quay, High Wycombe, the river Avon, and even Shakespeare's mischief-maker "Puck").
The Anglo-Saxons (Angelcynn = Angle-kin) spoke Englisc, and by AD 1000 their country was known as Englaland. Modern English contains many Anglo-Saxon words--with, sometimes, only slight modifications (the, is, here, there, you, mann, hus, drincan, f.i.), and the one hundred most common words of English. Much of our modern English has retained words and grammar which, often with dramatic modifications, go back to Old English. Of course, Old English was no more uniform than Modern English. A Newcastle Geordie pronounces path with a short a; a Dorchester farmer burrs his rs. Although both King Alfred (Alfred the Great) and Abbot Aelfric (author and grammarian) referred to the Anglo-Saxon language as Englisc, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons retained their distinctive dialects. The River Humber, moreover, divided Anglian-speaking regions between two speech groups: the Northumbrian and the Southumbrian (or Mercian). Hence, the four dialects of Northumbrian, Merc
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