Nancy DeGiuli, age 13, of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, for her question:

WHEN WAS THE FIRST ENGLISH WORD SPOKEN?

 Before 450 A.D., those living in the area we now call England spoke the tongue of old Celtic tribes, the Gaels and the Britons. Some Latin was also spoken, brought to the area by the Romans in 54 B.C.

In the fifth century, Germanic tribes from along the North Sea began to invade England. The dialects they spoke became the dialects of Old English  and this, it can be said, was the start of the English language. English was closely related to Frisian, a language spoken in the north of Holland, that was also a Low German dialect  that is, a language spoken by the Germanic people who live in the lowland areas of northern Europe.