Learn English – Which term was coined first? “England” or “English”

etymology

I've looked up the etymology of both words, and here they are:

English : "people or speech of England," O.E. Englisc, from Engle (pl.) "the Angles," the name of one of the Germanic groups that overran the island 5c., supposedly so-called because Angul, the land they inhabited on the Jutland coast, was shaped like a fish hook

England: O.E. Englaland, lit. "the land of the Angles"

Both, as you can see, do not list the dates on which they were coined. My question is, was as one word was coined before another, which was coined earlier? Does anyone have any definitive information regarding this?

Best Answer

I don't think the Angles landed in the British Isles and said:

"Let's call our language Ænglisc now that we moved to this new land!"

Before they migrated, and that took many years, their homeland was already called Englaland or even Engla and they already named their Germanic language Englisc. The only difference is that this place was Angeln in the south-east part of Schleswig, in present-day Germany.

So to answer your question, the word English was used before England was called England but at that time the word England (or its ancestor) already existed. It was just used to designate a completely different place.

As for the English people the Angles themselves were collectively referred to as Engelcynn (as in kin) or Engelfolc (as in folk, German volk).

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