Ancient British Language

The language spoken in Britain when the Romans arrived was very different to today’s English, indeed it wasn’t English at all, it was British - Ancient British and can best be described as ‘ancient Welsh’ but is remarkably similar to modern Welsh.

There are two main forms of Celtic language in the British isles, Welsh and Gaelic, there is evidence from pronunciation that Gaelic was earlier and it seems likely that the ancient Welsh displaced some indigenous peoples when they arrived in Britain but after this virtually all of mainland Britain would have been ‘Welsh’. They would not have thought of themselves as Welsh of course as this is a derogatory term used by the Anglo-Saxons meaning foreigners or slaves, however it is the best term to use to truly understand who the people in ancient Britain really were.

‘Welsh’ would have been spoken throughout the Roman period in all of southern Britain, northern Britain and probably parts of Scotland. Indeed, the Welsh language shows strong signs of Latin influence particularly for things introduced by the Romans. Although the ancient British had glass and may have invented it (see) they do not seem to have developed windows as the welsh for window is clearly derived from Latin. Equally the Welsh for bridge is Pont, the ancient Britons preferring to use fords, it seems.

However, the Welsh language is fairly closely related to Latin, unlike English which is a Germanic language, indeed, the French reckon that English sounds very like German.

Any idea that any form of English was being spoken in Britain until after the Roman period, as many people believe, can quickly be dismissed. English is a corruption of ‘Angle ish’ the language of the Angles, the ‘Anglo’ of Anglo-Saxon and presumably were the largest group of the Anglo-Saxon invaders. It is obvious that English arrived with the Anglo-Saxons and the indigenous Welsh language was suppressed. It is worth pointing out that English too almost died out after the Norman Conquest and it is thought the only reason it survived was because the Normans lost their French territories and so became increasingly ‘English’.

The pre-Anglo-Saxon ‘England’ would have been the Kingdom of Lloegria and it is interesting to note that the modern Welsh for England is Lloegr