22. The Scandinavian Conquest and Scandinavian linguistic influence.

Since the 8^th c. the British Isles were ravaged by sea rovers from Scandinavia, first by Danes, later – by Norwegians. By the end of the 9^th c. the Danes had succeeded in obtaining a permanent footing in England; more than half of England was yielded to the invaders and recognized as Danish territory – “Danelaw”. The new settlers and the English intermarried and intermixed; they lived close together and did not differ either in social rank or in the level of culture and customs. In the areas of the heaviest settlement the Scandinavians outnumbered the Anglo-Saxon population, which is attested by geographical names. Altogether more than 1,400 English villages and towns bear names of Scandinavian origin (with the element thorp meaning ‘village’, e.g. Woodthorp). Eventually the Scandinavians were absorbed into the local population both ethnically and linguistically. They merged with the society around them, but the impact on the linguistic situation and on the further development of the English language was quite profound. The increased regional differences of English in the 11^th and 12^th c. must partly be attributed to the Scandinavian influence. Due to the contacts and mixture with O Scand, the Northern dialects had acquired lasting and sometimes indelible Scandinavian features. In later ages the Scandinavian element passed into other regions. The incorporation of the Scandinavian element in the London dialect and Standard English was brought about by the changing linguistic situation in England: the mixture of the dialects and the growing linguistic unification.

The Danelaw collapsed only some fifty years after its establishment but the Scandinavian settlers nevertheless remained in the area. The West Saxons had gradually reconquered it, and eventually the Scandinavians accepted the Saxon king as their own. They did not, however, live as an isolated group; they were absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon population, and intermarriage was frequent. The importance of the Vikings in Britain did not end with the fall of the Danelaw; they continued raiding England sporadically and in 1016 the Danish King Knut (Canute) also became king over all of England. However, his reign was short and it is fair to say that with his death the decline of the Viking Age started.

Scandinavian Place-Names. One very noticeable difference between the area where the Scandinavians settled and the rest of England is the hundreds of place-names with Scandinavian origin in the Danelaw. Placenames often begin as topographical descriptions or descriptions of the founders of the sites (Clark 1992:471), and place-name elements like -by (Grimsby), -beck (Tossbeck), -ness (Furness) -kir[k] (Kirkcaldy), -scale, -sough, -thwait[e] (Inglethwaithe), -thorp[e] (Scunthorpe), and -toft (Lowestoft) are all of Scandinavian origin.

Scandinavian Loanwords. When the Vikings arrived in the British Isles the dominant language was the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons, while the Vikings themselves spoke Old Norse. The two languages, both of the Germanic branch, were probably still rather similar, thus making it possible for both sides to understand each other, although with a little effort. The two languages were cognates, and similar in their basic structures. Additionally, a certain degree of bilingualism may have developed over time, but there is however much disagreement over this issue. It is not clear if the Danes, the English, or both, became bilingual.

By 1100 the English in the north and east had been modified to what calls Anglo-Scandinavian. This was at the end of the Viking Age but that did not mean that Old Norse stopped being used in Britain; it was spoken for a long time thereafter as well. Travelling by sea was still important, and contacts were kept with the Isle of Man, Irish ports and the Northern Isles, which helped to keep the language alive. These places all contained a

large and influential Norse-speaking population until the late twelfth century, and sometimes longer.

Naturally, the massive migration and settlement that the Scandinavians undertook led to extensive use of the Norse tongue in the area of the Danelaw, and we can see evidence of it even today through its influences on the English language. Scandinavian vocabulary penetrated nearly every area of the language (Jones 1984:422), but most words of Scandinavian origin in English are concrete everyday words. A few examples follow here:

o The nouns bank, birth, booth, egg, husband, law, leg, root, score, sister, skin, trust, wing and window

o The adjectives awkward, flat, happy, ill, loose, low, odd, sly, ugly, weak, and wrong

o The verbs to cast, clip, crawl, cut, die, drown, gasp, give, lift, nag, scare, sprint, take, and want. And of course the present plural of ‘to be’, are.

o The pronouns both, same, they, them and their

A few examples of later borrowings from the Scandinavian languages are fjord, saga, ski, slalom, smorgasbord and viking. The fact that even the pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ were accepted into the language shows what massive effects the Viking settlement had.

There are certain ways to decide whether a word is a Scandinavian loan:

1. Germanic /sk/ became /∫ / (sh) in all positions. This change occurred later in Scandinavia, and therefore words like shall, shoulder and shirt are native English words whereas skin, sky and skirt are Scandinavian words.

2. In early OE the Germanic /g/ before front vowels became /j/, and /k/ became /t/. In Old Norse /g/ and /k/ remained. Thus, child, choose and yield are all native words, while give, gift, kid and kindle are Scandinavian.

3. Date of first appearance. For instance, the OE word for ‘take’ was niman, but in late OE tacan is found. The Old Norse word was taka, which shows that it must have been borrowed from the Scandinavians. In the same way, the word for ‘law’ was originally æ but a later recording is lagu, which comes from Old Norse.

In fact, judging by the large number of Scandinavian words in the legal area, The Vikings had a considerable impact upon the law and order of the Anglo-Saxons. Some examples are fellow (‘partner’), law, and outlaw. Even more Scandinavian words related to the legal area existed in OE but were later replaced. Not only did the Scandinavian peoples bring their laws and customs to the Danelaw, but their view on law and legal custom was to a great extent acknowledged by all of England.

The vowel of a word can sometimes indicate that it is a loanword; for instance, in Old English the Germanic diphthong /ai/ became /a:/, whereas it became /ei/ or /e:/ in Old Norse. Thus words like aye, nay, and reindeer are borrowings. Baugh further concludes that tests based on these kinds of sound-developments are the most reliable ways to separate Scandinavian from native words, but sometimes it is also possible by looking at the meaning of words. The word bloom, for instance, could derive from Old English bloma or the Scandinavian blom. The Scandinavian word had the meaning of ‘flower’ or ‘bloom’, while the OE word meant ‘ingot of iron’. Both meanings have survived in Modern English; the Scandinavian meaning of ‘flower’ has been retained in the daily use of the word, and the Old English form exists as a metallurgic term. The same can be applied to the word gift, which was previously discussed. The initial g does point to the Scandinavian origin of the word, but if we did not know this a look at the meaning of the cognates might help. The Old English gift had the meaning ‘price of a wife’, whereas the Old Norse word meant ‘gift, present’.

The Scandinavian influence also reached into matters of grammar and syntax, although this is more difficult to show and will not be further explored here. However, the –s of the third person singular has been attributed to the Scandinavian influence, as well as the ending –t in words like scant and want, which was originally the Norse neuter ending. The inflectional endings were often the only difference and obstacle to the mutual understanding of Norse and English words, and the loss of the inflections in Old English was accelerated by the Scandinavian presence.