Scandinavian Influence upon the English Language

Introduction:

Aside from Greek, Latin and French, only Scandinavian, the language of the people of whom the Anglo Saxons called ‘Danes’ has made a really substantial contribution to the  English  vocabulary. Read More Philology The Scandinavian (Scandinavia, today’s Norway, Sweden and Denmark: Scandinavian invaders are known as Vikings; This Viking Age, which took place roughly from the 8th to the 11th centuries when Norse seafarers and settlers from what is now Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark, and Sweden) came to England.) colonization of the British Isles had a considerable effect on the English language and vocabulary, as well as culture. The Scandinavians, originating from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, were once neighbours of the Anglo-Saxons and shared the same ancestors, thus being closely related to them in language and culture. This meant that the Scandinavian languages and Old English were mutually intelligible to a certain extent. Read More PhilologyThis made it easy for the Scandinavians to borrow words from Old English, and vice versa. The similarity between old  English and the language of the Scandinavian invaders makes it at times very difficult to decide whether a given word in Modern English is a native or a borrowed word. Read More Philology 

Straight to the Point:

The Scandinavian influence upon the English language is profound. It is estimated that about 45% of the commoner words and 25% of the general lexis in the present day English lexicon are a result of the language contact between Old English and Old Norse during the period of Scandinavian invasions and settlement in the eighth and ninth centuries.Read More Philology

Enormous similarity is found between these two languages in nouns like ‘man’, ‘wife’, ‘father’, ‘folk’, ‘mother’, ‘house’, ‘life’, ‘winter’, ‘summer’; verbs like ‘will’, ‘can’, ‘meet’, ‘come’, ‘bring’, ‘hear’, ‘see’, ‘think’, ‘smile’, ‘ride’, ‘spin’; and adjectives and adverbs like ‘full’, ‘wise’, ‘better’, ‘best’, ‘mine’, ‘over’ and ‘under’. In addition, very interesting to note that when we work with Scandinavian loan words, the word ‘loan’ itself seems to declare its descent from the Scandinavian.

Reviving Old Words and Adds Meanings: 

Scandinavian influence gave a fresh lease of life to obsolete native words. For instance, the preposition ‘till’ is found only once or twice in Old English texts belonging to the pre Scandinavian Period, but after that, it becomes common in Old English. Read More Philology

         

Further, some native words lost their original meaning the moment they encountered their Scandinavian counterpart. Read More Philology For example, the word ‘dream’ originally meaning joy changes its meaning into ‘an experience of viewing images in sleep’, the meaning is derived from Scandinavian sources. Similarly, ‘bread’ changes its meaning from ‘fragment’ to ‘an item of food’.

Place Names: 

There exist a large number of places that bear Scandinavian names. More than 600 places in English have names ending in - by which is a clear evidence of Scandinavian influence. Numerous examples can be cited: Grimsby, Whit by, Derby, Rugby etc. (the Danish word –‘by’ means town or farm) Names like Althorp, Bishopsthorpe, Linthrope contain the Scandinavian word ‘thorp’ which means village. Read More Philology  Similarly we have Applethwaite, Braithwaite, Langthwaite, thwaite meaning an isolated piece of land’ while Brimtoft, Eastoft, and Nortoft ending in ‘toft ’meaning a piece of ground. Such examples can easily be multiplied.  

Loanwords:

 Old Norse contributed a substantial number of loanwords to English. Many everyday words like "sky," "egg," "knife," "window," and "husband" have their origins in Old Norse. These loanwords enriched the English vocabulary and are still in use today. Read More Philology 

In the earlier period of borrowing, the number of Scandinavian words that appear in Old  English is small due to the hostile relations of the invaders with the  English people. Gradually, with the case of tension, we find a number of words relating to law or social and administrative system entering in the English language. Read More Philology  The ‘law’ itself is of Scandinavian origin. The words like nioing (criminal), mall (action of law), wapentake (an administrative district), husting (assembly), stefnan (summon) etc sojourned a while only to be replaced by French words after the Norman Conquest.

With the proper settling down of the Scandinavians in England, Scandinavian words entered the  English language in large numbers. Read More Philology But unlike the case of Latin, where borrowings were usually learned, the Scandinavian borrowings were in the realm of daily give-and-take transactions.

Here is a specimen of common words in  English that owe their origin to the language of the Scandinavians: bank, birth, bull, dirt, egg, gap, kid, link, race, skirt, sister, window, low, meek, rotten, shy, tight, weak, bait, crawl, dig, gape, kindle, lift, screech, thrust, they, their, then, aloft, athwart and many more. Or like: 

Nouns: sky, egg, law, leg, knife, window, die, skin

Verbs: call, take, give, die, get, eat

Adjectives: loose, ugly, happy, glad

Pronouns: they, their, them

Prepositions: from, to, till

Conjunctions: though, both

Adverbs: aye, ill

Grammar and Syntax: 

In the case of grammar, many of the pronominal forms like ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’ etc are of the Scandinavian origin. The use of the pronouns "they," "their," and "them" instead of the Old English pronouns "hi," "hira," and "him" is due to Scandinavian influence. The use of ‘shall’ ,’will’ , prepositional use of ‘to’ ‘fro’, use of relative clause with out any pronoun are due to Scandinavian influence. Old Norse had a significant impact on word order in English sentences. For example, the placement of adjectives before nouns (e.g., "sky-blue" or "dead-end") is thought to have been influenced by Norse.

Idioms and Phrases, Pronunciation & Dialects:

 Some idiomatic expressions and phrases in English have their roots in Norse culture and language. For instance, "take the bull by the horns" is thought to have originated from Norse bullfighting. The pronunciation was also influenced by Old Norse. Read More PhilologyFor instance, the "sk" sound in words like "sky" and "skirt" reflects Old Norse influence. Again, in areas of England where Norse settlement was prominent, such as the Danelaw region, the Scandinavian influence on dialects and accents is still noticeable today.

Conclusion: 

It's important to note that this linguistic influence was not a one-way street. As the Vikings settled in England, they also adopted elements of the Old English language and culture, leading to a fusion of the two languages over time.Read More Philology

The impact of Scandinavian languages on English is a testament to the dynamic nature of language and how it evolves through contact with other cultures. Today, English is a rich and diverse language that has been shaped by a wide range of influences, including the Scandinavian legacy from the Viking Age. Even though the Scandinavian loans abound in  English this is not fair to say that the magnitude of loans affected the native style of  English. Read More Philology It is worthwhile to point out that the very Englishness of English remains unaltered even at the face of abundance of Scandinavian loans in  English.

Ardhendu De

References

History of the English language : Lounsbury, Thomas R., 1838-1915 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/historyofenglish00loun_0

Review: A History of English Literature * Alexander Michael: A History of English Literature. (2002, July 1). Forum for Modern Language Studies, 38(3), 352–352. https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/38.3.352