Vikings ultimately agreed to withdraw from Wessex and their king was baptized.  Upon becoming a Christian, King Guthrum took on the new name of Aethelstan.

King Alfred led the Anglo-Saxons in taking back more of their land until he reclaimed London in 886 AD.

At this point, he made peace with King Aethelstan.  They split the land of the former Seven Kingdoms roughly in half, with a border that ran southeast to northwest. The Danish Vikings held the northern half and called their kingdom, "Danelaw".  The Anglo-Saxons held the southern half, except for the small kingdom of Cornwall that was retained by the British.  King Alfred was the sole king of the the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom.

Their treaty also had provisions for a number of laws based on the Law of Truth  (Torah aka The Law) that would be observed in both kingdoms.

By this time, most of the people in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, as well as the the Anglo-Saxons in Danelaw, spoke Old English.  The Danish Viking immigrants in Danelaw spoke Old Norse.  British Celtic was only the dominant language in Cornwall, southwest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, in Wales, west of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and in Strathclyde, northwest of Danelaw.

So, King Alfred made the West Saxon dialect of Old English the official version, and began having documents written in British Latin translated into it.  He also set about creating an education system to teach the nobility, and the gifted from all classes, to read and write both Old English and British Latin.  This allowed the translation work to continue.

He created a list of the books most necessary for the common people of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to be able to read, in order for the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to be a strong and prosperous nation.  He put his army of scholars translating those books into Old English first.  His ultimate goal was to have the Book of Truth translated into Old English.

King Alfred translated at least four books himself, including fifty-five of the Psalms translated from the Latin Vulgate into Old English. These were collected in the Old English Psaltery used for praise and worship during church services throughout both his kingdom and Danelaw.

King Alfred also extended the education system to teach even those in the lowest class how to read and write Old English.  This way, the wisdom to make the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom strong and prosperous could penetrate every level of society.

At the same time, King Alfred worked with the religious professionals to create a comprehensive series of laws compiled together in the 120 chapter Doom Book.  This was the first uniform set of laws since the Romans had left, and the first to be written in Old English.

King Alfred and the religious professionals compiled these laws from the laws written by three earlier kings, each one over a different one of the Seven Kingdoms at a different time, and the Book of Truth.  He wrote about a fifth of the Doom Book himself, including the introduction.

In the introduction, King Alfred began with his own translation of the Ten Commandments, part of the book of Exodus, and the letter from the Apostles detailing what was expected of the Gentile Children of Truth (Acts 15:23-29).  He then proceeded to explain that the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) had not come to do away with the Law of Truth, but to show people how to fulfill it with meekness and mercy (Matthew 5:17-18).  He set about to establish the Law of Truth in a way practical for the Anglo-Saxons, because he wanted to be great in the kingdom of the Man of Truth (Matthew 5:19).

King Alfred also explained in his introduction, that he had chosen for the laws of the Doom Book to be arranged in 120 chapters, because Moses had died at 120 years of age (Deuteronomy 34:7).  He wanted people to forever be aware that the Law of Truth was the basis for the laws of any kingdom, which wanted to be strong and prosperous.

King Alfred also built the first Anglo-Saxon navy, so the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom would stop being so vulnerable to invasion from the mainland of Europe.

With the Anglo-Saxon kingdom secure, King Alfred was ready to begin work on his dream of the Book of Truth to being translated into the common language of his kingdom, so everyone in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom could read it for themselves.

Before translation of the Book of Truth could begin, King Alfred died in 889 AD.  Afterwards, the English called him, "Alfred the Great".

The religious professionals immediately abandoned all efforts to translate the Book of Truth.  They wanted the common people of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to remain depended upon them to tell them what it said.  If people started reading it themselves, then they would start seeing contradictions between it and the practices of the False Church of Rome.

Not long after that, King Aethelstan also died in 890 AD.

King Alfred had created a standard for the pronunciation and definitions for Old English words.  He also confirmed that the letters of the British Latin were the standard for writing Old English words.

King Alfred had ensured that this standard form of Old English was learned and used across all classes for all purposes.  He made it both the language of the government and the church.

The people of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom finally had a single unifying language used by both the rulers and the ruled.  The formation of English was finally completed.

All that was left to be done was to translate the Book of Truth into English.

The formation of English as the standard language of the natives of Britain from four different spoken foreign languages and an unrelated written foreign language was not a strange accident of history.

This was the work of the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD).   He had brought about the rise and fall of Empires to set these events in motion.  Gomer and his bands had to have a single unifying language to make His plans for them come to past.

It was the Children of Truth actively carrying out the Great Commission that made this possible.  They were the fingers of His hidden hand.

The Children of Truth gave the Anglo-Saxons a system for writing their language. They brought the Good News to the British people.  They preserved the use of Latin writing in their efforts to maintain the Indestructible Book in a land, where many people were often hostile to it.  They made faithful copy after faithful copy of the Book of Truth to preserve the Incorruptible Word in modern England.  They were the first to begin writing in Old English to teach the Anglo-Saxons some of the truths contained in the Book of Truth.  Their testimony brought the Anglo-Saxon kings into submission to the King of The Jews.

It was the desire of King Alfred for the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, and the people who lived in it, to come into obedience to the Law of Truth that drove him to finish the formation of English.  It was his desire for the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to live in accordance to the Book of Truth, that caused him have everyone in his kingdom taught standardized Old English.  It was his desire for his people to be able to read the Book of Truth for themselves, that drove his efforts to have all important books translated into standardized Old English.

Eventually, the journey that King Alfred had started was completed.  However, that strange and arduous journey is a story for another day.

Today, the entire Book of Truth is available in almost half of all written languages.  At least part of it is available in almost every written language.

The truth is that most of the languages in the world had their first system of writing created by Christian missionaries.  This includes well known and widely spoken languages like Russian.  Even today, it is Christian missionaries living among native speakers, who are working to create writing systems for those languages.  Their driving goal is to allow the natives to read the Book of Truth in their own language.

The goal of all this effort is to bring people of every nation into the House of Truth.

The Good News must be preached to all people (Mark 16:15)!

All people must be convicted by the Law of Truth.

All people must be told about the Law of Truth to be convicted of their sin (Romans 7:7).  They must be told that sin is transgression of the Law of Truth (1 John 3:4).

All people must be warned that the wages of sin is eternal death (Romans 6:23).  

All people must hear the story of the great love of the Father of Truth for them.

All people must be told of His love which caused Him to sacrifice His only son to save them (John 3:16).  They must be told of His unspeakable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15).

All people must be told that the Father of Truth is not willing for any of them to perish (2 Peter 3:9).

All people must be taught about the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost).

All people must be told that the Spirit of Truth will make them able to obey the Law of Truth from their hearts (Ezekiel 11:19-20).  They must be told that the Spirit of Truth will lead them into all truth (John 16:13). 

All people must be told that the Spirit of Truth will empower them to tell other people the Good News (Acts 1:8).

All people must be told the Good News about the Man of Truth.

All people must be told about Man of Truth dying on a cross for their sins, and rising again for their justification (Romans 4:24-25).  They must be told that he will also either resurrect them from the dead, or take them off this Earth alive, to meet him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).

All people must be told the Man of Truth will soon return to rule over this Earth (Revelation 11:15)!

The Father of Truth has given everyone assurance that the Man of Truth will judge them by resurrecting him from the dead (Acts 17:31).  Every person will either bow to the Man of Truth now out of love, or bow later out of fear (Philippians 2:9-11).

So, bow to the Man of Truth now and be saved, because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9).  People of every language will reign with the Man of Truth in his kingdom (Revelation 5:9-10)!  Join King Alfred in ruling as a king in the kingdom of the King of Kings (Revelation 19:14-16)!

Come into the House of Truth!