Why English is, “English”

An etymological look at the story behind the lenguage – by Ian Gibs

At first glance, the reason why we call English “English” sounds obvious: it’s the language spoken by the people who live in England. But then historically, why is England so called?

You might already know that the name goes back to Old English (the language as it was spoken before the Normans took over) and the name “Angla land” or Englaland, unsurprisingly meaning “land of the Angles.” But the Angles (who originated from what’s now northern Germany) were just one of several Germanic peoples who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, alongside the Saxons (from North-western Germany) and the Jutes (from Jutland/Denmark) after the Roman Empire collapsed and all the Romans packed up and went home, leaving a lot of ungoverned real estate.

This raises an obvious question: if Britain was settled by Angles, Saxons and Jutes, why did the country become England rather than something like Saxonland or Juteland? The honest answer is that there is no single definitive reason. But there are a few points that stand out.

Firstly, Juteland or Jutland already existed back home, so that name wasn’t an option. Secondly, some of the early kingdoms, such as Mercia (in the centre of England), Northumbria (the northern bit), and East Anglia (the round bit that sticks out on the right) were all run by the Angles, and they were all quite powerful. Thirdly, the great monk-historian Bede the Venerable wrote (in Latin) about the “gens Anglorum,” usually translated as “the English people,” an early piece of marketing that helped establish a wider shared identity beyond separate tribes and kingdoms.

But finally and possibly most importantly, the Saxon kings from the bottom bit of England known as West Saxony (later simplified to Wessex) wanted to take over the whole country. In the 10th century, the Saxon king Æthelstan did the Angles a great favour by ridding them of the last Viking invaders who had settled in York. As he was seen as a successful leader, he made his move at the right time and was able to become the first king of all England, showing that the name had become political as well as ethnic. It’s quite likely that Æthelstan prioritised the name Angleland to downplay his own Saxon heritage and appease the more powerful Anglian nobles of the time.

So the next time someone says English is just called English because people of England speak it, you can set them straight: it is really the language from a land shaped by the migration of the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, and by their developing kingdoms, political unions, and a bit of nomenclature spin-doctoring.