It was one of four dialect-groups of Old English, the other three being Mercian, Northumbrian (known collectively as the Anglian dialects), and West Saxon.
The dialect was spoken in what are now the modern-day Counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by the Germanic settlers, identified by Bede as Jutes.
[1] Such a distinct difference in the Anglo-Saxon settlers of the entire Kingdom of Kent is viewed more sceptically by modern historians.
[3] However, some indications of the differences between late-seventh-century Kentish and West Saxon can be made by comparing two contemporaneous laws.
However, there is little doubt that, even with minor differences in syntax and vocabulary, the two forms were mutually intelligible, at least by this relatively late date in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of southern England.