22. The Scandinavian invasion and influense upon English.

In the 8th century Scandinavian Danes made their 1st attacks on England. He struggle lasted over 300 years. Then King Alfred proclaimed peace treaty of 878. England was divided into halves: the north-eastern (Danish) and called Danelagh. And south-western (Wessex). But in 10 century 1013 Danish attacked again headed by Sweyn and Canute. And Canute was a king of England. Under Canute death 1035 England became independent. A most important role in the history of the English language was played by the introduction of Christianity. It gave a strong impulse to the growth of culture and learning. Monasteries were founded all over the country with monastic schools attached. Religious services and teaching were conducted in Latin. Thus due to the introduction of Christianity the English language acquired much influence from Latin. Influence- The Germanic tribes in 5th and 6th c. spoke closely related tribal dialects belonging to the west-Germanic subgroup. Their original tongue transformed into single English tongue. Next – feudal system and a new phase in dialects. (Kentish, West Saxon, Mercian, Northumblian)

23. Scandinavian borrowings in English.

This is because they seem to have the same quality and texture as Anglo-Saxon words. They are ordinary, everyday words, and quite often monosyllabic and include grammatical words (like the verb are (to be), or the pronouns their, them and they and some of the commonest words in English today like bag, dirt, fog, knife, flat, low, odd, ugly, want, trust, get, give, take, raise, smile and though. A good number of sc- or sk- words today are of Scandinavian origin (scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, sky). Scandinavian loan-words are therefore more usefully considered as core items. The English and Scandinavian belong to the same Germanic racial, cultural and linguistic stock originally and their language, therefore, shared common grammatical features and words. But changes had occurred in the languages during the couple of centuries of separation of the two sets of people.

The Scandinavians came to settle, rather than conquer or pillage. They lived alongside the Anglo-Saxons on more or less equal terms.

Under the Norman French, particularly, the two different groups fashioned a common life together as subjects.

Under these conditions,

(a) the English word sometimes displaced the cognate Scandinavian word: fish instead of fisk; goat instead of gayte;

(b) the Scandinavian word sometimes displaces the cognate English word: egg instead of ey, sister instead of sweoster;

(c) both might remain, but with somewhat different meanings: dike-ditch, hale-whole, raise-rise, sick-ill, skill-craft, skirt-shirt;

(d) the English word might remain, but takes on the Scandinavian meaning dream (originally ‘joy’, ‘mirth’, ‘music’, ‘revelry’); and

(e) the English words that were becoming obsolete might be given a new lease of life, eg dale and barn.