A Handbook of the English Language

Germanic Origin Of The English Language.--
Date
1. The first point to be remembered in the history of the English language, is that it was not the primitive and original tongue of any of the British Islands, nor yet of any portion of them. Indeed, of the whole of Great Britain it is not the language at the present moment. Welsh is spoken in Wales, Manks in the Isle of Man, and Scotch Gaelic in the Highlands of Scotland; besides which there is the Irish Gaelic in Ireland.
2. The next point to be considered is the real origin and the real affinities of the English language.
Its real origin is on the continent of Europe, and its real affinities are with certain languages there spoken. To speak more specifically, the native country of the English language is Germany; and the Germanic languages are those that are the most closely connected with our own. In Germany, languages and dialects allied to each other and allied to the mother-tongue of the English have been spoken from times anterior to history; and these, for most purposes of philology, may be considered as the aboriginal languages and dialects of that country.
3. Accredited details of the different immigrations from Germany into Britain. Until lately the details of the different Germanic invasions of England, both in respect to the particular tribes by which they were made, and the order in which they succeeded each other, were received with but little doubt, and as little criticism.
Respecting the tribes by which they were made, the current opinion was, that they were chiefly, if not exclusively, those of the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles.