Angles

The Angles (Latin: Anglii) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, and their name is the root of the name England. The name comes from the district of Angeln, an area located on the Baltic shore of what is now Schleswig-Holstein.

The name of the Angles may have been first recorded in Latinised form, as Anglii, in the Germania of Tacitus. It is thought to derive from the name of the area they originally inhabited: Angeln in modern German, Angel in Danish. This name has been hypothesised to originate from the Germanic root for "narrow" (compare German and Dutch eng = "narrow"), meaning "the Narrow [Water]", i.e. the Schlei estuary; the root would be angh, "tight". Another theory is that the name meant "hook", as in angling for fish; Julius Pokorny, a major Indo-European linguist, derives it from *ang-, "bend" (see ankle).

Gregory the Great in an epistle simplified the Latinised name Anglii to Angli, the latter form developing into the preferred form of the word. The country remained Anglia in Latin. Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius' history of the world uses Angelcynn (-kin) to describe England and the English people; Bede used Angelfolc (-folk); there are also such forms as Engel, Englan (the people), Englaland, and Englisc, all showing i-mutation.

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