At 6:32:04 PM on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, Rick McCallister
wrote:
[...]
> But what percentage of AS was Norse?
Only about 150 Scand. loans are found in OE; it isn't until
early ME, especially in the north and east, that we see a
large number of Scand. loans. Kastovsky thinks that the
earlier loans were largely the result of Anglo-Saxons
becoming bilingual in the (temporarily) more prestigious
Scand. language, while the later ones were largely brought
into English by speakers of Scand. who switched to English
during the death of Scand. in the Danelaw.
Brian