The Anglo-Saxons are in our recent history, only five to six centuries ago, but what is their history. How did Old English come to be, what previous influences came together to form our language. As said before, Old English is descended from the Germanic languages. These languages were spoken in Northern Europe, across Scandinavia and Germany, descending into our modern languages of German, Dutch/Flemish, Frisian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. They all descended from Proto-Germanic, the parent of the Germanic languages, which itself is a member of the Indo-European language group, a group which influences most of the modern world's languages (it's descendants having 3 billion speakers today). This is where the search ends. In the land between the Red and the Caspian Seas has been the home of what we call the Proto-Indo-European language for many millenia. Between 4000 and 25oo BC Indo-European spread, entering Europe and Asia. After this it spread rapidly, by 1000 BC nearly all of Europe was affected and a large part of Asia, right down throughout India.
taken from wikipedia.org
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