There's a book entitled "The Viking Legacy" by Geipel
dealing with the Norse contribution/influence to the English language.




In a message dated 1/17/2004 1:04:37 AM Eastern Standard Time, athompso@... writes:

>
>
> The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Ed. David Crystal)
> claims that, quote, "many general words (of Norse origin) entered the
> language, nearly 1,000 eventually becoming part of Standard English.
> Only c. 150 of these words appear in Old English manuscripts, the
> earliest in the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, and in the northern
> manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. They include landing, score,
> beck fellow, take, husting and steersman, as well as many words which
> did not survive in later English )mostly terms to do with Danish law and
> culture, which died away after the Norman Conquest. The vast majority of
> loans do not begin to appear until the early 12th century. These include
> many of our modern words which use sk- sounds (an Old Norse feature),
> such as skirt, sky and skin, as well as most of the words listed below.
> The closeness of the contact between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danish
> settlers is clearly shown by the extensive borrowings. Some of the
> commonest words in Modern English came into the language at that time,
> such as both, same, get and give. Even the personal pronoun system was
> affected, with they, them and their replacing the earlier forms. And the
> most remarkable invasion of all - Old Norse influenced the verb to be.
> The replacement of sindon by are is almost certainly the result of
> Scandinavian influence, as is the spread of the third person singular -s
> ending in the present tense of other verbs.
>
> A few more Norse loans...again, anger, awkward, bag, band, bank, birth,
> brink, bull, cake, call, clip, crawl, crook, die, dirt, dregs, egg,
> flat, fog, freckle, gap, gasp, get, guess, happy, husband, ill, keel,
> kid, knife, law, leg, loan, low, muggy, neck, odd, outlaw, race, raise,
> ransack, reindeer, rid, root, rugged, scant, scare, scowl, scrap, seat,
> seem, silver, sister, skill, skirt, sly, smile, snub, sprint, steak,
> take, thrift, Thursday, tight, trust, want, weak, window"
>
> While the Encyclopedia says nearly 1,000 words, A.C. Baugh in A History
> of the English Language suggests that while about this number of words
> are of almost certain Norse origin, at least as many again are of
> probable Norse origin.
>
> I hope this helps
>
> -Alyssean
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xigung [mailto:xigung@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, 14 January 2004 4:27 AM
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [norse_course] Re: Old Norse in English
>
> --- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "William Calhoun"
> <kubrick36@...> wrote:
> >
> > Sorry if my original question was a bit ambiguous. I meant: How
> much of
> > common English is rooted in Old Norse. It would be a bit foolish to
> search
> > all scientific names which are conventionally composed of Latin or
> Greek
> > parts. Rather, in everyday English, the Old Norse word is often the
> > preferred word in speech: we say 'die' rather than 'expire,' 'raise'
> rather
> > than 'elevate,' and 'narwhal' rather than 'Monodon monoceros.'
> Thank you
> > very much for your help. I always appreciate your input.
> > -William Calhoun
>
>
>
> I recall word counts in Jan de Vries' dictionary,
> that ought to give a good idea of approximate
> percentages. (though the counts may go the wrong
> way, I am not sure right now)
> To 'raise' from Old norse? Perhaps. But it is also
> a more general Germanic word. For example OHG risan,
> or Gothic ur-reisan.
> Also 'finger' was mentioned. But finger is also in
> all the West-Germanic dialects that I know of.
> (English being one of them) Also in Gothic figgrs.
> 'Knife' might make a case more clear cut, since
> German has 'Messer' here. But Webster's list
> 'knif' also as Middle Low German, and does not
> mention it as being from Norse. (OE cnif)
> Personally, I only know very few clear cut examples.
> One seems to be 'to cast'.
>
> My impression is that English is mostly West Germanic
> with a lot of French loans.
>
> Xigung
>
>
>
>
>
>
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