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From: gmb@onions.natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Subject: Anglo-Saxons & Celts
Message-ID: <1995Mar17.154647.9595@onionsnatcorp.ox.ac.uk>
Originator: gmb@onions.natcorp
Sender: gmb@natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Organization: British National Corpus, Oxford University, GB
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 15:46:47 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <3kbrvn$ks0@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans) writes:
> 
> If the Anglo-Saxons killed or moved the native Britons, how come I can
> more easily tell the difference between English and North-German people
> by their features than between English and Welsh people?

Probably because in the 14 or 15 centuries since Angles, Saxons and
Jutes settled in Britain, their descendants have interbred a great
deal more with the Welsh than with North Germans. For example, my
English father interbred with my Welsh mother. I don't expect he met
many North German women.

> Where is the evidence for "killed or moved", please?

Bringing the subject back to language, I believe (I'm not an expert)
that the traditional belief - that the English invaders drove the
Celts into Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria so that there was very little
contact between the two - has been modified somewhat, and it's now
thought that there was more mingling. But the fact remains that
English shows very little trace of Celtic influence: if there was more
contact than we used to think between Anglo-Saxons and Celts, it
appears that the former dominated linguistically at least.




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