Romans in England

The Celtics had the misfortune to life in an island wanted for its agriculture and minerals, and the Romans saw its advantages. One of the most invasions is the landing of Julius Caesar (55 BC), The first expedition was a disaster. Caesar had to face a terrible storm, what left him without cavalry. To this was added that the fact that, when they arrived, they found a strong opposition from the Celts. They had to return to Gaul with a loss of prestige, although they tried again.
The following summer the Romans invaded the island. They settled in the SE and they asked for tribute from the natives. Romans did not plan any invasion for a century.

In 43 AD, Emperor Claudius decides to conquest the island. He prepared a 40000 men army. They were successful to conquest the central and the SE territories. In 61, the Romans had to face a strong resistance of the Celts. Boadicea, woman of a Celtic leader led the most outstanding against the Romans. When she realized that she could not win, she commited suicide. There was a serious uprising. After this encounter 70000 people were killed. Little later (early 80’s) governor Agricola advised the northern border between Solway and Tyne as protected and it was done with a stonewall. Some years later (143) the wall was move to the north.
In other words, the frontier was protected first by Emperor Hadrian, who made construct the Hadrian’s wall, finished in 123. 20 years later, 143 the frontier was extended more to the north and a new wall, less elaborated was built. This 2^nd wall was from the Forth to the Clyde. This is called Scottish Frontier. Later, a second wall was constructed from Boness to Old Kilpatrick. This is called Antonine’s wall.
In 193 the Romans left the frontier temporally because they had internal problems in the Empire, and people who lived to the north to the Antonine’s wall, had the opportunity to enter. They have heard about Roman’s life and crossed Antonine’s, but they didn’t manage to cross Hadrian’s wall.
With the passing of time, Adrian’s wall was destroyed. The same of other fortification that were pulled down.

Britain was a roman province during 300 years. The end came in the year 410 emperor Honorious retired the legions from Britain and the Celts had to defend themselves.

The Romanization. Latin in Britain. Consequences of the Romanization

There are many remnants of the Roman presence. The Romans built many roads starting in London and to the NW and SW. There are also a great number of houses, objects, buildings, etc. These infrastructures were important. They established more tan 1000 towns. In some places there are temples, houses, in which have mosaics. In London we have Londinium Roman’s walls; in Chester there is one of the oldest town baths[1]. In S of England, Chichester there is a roman palace: Fishbourne Roman Palace, the largest roman palace in England; or in Arundel there is a castle called Bignor Roman Villa, with lost of mosaics.

In the most important cities there were a small elite of Roman citizens who used the Latin and the high classes of Celts. The rest were farming population, with economic and agriculture interests. So, Latin soon became the official language, and new varieties of it were born then. It was used as lingua franca, carried by the soldiers, and presented influences from the natal tongue of every soldier.

Celtic society was tribal and their language undeveloped. Under the Roman pressure, Celtic must have been a low language. Latin was more frequent in cities then in villages. In some areas a bilingual situation should have occurred. In the S and the E, Latin surely displaced Celtic. So Latin was considered in this bilingual society the High Language (the official form for administration purposes), and Celtic was the Low Language (at home). We believe that Celtic was predominant in the W and N and in small places.
By the 5^th c, both languages felt the barbaric invasions.

There were 4 periods in the influence of Latin, in fact, 4 stages that noticed the presence of Latin in English:

The continental period or “0” period.
The influence of Latin before the Germanic tribes invasion. Borrowings from the tongue of the continent. The Germanic tribes were not used to use the long words of Latin. They only took the words they needed, and many were shortened, simple, concrete, of daily current objects e.g.       cup, < L CUPA

dish, < L DISCUS

wine. < L VINUM

Many of these words represented new objects for Germanic people:

cheese, < L CASEUS

mill, < L MOLINA

piper< L PEPPER

pruna< L PLUM

kitchen, < L COQUINA

cheap, < L CAUPO

There also terms of weight and measure: Celts were part of the Roman legions:

pondo< L POUND

uncia< L INCH

millia< L MILE

street, < L STRATA

wall. < L VALLUM

Only about 50 of these words could be traced from this period. They are useful and frequent but in terms of numbers are not important.

Latin influence through the Celts transmission

As a consequence of settlement of Romans we expect to find much words, but it is not true. We believe that there were no direct contact between Germans and Romans, (Old English and Latin), because the Romans left Britain at the beginning of 5^th and Germanic tribes came after, so the Latin influence was through Celts. The words disappeared with the invasions.

The Germanic tribes learnt Latin words because the Celts showed them. But they had bad relations with the invaders and they didn’t want to show what they had learnt from the Romans.

Only a few words survived. Many of them are place names

 CASTRA> -ceaster

a) Chinchester, Manchester = /k/ + /ε a/ (1^st stage) > [t∫ ε] Midlands to the South

b) Glucester, Worcester, Leicester, Exeter

c) Lancaster, Doncaster = Midlands to the North : /k/ + /a/ closer to Latin

Another word was introduced, which still remains today:

port < L, PORTUS

wïc < L VICUS (village) – Garrick, Warwick

In the South /Ik/ → /It∫ / (Greenwich, Norwich, Ipswich, etc).

port< L PORTA (Puerto)

munt< LMONS (montaña)

The Latin influence is slighter, poorer, because the Celts didn’t want to transmiting Latin:

candle < L, CANDELA

mægester < L, MAGISTER (with the time “master”)

sealm < L PSALMUS (psalm).

Consequence or process of Christianization

The native population were pagans. The Christianization lasted from 6^th to 11^th. The words made reference to the words of religion.

The Early modern English Period

It is the most important. In Renaissance, in the 17^th, approximately 10000 words were given for foreigner languages. There is a claim of the purists which say that it was too many new foreigner words for English. This is called the “Inkhorn controversy”.