Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon. The Latin form of the word applies originally to the people and language of the Saxon race who colonized the southern parts of Britain (as distinct from the northern parts colonized by the Angles), to distinguish them from continental Saxons; hence, the ‘Anglo’ element is adverbial and the word does not mean the combination of Angles and Saxons: i.e. the people and language of the whole of England. For the latter the term ‘Old English’ is more correct. The word became applied in the erroneous way very early; Ælfric (c.1000) refers to the West Saxon he spoke as ‘English’. The ‘correct’ distinction, made by the OED and enforced by modern scholars, between ‘Old English’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is a somewhat pedantic one. Since the revival of such studies in the 16th cent., ‘Anglo-Saxon’ has been used as the general term, without a sense of geographical distinction.