This volume investigates the Indo-European and Germanic background to the English language, looking at how inherited elements of phonology and morphology survived into the Old English period. It then considers various kinds of contact between the first speakers of English and speakers of Celtic, Latin and Scandinavian, under different sociolinguistic circumstances. The manner in which initial standardisation of English took place, with considerable code-switching, and the structural changes which the language underwent in this early period are discussed. The various analytical methods used to examine the available data are considered in a dedicated chapter on philology. The volume also contains a set of longer chapters. These take a detailed look at various levels of language from phonology, morphology, syntax through to semantics and pragmatics, and include reviews of historical sociolinguistics and onomastics.