Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll tell you a story, listen carefully.
A long, long time ago, there was an island near the European Continent (actually, it still is there) called Albion (those dratted Greek explorers were responsible for that monstrosity). Some Italians from Rome came, only they weren’t called Italians because Italy hadn’t been invented yet.
They had a good look round and called the bottom part the land of the Brittani, or Britain because England and Wales also hadn’t been invented yet (we still call it Brittania sometimes when we are telling everybody how true and brave we are, and how we rule the waves).
They had a look at the top part of the island that they called the ‘Land of the Scotti (Irish immigrants)’, but there was nothing there that they wanted, and then left.
They stayed around in the land of the Brittani for a bit and left a few words behind when they left. But the ignorant people here spoke Gaelic, Celtic, Cumbric and Pictish mostly (although the ones who spoke Pictish seemed to disappear forever – a lot of suspicious disappearances, n’est pas?).
Then after the Italians left, some people called Angles and Saxons came (as well as Jutes, but they also seemed to disappear – funny coincidence?), and pushed the others out to the edges where they stubbornly continued to speak their funny Celtic, Gaelic and Cumbric words such as llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
These new people brought a German language (Germany also not invented yet, but they had got the language ready for when it was), and stayed, because they liked the land of the Brittani.
Then, some folks called Vikings brought lots of new words and added those for the people to speak. They had a few fights, but eventually became good mates after a Mercian queen (Aethelfled) banged a few heads together and told them to behave like good children and shake hands.
By now, the place was called Angle land even though it was mostly full of Saxons and Vikings, but hey, who cares.
The Romans had built a big wall to keep those Scotti out and later, a king called Offa, became jealous of the wall and had a big Dyke dug to keep out those Celts from the Land of The Gauls (soon to be Wales, yet another one not invented at the time.), so Wales was cut off from Britain, which now that Wales was gone, just became England because they couldn’t spell ‘Angle land’ as no one had invented the dictionary yet – see later.
Then out of the blue some more Vikings who had gone to live in France and called themselves Normans (because the name Vikings had a bad reputation for raping and pillaging by then) came and invaded, adding some sort of French words and mixed them in with the German, Roman and Viking words with a seasoning of Celtic.
An English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer later thought “right, I’ve got to sort this lot out”, and wrote what became known as the first English travel guide “The Canterbury Tales”.
Then about 300 years later another man, now called an Englishman (I suppose they couldn’t spell Angleman either – still no dictionary!) whose name was William Shakespeare, sat down with a quill, because he couldn’t yet afford a real pen until he wrote his plays, and thought “I can do better than Mr Chaucer”, so he sat down and wrote lots of plays, poems and sonnets, made up a few new words, in a slightly better language, now called the ‘Language of the English people’, or just ‘English’ for short, as Englandish seemed a bit outlandish, and was too long to write out as they couldn’t afford pens, so they used quills which wore out quickly.
A bit later, a Dr Johnson thought “this lot can’t spell, so I’ll write a list of English words with spellings” and so he invented the ‘English’ Dictionary, not Englandish, Scottish, or Welsh or British dictionary because most of those people still spoke unintelligible languages, like Celtic and Gaelic (remember?), just an English dictionary.
Then a few English pure people, called Puritans, who didn’t like the Church of England or the Roman one either, thinking that the services and rituals cost too much, so they said “let’s go to a place we’ll call The Land of The Free” and set off Westwards because the East lands were full.
They found a land which was never discovered by Christopher Columbus or Amerigo Vespucci, and called it ‘New’ England. And you know what, they didn’t bother to learn the language of the people they met, but insisted on speaking English, and insisted the locals learn it, because now that they were ‘New Englanders’, they became very lazy.
So that’s why the language is called English, and North Americans speak it, get it?
Wow, is this question for real?
In Europe there is a country called Italy, the people who live in the country are referred to as Italians, and the language that they speak is Italian.
There is also another country called France, the people who live in the country are referred to as French, and the language that they speak is called French.
There is also another country called Spain, the people who live in the country are referred to as Spanish, and the language that they speak is called Spanish
Do you see a pattern forming?
In Britain, there are three countries, England, Scotland and Wales. The people who live in England are referred to as English and the language that they speak is called English.
