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The name "West European Isles" is one translation of the islands' name in the Gaelic languages of Irish [217] and Manx, [218] with equivalent terms for "British Isles". [219] [220] In Old Icelandic, the name of the British Isles was Vestrlönd, 'the Western lands'. The name of a person from the British Isles was a Vestmaðr, 'a man from the ...
This marked the passing of the old Anglo-Saxon world and the dawn of the "English" as a new people. The regions of East Anglia and Northumbria are still known by their original titles. Northumbria once stretched as far north as what is now southeast Scotland , including Edinburgh , and as far south as the Humber estuary and even the river Witham.
The British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's land surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. British English and North American English, the two major varieties of the language, are together spoken by 400 million people. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one ...
On 4 May [O.S. 14 May] 1607, 105 to 108 English men and boys (surviving the voyage from England) established the Jamestown Settlement for the Virginia Company of London, on a slender peninsula on the bank of the James River. It became the first long-term English settlement in North America. [1] [2]
Coates suggests that some British island and River names may derive from these languages, giving the English examples of Thanet, Scilly, Humber and Severn. [11] There is also evidence that a pre-Celtic, but Indo-European, language provides the etymologies of various English rivers, as part of the theorised Old European hydronymy .
The ancestors of the people who built Stonehenge were Neolithic farmers originating from Anatolia who brought agriculture to Europe. [10] At the time of their arrival, around 4,000 BC, Britain was inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers who were the first inhabitants of the island after the last Ice Age ended about 11,700 years ago. [11]
As a result of the influx of settlers, the Pākehā population grew explosively from fewer than 1000 in 1831 to 500,000 by 1881. Some 400,000 settlers came from Britain, of whom 300,000 stayed permanently. Most were young people and 250,000 babies were born. The passage of 120,000 was paid by the colonial government.
Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. [3] Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and Eadberht of Lindisfarne.