What word is considered to be the oldest word in the English language?
Officially, the English language didn’t exist before A. D. 449, the traditional date of the arrival in Britain of the first people speaking what became English. (These were three closely related Germanic tribes–Angles, Saxons, and Jutes–and although the earliest form of English is also called Anglo-Saxon, the Jutes were actually the first of the three to arrive.) We can’t pinpoint the first word any of them spoke on arriving there. but there are some literary milestones worth noting. The first known English poet was Caedmon, who lived in the latter part ot the seventh century. Only one of his poems has survived, cited in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Ironically, Bede (who died in 735) wrote in Latin, and Caedmon’s poem was translated BACK into Old English a bit after Bede’s death. Here it is: Nu we sculon herigean heofonrices weard, Meotodes meahte ond his modgeþance, Weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs, Ece drihten, or onstealde. He ærest sceop eorðan bear
