things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were
adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these
conquerors learned and used the Latin language.

When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and
sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English,
became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but
retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also
did of Latin terminations in names.

Before the coming of the Normans, their language, called the _Langue
d'oil_, or Norman French, had been very much favored by educated
Englishmen; and when William conquered England, he tried to supplant the
Saxon entirely. In this he was not successful; but the two languages were
interfused and amalgamated, so that in the middle of the twelfth century,
there had been thus created the _English language_, formed but still
formative. The Anglo-Saxon was the foundation, or basis; while the Norman
French is observed to be the principal modifying element.

Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of
them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign
invasion.

Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of
literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding
words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek
into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words,
and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The
establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts,
brought in the practice and study of German, and somewhat of its