The Scandinavian influence on English

The influence of Scandinavian on English vocabulary as a result of the settlement of the Northman in England before the Norman Conquest. The Scandinavian colonization of the British Isles had a considerable effect on the English language and vocabulary, as well as culture. There are many hundreds of Scandinavian place-names that can still be found in the British Isles, and endings such as -by, -ness, and -thorp, are some typical Scandinavian place-name elements. The –by suffix originally had the meaning of a farmstead, but many grew into villages or towns, keeping the –by name. Examples are Grimsby, Derby, and Rugby. It is clear that some place-names are more Danish than Norwegian; for instance, -thorp was not often used by the Norwegians, so it is an indication of Danish settlement. Like the –by names, the –thorp names were also usually Scandinavian Compounds. The Scandinavian settlement was rapid and heavy.

Scandinavian vocabulary penetrated nearly every area of the language, but most words of Scandinavian origin in English are concrete everyday words. A few examples follow here:

o The nouns: bank, birth, booth, egg, husband, law, leg, root, score, sister, skin, trust, wing and window.

o The adjectives: awkward, flat, happy, ill, loose, low, odd, sly, ugly, weak, and wrong

o The verbs: to cast, clip, crawl, cut, die, drown, gasp, give, lift, nag, scare, sprint, take, and want.

And of course the present plural of ‘to be’, are.

o The pronouns: both, same, they, them and their.

A few examples of later borrowings from the Scandinavian languages are fjord, saga, ski, slalom, smorgasbord and Viking.

A higher number of Scandinavian words are found in the dialects of Yorkshire and Scotland, than in the rest of Britain.

In conclusion, the Scandinavian imprint on Britain was very deep indeed. The Scandinavians managed to penetrate nearly every British domain; they affected the law system of the Anglo-Saxons, they modified the agricultural system in areas of the Danelaw, there are thousands of place-names of Scandinavian origin, Viking rune-stones have been found in certain areas, and the English vocabulary has been very much influenced by the Norse tongue.