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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