• Old English is remarkable in the number and type of language-contact situations which the Anglo-Saxons experienced within their own borders

• In the six centuries between 500 and 1100, the people had to deal routinely with speakers of no fewer than four language families, including:

·                Celtic (chiefly Old Welsh)

·                Romance (Old French, Norman French)

·                Other branches of Germanic (Old Norse, Old Saxon, Frisian)

• No sub­sequent period in British history introduced such a diverse set of linguistic influences within the British Isles

• Latin was the lingua franca of Europe at the time

• A large percentage of the educated and literate population (monks, clerics, etc.) were competent in Latin

• There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence

• The first occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for England

• The second began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity in the late sixth and seventh centuries, and Latin-speaking priests became widespread

• The third occurred following the Norman invasion of 1066, after which an enormous number of Norman words entered the language (most of them were themselves derived from classical Latin)