Svandinavian Influence

A considerable part of the vocabulary was common to English and to Scandinavian dialects. In many words the root was the same, while endings were different. For example,

Another part of Scandinavian vocabulary did not correspond to English. It is in this sphere that Scandinavian dialects influenced English. This influence covered a considerable semantic field, including both political terms and everyday words. For example, lagu – law; wrang – wrong, hu:sbonda – husband, sister, casten –cast, ta:ken –take, fe:ologa – fellow, etc.

Even the 3^rd person plural personal pronoun was taken over from Scandinavian into English. The Scandinavian pronoun þeir penetrated into English and, superseding the OE pronoun hi:e, became ME they. Similarly, the genitive of the Scandinavian pronoun þeirra, superseded the native hira and became ME their, and the dative þeim superseded the native him and became ME them. This process was prepared by the OE forms of the demonstrative pronoun þæs, þæm, þa: etc.

In ME documents we sometimes find the preposition at preceding the infinitive, as in Scandinavian. The only trace of this usage is the substantive aso (at do).

Among Scandinavian loan words there were military terms but they did not survive, and were in their turn superceded by French words.

Scandinavian elements became part of many georgraphical names. For example, by –village (Whitby, Derby), toft – grassy spot (Langtoft), beck – rivelet (Troutbeck); ness – cape (Inverness) etc.

In the regions inhabited by Scandinavians, where the two languages were mixed, there occurred blending of entire lexical layers. In many cases a Scandinavian word differed from its English counterpart only in small details. When two such variants met, they might easily blend. It is there sometimes impossible to decide what actually happened: whether the English word was superseded by the Scandinavian or whether the phonetic structure of the English words changed under Scandinavian influence. For example, the OE word ʒ iefan corresponded to the Scandinavian gefa. In late ME, that is in the 15^th century, we find the word give. This velar g could not result from phonetic development of palatal ʒ. Its only source could be the Scandinavian variant. We may suppose that the English word as a whole was superceded by the Scandinavian or that it was changed under Scandinavian influence. The same refers to OE ʒietan (receive), Scandinavian geta and ME getan. Compare also the words for sister: OE swesto r, Scandinavian syst ir, and ME sister.

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