| | English language - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about English language (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10) |
 | | The ancestral forms of English were dialects brought from the northwest coastlands of Europe to Britain by Angle, Saxon, and Jutish invaders who gained footholds in the southeast in the 5th century and over the next 200 years extended and consolidated their settlements from southern England to the middle of Scotland. |
 | | The first dialect of Old English to rise to literary prominence was Northumbrian, and during the early Old English period Northumbrian schools were the most learned in Christendom, producing such scholars as Bede and Alcuin, confidant and adviser of Charlemagne. |
 | | The orthography of English was more or less established by 1650, and, in England in particular, a form of standard educated speech (known as received pronunciation (RP)) spread from the major public (private) schools in the 19th century. |
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