Kentish dialect (Old English) in the context of "Northumbrian Old English"

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⭐ Core Definition: Kentish dialect (Old English)

Kentish was a southern dialect of Old English spoken in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent. It was one of four dialect-groups of Old English, the other three being Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as the Anglian dialects), and West Saxon.

The dialect was spoken in what are now the modern-day Counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by the Germanic settlers, identified by Bede as Jutes. Such a distinct difference in the Anglo-Saxon settlers of the entire Kingdom of Kent is viewed more sceptically by modern historians.

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👉 Kentish dialect (Old English) in the context of Northumbrian Old English

Northumbrian was a dialect of Old English spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and employed by modern scholars.

The dialect was spoken from the Humber, now within England, to the Firth of Forth, now within Scotland. In the Danelaw after the Viking invasions, Northumbrian may have been influenced by the Norse language.

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Kentish dialect (Old English) in the context of West Saxon dialect

West Saxon is the term applied to the two different dialects Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon with West Saxon being one of the four distinct regional dialects of Old English. The three others were Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian (the latter two were similar and are known as the Anglian dialects). West Saxon was the language of the kingdom of Wessex, and was the basis for successive widely used literary forms of Old English: the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great's time, and the Late West Saxon of the late 10th and 11th centuries. Due to the Saxons' establishment as a politically dominant force in the Old English period, the West Saxon dialects became the strongest dialects in Old English manuscript writing.

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