Colleen Davis, MD, MPH retweetledi
They said English culture doesn't exist.
They said it in English. 🏴
The most spoken language on Earth. Born on this island.
Fifteen hundred years ago, three tribes crossed the North Sea. Angles. Saxons. Jutes. They brought words we still use today.
Earth. Water. Fire. Love. Mother. Father. Child.
They called their language Englisc. They called this place Engla land. Land of the Angles.
Then the Vikings came. They didn't just raid. They settled. Became neighbours. And when you live next door to someone, your languages merge.
Sky. Skull. Knife. Window, the Viking for "wind-eye."
They. Them. Their. Those aren't English words. They're Viking. Ordinary people chose them because they worked better.
Then came 1066. The Normans conquered England. The new rulers spoke French. For three hundred years, English had no official status in its own country.
But the people never stopped speaking it.
The farmer called it a cow. The lord called it beef. Pig and pork. Sheep and mutton. That class divide is still on your plate tonight.
English didn't die. It swallowed ten thousand French words and came back stronger.
Today. One and a half billion people speak this language. Every pilot on Earth speaks it. Half the internet is written in it.
No academy designed it. No king commanded it. It was built by ordinary people. On this island.
They said English culture doesn't exist.
They said it in English.
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