5 - Anglo-Saxons and Celts in the British Highlands, 600–800

Summary

By AD 850, Old English was spoken everywhere in England, though not necessarily exclusively, with three geographically peripheral exceptions: the far south-west, where Cornish remained for another thousand years; the far north-west from the Lake District northwards into south-western Scotland; and small areas of the English border counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire which remained Welsh-speaking until the eighteenth century. Scotland had originally been no less Brittonic-speaking than England; but by AD 650–700 English had become dominant in the south-east of Scotland from the region around Edinburgh in the Lothians down to what is now the border with England. Cumbric remained dominant in the south-west of the country, in the Brittonic kingdom of Strathclyde.