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Older theories posited that the invading Anglo-Saxons killed off or displaced the previous Celtic-speaking population in what is now England, and that the later English people, at least in the male line, were descended from Saxon invaders from northern Germany and Denmark.

These days it is more fashionable to say that Anglo-Saxon invaders did not ethnically cleanse the prior inhabitants, they just mixed with them and became politically dominant and the switch to an Anglo-Saxon based speech in Britain east of Cumbria/Wales/Cornwall was based on that rather than mass migration.

About 500 years later, after conquest by the French speaking Normans, French replaced English as the prestige language for a few centuries. Old English was heavily affected and altered by its encounter with French, as is apparent in Middle English and Modern.

However, French did not permanently replace English, which remained in general use among the populace and made a comeback as the dominant language of the ruling class.

If not because of ethnic cleansing, why was Brythonic so thoroughly eliminated from England?

Is there a plausible manner in which Brythonic, even in a much altered form, could have made a comeback as the dominant speech of the population of England, even if most royal lineages claimed Anglo-Saxon heritage?
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