ABSTRACT
In 770 the English occupied most of what is now England, together with SE Scotland to the Forth, and a little of SW Scotland. There were few, if any, English-speakers in Cornwall; certainly pockets of Celtic-speaking people remained in Cumberland, and in areas of English occupation, as they had done in the preceding centuries. On the other hand, though English was felt as a distinct language, it was mutually comprehensible with a range of Germanic languages on the Continent of Europe, with whose speakers the English in the 8c had much to do. The English community was small, but it did not set the bounds of the world to which the Englishman's language gave him access.
