Historians used to believe that the Anglo-Saxons exterminated the Celtic people and the Celtic language in England. According to many books on the history of English, the only Celtic survivors escaped from England to the neighboring areas of Wales, Scotland and Ireland (McCrum, Cran and MacNeil, 1992; Crystal, 1997). As evidence, they tell that only 1 common word of Celtic origin survives in English: “whiskey,” from the Celtic word for “water of life.” However, modern DNA research shows that this extermination never happened. Modern British people have very little Anglo-Saxon blood. In fact, genetically, Britons are mostly Iberian, like the Spanish! A fascinating new book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter (2008), tells us that the Celts continued to live in England, maybe as slaves or poor neighbors to the Anglo-Saxons.
- Profesor UNACH: Iván Pérez Román