Britons

Anglo-Saxons

Romans
There is little early Celtic influence on English language. Otherwise, Latin was very influential.

Vikings

The language spoken by the Germanic peoples who migrated to Britain was the
same as that spoken by the people they left behind on the continent. But between the time of the migration and the appearance of the earliest written records in the first years of the eighth century, the language of the Anglo-Saxons came to differ from that of the people they had left behind.

The vocabulary of Old English consisted mainly of Anglo-Saxon words. Pronunciation: stn (Old English) stone (Modern English) ft (Old English ) foot (Modern English) cne (Old English ) keen (Modern English) h (Old English ) how (Modern English) Old English was fully inflected with five grammatical cases: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental

It assigned gender to all nouns: so sunne : the Sun was feminine se mna : the Moon was masculin It used endings: Example, bat ("boat") (a masculine, strong a-stem noun):

Singular Nominative: bat Accusative: bat Genitive: bates Dative: bate

Plural Nominative: batas Accusative: batas Genitive: bata Dative: batum

Old English was spelled essentially as it was pronounced. It had four forms in present tense: Ic ride I ride ridest you ride H ride he rides W ridon we ride

Often I must war against the wave and fight against the wind. I strive against them together when, shrouded by the sea, I go to seek the earth. My homeland is strange to me. If I become still, I am mighty in the conflict. If I do not succeed in that, because they are stronger than me, at once with rending they will put me to flight. They want to carry off what I must keep safe. I defeat them in that, if my tail endures and the stones are able to hold fast against me in my strength. Ask what is my name.