English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon settlers. With the end of Roman rule in 410 AD, Latin ceased to be a major influence on the Celtic languages spoken by the majority of the population.

People from what is now northwest Germany, west Denmark, and the Netherlands settled in the British Isles from the mid-5th century and came to culturally dominate the bulk of southern Great Britain until the 7th century. The Anglo-Saxon language, now called Old English, originated as a group of Anglo-Frisian dialects which were spoken, at least by the settlers, in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages.