- Language and Society among the Insular Celts AD 400-1000 -
terms, not merely in language, only a generation before Imma's experiences among
the Mercians.^159 We have seen already that the overriding disadvantage suffered
by British as against its rivals was its low social standing. This was particularly
true when British was the language of defeated and dishonoured wealas. And,
finally, it is safe to assume that the first generation or two of Britons to use English
would certainly not use an English uninfluenced by British. On this basis it can
be immediately deduced that prominent among the features of rustic, low-status
English avoided by men such as Imma, were any elements of Northumbrian
English associated with the Britons. To speak a language in any way reminiscent of
Wilisc was to be marked out as a wealh.
It may be objected that in a small-scale agricultural society few would think
of language in grand national terms. They might have a keen awareness of local
dialect differences, but only scholars such as Bede would have thought of the
languages of whole nations. In some periods this may be true, but in the early
Middle Ages, in the exceptional conditions created by the Anglo-Saxon settlement of
Britain, horizons were necessarily wider. True, it is Bede who provides some of the
clearest evidence linking language and national identity, but he is not alone.^160 The
very terms for language and nation in Old English - and also in Welsh and Irish
- betray the same link.^161 One must also take into account the surprising fact that
the earliest laws of a Saxon king, the West Saxon code promulgated by Ine, use
Englisc not Seaxe whenever the context involves a contrast with the Britons, the
Wealas.^162 It was this contrast with British and the Britons, a contrast of direct local
significance all the way from the Channel coast to the frontiers of Dal Riata and
Pictland, which made English the linguistic bond of a nation. By the same token,
once the descendants of a Briton had passed from speaking British as their first
language to speaking an English coloured by British, and then on to a purer form
of English, they would have conclusively thrown off British nationality. The social
and political disadvantages of being a wealh were such that the population of much
of lowland Britain took this road. They probably did so all the more easily because
the low status of British vis-a-vis English only continued its earlier low status vis-
a-vis Latin. In what was to become England British had been under attack for
centuries; the linguistic nationalism of the new settlers was only the final blow.
The story of Cunedda and his sons first appeared as a tale of British revival.^163
Even on the eastern frontier of Wales there could be smaller-scale recoveries of
159 Notably Elmet conquered by Edwin, Historia Brittonum, c. 63, and Lothian, probably
conquered by Oswald: K. Jackson, 'Edinburgh and the Anglian occupation of Lothian',
in The Anglo-Saxons: studies presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. P. Clemoes (London, 1959),
35-47·
160 Historia Ecclesiastica, I.I (ed. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 16); III.6 (ed. Colgrave and
Mynors, p. 130); Felix's Life of St. Guthlac, ed. B. Colgrave (Cambridge, 1956), ch. 34.
161 In Old English while jJeod is the people, gejJeode is both language and people (compare
gejJeodan 'to unite'). In Welsh iaith is both language and nation, cyfiaith, literally 'joint-
language' is both the people sharing the same language and the person who is a fellow
countryman.
162 Ine 24, 46.1,54.2,74 (ed. Liebermann, 1.100, IIO, 114, 120).
163 Historia Brittonum, cc. 14, 62.733