4. +The English Language.+-- The English language is the speech spoken by the Anglo-Saxon race in England, in most parts of Scotland, in the larger part of Ireland, in the United States, in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, in South Africa, and in many other parts of the world. In the middle of the +fifth+ century it was spoken by a few thousand men who had lately landed in England from the Continent: it is now spoken by more than one hundred millions of people. In the course of the next sixty years, it will probably be the speech of two hundred millions. 5. +English on the Continent.+-- In the middle of the fifth century it was spoken in the north-west corner of Europe-- between the mouths of the Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe; and in Schleswig there is a small district which is called +Angeln+ to this day. But it was not then called +English+; it was more probably called +Teutish+, or +Teutsch+, or +Deutsch+-- all words connected with a generic word which covers many families and languages-- +Teutonic+. It was a rough guttural speech of one or two thousand words; and it was brought over to this country by the +Jutes+, +Angles+, and +Saxons+ in the year 449. These men left their home on the Continent to find here farms to till and houses to live in; and they drove the inhabitants of the island-- the +Britons+-- ever farther and farther west, until they at length left them in peace in the more mountainous parts of the island-- in the southern and western corners, in Cornwall and in Wales. 6. +The British Language.+-- What language did the Teutonic conquerors, who wrested the lands from the poor Britons, find spoken in this island when they first set foot on it? Not a Teutonic speech at all. They found a language not one word of which they could understand. The island itself was then called +Britain+; and the tongue spoken in it belonged to the Keltic group of languages. Languages belonging to the Keltic group are still spoken in Wales, in Brittany (in France), in the Highlands of Scotland, in the west of Ireland, and in the Isle of Man. A few words-- very few-- from the speech of the Britons, have come into our own English language; and what these are we shall see by-and-by. 7. +The Family to which English belongs.+-- Our English tongue belongs to the +Aryan+ or +Indo-European Family+ of languages. That is to say, the main part or substance of it can be traced back to the race which inhabited the high table-lands that lie to the back of the western end of the great range of the Himalaya, or “Abode of Snow.” This Aryan race grew and increased, and spread to the south and west; and from it have sprung languages which are now spoken in India, in Persia, in Greece and Italy, in France and Germany, in Scandinavia, and in Russia. From this Aryan family we are sprung; out of the oldest Aryan speech our own language has grown.