----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 2:59
PM
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Old Norse in
English
well, if you trace back the roots of common daily English
words, as well as
German or modern Scandinavian words, you' ll come in many
cases to the same
roots anyway. So, if a word in English, or its preceding
form in Old
English, looks quite similar to an Old Norse word, this can
either mean it
came as a word borrowed from Old Norse into English at a
certain time
(things like this happens often with words attached to certain
things or
techniques which are introduced to places where they were not
know before)
or it just means they share the same origin in very early
Germanic times.
Especially with everyday words related to household,
cattle, tools, etc. you
find a lot such words which are until to day very
very similar all across
the Germanic languages, from German to Icelandic.
This does not mean they
came to be borrowed from one language into the
other at a certain point but
just have common ancestors. This is by the way
all a very interesting topic
for long winter evenings with some big
etymological dictionaries and a nice
pot of tea
:-)
mona
----- Original Message -----
From: "Haukur
Thorgeirsson" <haukurth@...>
To:
<norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 3:38
AM
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Old Norse in English
> >
What perent of the English language
> > is rooted in Old
Norse?
>
> I don't know and the question isn't really
> well
defined. Here are two suggestions for
> better defined
questions:
>
> 1. What percentage of the daily vocabulary
of
> English (say, the 2000 most common words) is
> derived from
Old Norse?
>
> 2. What percentage of the total dictionary
>
vocabulary of English is derived from Old Norse words?
>
> I don't
know about the absolute percentages but
> it is clear that the answer to
question 2 is significantly
> lower than the answer to question 1. Most
of the "extended"
> vocabulary of English is Graeco-Latin
goobledygook.
>
> If you want my wild guess rather than your own
then maybe
> 10-20% for question 1 and 1-2% for question 2. (But
even
> those questions aren't very carefully defined.)
>
>
There are certainly very many very common English words
> derived from
Old Norse. Words like 'take' and 'knife' and
> even the pronoun
'they'.
>
> Kveðja,
> Haukur
>
> A Norse funny
farm, overrun by smart people.
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
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