England
England is a country, part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to Scotland to the north-northwest; the Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south; the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century, since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world; the English language, the Anglican Church, English law – the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world – developed in England, the country's parliamentary system of government has been adopted by other nations.
The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the west; the capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom concentrated around London, the South East, conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century; the Kingdom of England – which after 1535 included Wales – ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles"; the Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Anglia peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea; the earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning "the land inhabited by the English", it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was part of the English kingdom of Northumbria; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its modern spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used; the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe, less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons of Old Saxony between the Weser and Eider rivers in Northern Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England. An alternative name for England is Albion; the name Albion referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus the 4th-century BC De Mundo: "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth.
In it are two large islands called Britannia. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, i.e. it was written in the Graeco-Roman period or afterwards. The word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins, it either derives from a cognate of the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover or from the phrase the "island of the Albiones" in the now lost Massaliote Periplus, attested through Avienus' Ora Maritima to which the former served as a source. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend; the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximate
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service
The Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is the county-wide, statutory emergency fire and rescue service for the Shire county of Lancashire and includes the unitary authorities of Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen. Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service is made up of 6 Area Commands as follows: Northern, Eastern, Western and Pennine. Within these areas there are 18 wholetime, 17 retained and 4 day crewed stations providing Lancashire with 24hr fire cover. Water Rescue Ladder: P1/P2 Light 4x4 Vehicle: M1 Aerial Ladder Platform: A2 Multi Purpose Vehicle: M1 Multi Purpose Vehicle + Inshore Rescue Boat: T2 Flatbed Vehicle + Softrack Vehicle: T1 Command Support Unit: C1 Prime Mover + Environmental Protection Unit: T9 Prime Mover + Breathing Apparatus Support Unit: T2 Prime Mover + Bulk Foam Unit: T1/T2 Prime Mover + Major Incident Support Unit: T1 Prime Mover + High Volume Pumping: T8 Prime Mover + High Volume Hose Layer: Water Tower CBRN Response: Incident Response Unit: H9 Urban Search and Rescue: Line Rescue Unit: R1/R2 Search & Rescue Dog Unit: R9 Prime Movers: T6/T7/T8USAR Pods: Module 1 - Technical Search Equipment Module 2 - Heavy Transport, Confined Space & Hot Cutting Module 3 - Breaching & Breaking Equipment Module 4 - Multi Purpose Vehicle Module 5 - Shoring Operations Fire service in the United Kingdom Lancashire Constabulary GRIP List of British firefighters killed in the line of duty Official Website
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not in quality, attention to detail, or craftsmanship. Shoemakers may produce a range of footwear items, including shoes, sandals and moccasins; such items are made of leather, rubber, jute or other plant material, consist of multiple parts for better durability of the sole, stitched to a leather upper part. Trades that engage in shoemaking have included cobbler's trades. Today, shoes are made on a volume basis, rather than a craft basis. For most of history, shoemaking has been a handicraft, limited to time-consuming manufacturing by hand. Traditional shoemakers used more than 15 different techniques for making shoes; some of these were: pegged construction, English welted, goyser welted, stitchdown, German sewn, bolognese stitched, blake-stitched. The most basic foot protection, used since ancient times in the Mediterranean area, was the sandal, which consisted of a protective sole, held to the foot with leather thongs or cords of various materials.
Similar footwear worn in the Far East was made from plaited palm fronds. In climates that required a full foot covering, a single piece of untanned hide was laced with a thong, providing full protection for the foot and so made a complete covering; the production of wooden shoes was widespread in medieval Europe. They were made from a single piece of wood cut into shoe form. A variant of this form was the clog; the sole and heel were made from one piece of maple or ash two inches thick, a little longer and broader than the desired size of shoe. The outer side of the sole and heel was fashioned with a long chisel-edged implement, called the clogger’s knife or stock. With the use of a'hollower', the inner sole's contours were adapted to the shape of the foot; the leather uppers were fitted to the groove around the sole. Clogs were of great advantage to workers in muddy and damp conditions, keeping the feet dry and comfortable. By the 1600s, leather shoes came in two main types.'Turn shoes' consisted of one thin flexible sole, sewed to the upper while outside in and turned over when completed.
This type was used for making similar shoes. The second type united the upper with an insole, subsequently attached to an out-sole with a raised heel; this was the main variety, was used for most footwear, including standard shoes and riding boots. The traditional shoemaker would measure the feet and cut out upper leathers according to the required size; these parts were stitched together. The sole was next assembled, consisting of a pair of inner soles of soft leather, a pair of outer soles of firmer texture, a pair of welts or bands about one inch broad, of flexible leather, lifts and top-pieces for the heels; the insole was attached to a last made of wood, used to form the shoe. Some lasts were straight, while curved lasts came in pairs: one for left shoes, the other for right shoes. The'lasting' procedure secured the leather upper to the sole with tacks; the soles were hammered into shape. The finishing operation included paring, scraping, smoothing and burnishing the edges of soles and heels, sand-papering, burnishing the soles, withdrawing the lasts, cleaning out any pegs which may have pierced through the inner sole.
Other types of ancient and traditionally made shoes included furs wrapped around feet, sandals wrapped over them, moccasins - simple shoes without the durability of joined shoes. Shoemaking became more commercialized in the mid-18th century. Large warehouses began to stock footwear in warehouses, made by many small manufacturers from the area; until the 19th century, shoemaking was a traditional handicraft, but by the century's end, the process had been completely mechanized, with production occurring in large factories. Despite the obvious economic gains of mass-production, the factory system produced shoes without the individual differentiation that the traditional shoemaker was able to provide; the first steps towards mechanisation were taken during the Napoleonic Wars by the engineer, Marc Brunel. He developed machinery for the mass-production of boots for the soldiers of the British Army. In 1812 he devised a scheme for making nailed-boot-making machinery that automatically fastened soles to uppers by means of metallic pins or nails.
With the support of the Duke of York, the shoes were manufactured, due to their strength and durability, were introduced for the use of the army. In the same year, the use of screws and staples was patented by Richard Woodman. Brunel's system was described by Sir Richard Phillips as a visitor to his factory in Battersea as follows: "In another building I was shown his manufactory of shoes, like the other, is full of ingenuity, and, in regard to subdivision of labour, brings this fabric on a level with the oft-admired manufactory of pins; every step in it is effected by the most precise machinery.
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds; the plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa and India. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found followed by Australia and Africa. Cotton was independently domesticated in the New Worlds; the fiber is most spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times. Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that lowered the cost of production that led to its widespread use, it is the most used natural fiber cloth in clothing today. Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for 2.5% of the world's arable land.
China is the world's largest producer of cotton. The United States has been the largest exporter for many years. In the United States, cotton is measured in bales, which measure 0.48 cubic meters and weigh 226.8 kilograms. There are four commercially grown species of cotton, all domesticated in antiquity: Gossypium hirsutum – upland cotton, native to Central America, the Caribbean and southern Florida Gossypium barbadense – known as extra-long staple cotton, native to tropical South America Gossypium arboreum – tree cotton, native to India and Pakistan Gossypium herbaceum – Levant cotton, native to southern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula The two New World cotton species account for the vast majority of modern cotton production, but the two Old World species were used before the 1900s. While cotton fibers occur in colors of white, brown and green, fears of contaminating the genetics of white cotton have led many cotton-growing locations to ban the growing of colored cotton varieties; the word "cotton" has Arabic origins, derived from the Arabic word قطن.
This was the usual word for cotton in medieval Arabic. The word entered the Romance languages in the mid-12th century, English a century later. Cotton fabric was known to the ancient Romans as an import but cotton was rare in the Romance-speaking lands until imports from the Arabic-speaking lands in the medieval era at transformatively lower prices; the earliest evidence of cotton use in the Indian subcontinent has been found at the site of Mehrgarh and Rakhigarhi where cotton threads have been found preserved in copper beads. Cotton cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, which covered parts of modern eastern Pakistan and northwestern India between 3300 and 1300 BC; the Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread across much of India. For example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC.
Cotton bolls discovered in a cave near Tehuacán, have been dated to as early as 5500 BC, but this date has been challenged. More securely dated is the domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico between around 3400 and 2300 BC. In Peru, cultivation of the indigenous cotton species Gossypium barbadense has been dated, from a find in Ancon, to c. 4200 BC, was the backbone of the development of coastal cultures such as the Norte Chico and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, traded with fishing villages along the coast for large supplies of fish; the Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru in the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and wearing clothing made of it. The Greeks and the Arabs were not familiar with cotton until the Wars of Alexander the Great, as his contemporary Megasthenes told Seleucus I Nicator of "there being trees on which wool grows" in "Indica"; this may be a reference to "tree cotton", Gossypium arboreum, a native of the Indian subcontinent. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia: Cotton has been spun and dyed since prehistoric times.
It clothed the people of ancient India and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, their use spread to the Mediterranean countries. In Iran, the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era; the planting of cotton was common in Merv and Pars of Iran. In Persian poets' poems Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton. Marco Polo refers to the major products including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited Safavid Persia, spoke approvingly of the vast cotton farms of Persia. During the Han dynasty, cotton was grown by Chinese peoples in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Egyptians spun cotton in the first seven centuries of the Christian era. Handheld roller cotton gins had been used in India since the 6th century, was introduced to other countries from there. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in China; the Indian version of the dual-roller gin was preval
Old English
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French; this is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as during this period the English language was influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles and Jutes; as the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian and West Saxon.
It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop from Mercian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English and difficult for Modern English speakers to understand without study. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, word order is much freer; the oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 9th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet. Englisc, which the term English is derived from, means'pertaining to the Angles'. In Old English, this word was derived from Angles.
During the 9th century, all invading Germanic tribes were referred to as Englisc. It has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name because their land on the coast of Jutland resembled a fishhook. Proto-Germanic *anguz had the meaning of'narrow', referring to the shallow waters near the coast; that word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- meaning'narrow'. Another theory is that the derivation of'narrow' is the more connection to angling, which itself stems from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning bend, angle; the semantic link is the fishing hook, curved or bent at an angle. In any case, the Angles may have been called such because they were a fishing people or were descended from such, therefore England would mean'land of the fishermen', English would be'the fishermen's language'. Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language.
Around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language, it came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England. This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements where Old Norse was spoken. Celtic speech remained established in certain parts of England: Medieval Cornish was spoken all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon, while Cumbric survived to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria, Welsh may have been spoken on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border. Norse was widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century.
The oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts date to the 8th century; the Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century. With the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, had many works translated into the English language. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but King Alfred the Great chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A literary standard, dating from the 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. Th
Borough of Rossendale
Rossendale is a district with borough status in Lancashire, holding a number of small former mill towns centred on the valley of the River Irwell in the industrial North West. Rossendale combines modest size urban development with rural villages and is south of the more populated town of Burnley, east of Blackburn and north of Bolton, Bury and Rochdale, centred 15 miles north of Manchester. In the 2001 census the population of Rossendale was 65,652, spread between the larger towns of Bacup and Rawtenstall; the population at the 2011 Census had risen to 67,922. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, from the municipal boroughs of Bacup, Rawtenstall, part of Ramsbottom Urban District and Whitworth Urban District. Rossendale is twinned with the German town of Bocholt, located close to the Netherlands border; the name "Rossendale" may refer geographically to Rossendale Valley, refers to the medieval Forest or "Chase" of Rossendale, which encompassed the same area as the modern district.
Rossendale is part of the Darwen constituency. Jake Berry MP has been the Member of Parliament for Rossendale and Darwen since 2010. All of Rossendale is unparished, except for Whitworth. Rossendale is part of the Forest of Rossendale, which consists of the steep-sided valleys of the River Irwell and its tributaries, which flow from the Pennines southwards to Manchester and cut through the moorland, characteristic of the area, it was given the designation of "forest" in medieval times denoting a hunting reserve. The larger settlements grew into market towns through the late Middle Ages. Farming and a cottage woollen industry developed during the reign of Henry VIII, but Rossendale's population only expanded during the period of the Industrial Revolution; the population was 16,033 in 1801. Its wet and damp climate are ideally suited to the development of watermills, to the mechanisation of the wool and cotton spinning and weaving industries in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the middle of the 19th century a felt industry developed, from this the manufacturing of slippers so that footwear became a major employer in the area.
The area became one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution, was known as'The Golden Valley'. There was great hardship among working people during this time, but many fortunes were made among the mill-owning classes. There was large-scale immigration from Ireland to find work building the railways and in the mills, which led to several instances of serious civil disturbances between the two communities. Michael Davitt, the Irish republican leader was among these immigrants, settling in Haslingden, where he received his education after losing an arm at the age of 11 in a mill accident; the area is notable for its quarrying, Rossendale Flagstone was used throughout the country in the 19th century. The flagstones in Trafalgar Square in London were quarried in Rossendale. Upland farming is still carried out of sheep but of cattle; the history of Rossendale is well documented through the efforts of the historian Chris Aspin, a specialist on the textile industry, Derek Pilkington, whose efforts led to the preservation of Higher Mill in Helmshore, now Helmshore Mills Textile Museum.
The Whitworth Doctors were local surgeons and bone setters whose reputation spread far and wide, so that they treated patients from throughout the country, including Princess Elizabeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1819 William Hewitt described them as "the most remarkable men of their class that appeared in England". With the steady decline of the cotton industry Rossendale suffered from serious economic decline which has only halted, the area still has pockets of poverty. However, the opening of fast road connections with Manchester, allied to the attractiveness of the local countryside has meant that Rossendale has developed a sizeable commuter population. In its wake this is bringing some signs of economic revival, Rawtenstall in particular now houses a number of shops that sell niche fashion and luxury consumer goods alongside Asda and Tesco superstores. This, coupled with redevelopment plans to regenerate the Valley Precinct and bus depot, are intended to attract more businesses and visitors into Rossendale.
R. S. Ireland is based near Haslingden. Rawtenstall has Fitzpatricks Herbal Health, this is the last remaining functioning temperance bar in England, that makes and sells its own non-alcoholic drinks, such as sarsaparilla, black beers and blood tonic; the name Rossendale first appeared in 1292. A record of the name as Rocendal suggests Celtic ros "moor, heath", with Old Norse dalr "dale, valley", hence moor valley i.e. the valley of the River Irwell. The borough is linked by the motorway network to Manchester and Blackburn via the A56/M65 and M66 motorways. Bordering Greater Manchester southwards, it is 17.4 miles to Deansgate via the Edenfield by-pass and M66, with a journey time of around 30 minutes in a car. Alternatively the A56 route can be taken via Edenfield, Bury centre, Whitefield and Broughton. There was once a rail link south to Manchester via Bury, but this was closed in 1966 as part
Middle English
Middle English was a form of the English language, spoken after the Norman conquest until the late 15th century. English underwent distinct developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the Oxford English Dictionary specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500; this stage of the development of the English language followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its grammar and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation; the more standardized Old English language became fragmented and was for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, a standard based on the London dialect had become established; this formed the basis for Modern English spelling, although pronunciation has changed since that time.
Middle English was succeeded in England by the era of Early Modern English, which lasted until about 1650. Scots language developed concurrently from a variant of the Northumbrian dialect. During the Middle English period, many Old English grammatical features either became simplified or disappeared altogether. Noun and verb inflections were simplified by the reduction of most grammatical case distinctions. Middle English saw considerable adoption of Norman French vocabulary in the areas of politics, the arts and religion. Conventional English vocabulary retained its Germanic etiology, with Old Norse influences becoming more apparent. Significant changes in pronunciation took place involving long vowels and diphthongs which in the Middle English period, began to undergo the Great Vowel Shift. Little survives of early Middle English literature, due in part to Norman domination and the prestige that came with writing in French rather than English. During the 14th century, a new style of literature emerged with the works of writers including John Wycliffe and Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales remains one of the most studied and read works of the period.
Transition from Late Old English to Early Middle English occurred in the latter part of the 11th century. The influence of Old Norse aided the development of English from a synthetic language with free word order, to a more analytic or isolating language with a more strict word order. Both Old English and Old Norse were synthetic languages with complicated inflections; the eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their southern Anglo-Saxon neighbours resulted in the erosion of inflection in both languages. Old Norse may have had a more profound impact on Middle and Modern English development than any other language. Simeon Potter notes: "No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which spread from north to south.". Viking influence on Old English is most apparent in the more indispensable elements of the language. Pronouns, comparatives, pronominal adverbs and prepositions, show the most marked Danish influence.
The best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in extensive word borrowings, yet no texts exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern England from this period to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old English from Old Norse was substantive, of a democratic character. Like close cousins, Old Norse and Old English resembled each other, with some words in common, they understood each other, it is most "important to recognise that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw these endings must have led to much confusion, tending to become obscured and lost." This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar."While the influence of Scandinavian languages was strongest in the dialects of the Danelaw region and Scotland, words in the spoken language emerge in the tenth and eleventh centuries near the transition from the Old to Middle English.
Influence on the written language only appeared at the beginning of the thirteenth century because of a scarcity of literary texts from an earlier date. The Norman conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French known as Old Norman, which developed in England into Anglo-Norman; the use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of words of French origin began to appear in the English language alongside native English words of similar meaning, giving rise to such Modern English synonyms as pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, sheep/mutton, wood/forest, house/mansion, worthy/valuable, bold/courageous
