One of the biggest influencen of old Norse on English is the fact we form the pluralen of worden by adding an "s" instead of the Germanic "en" - as hinted at by your eggs/eyren example.
Funnily enough, both -s and -en plurals are found in Old English as -as and -an: wer 'man' pluralizes to weras 'men', and oxa 'ox' pluralizes to 'oxan'.
I recently finished reading “The Vikings: A History,” by Robert Ferguson. I never realized how large an impact the Vikings had throughout Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, not just on our language, but also on our system of government.
Interest in Vikings seems to be having a modest bump, which just could be I’m noticing it more. (Insert bad football team joke here.)
Something else I've noticed is that here in England there's something I call the "Eccles cake line". Eccles cakes are small round cakes make of flaky pastry and containing currants. It seems you only get them north and east of a line that I like to think corresponds to the boundary of the old Danelaw. Here in Birmingham you never see them in cafes but you do if you do about 20 miles to the northeast towards Leicester, which was in the Danelaw.
Delicious Eccles cakes were normal fayre in cake shops in Birmingham in the 1970s and 80s. I've since moved west to Wales..are Eccles cakes a rarity in English Midlands now?
"Strangely, many Norse loanwords don't appear in written English until centuries after the Vikings settled. This suggests that words of Norse origin circulated in everyday speech long before they were deemed acceptable enough to write down."
Isn't this explained by the Danelaw being almost entirely illiterate after the destruction of the monasteries? The texts we have from the period are from Wessex, right?
Thank you for your essays, which give me the opportunity to scratch my linguistic itch. (Years ago, I taught a college course that included a unit on the history of English—one of my favorite subjects.) This essay reminded me of the story that printer William Caxton told of a woman who, when asked for eggs, said she didn’t speak French. She was familiar with the Old English word “eyren” instead of the Norse-inspired term. Do I have that story right? I had to look online to check it, since I’m away from my library.
To think of vikings as pirates is a good way of thinking about it. The Old English version of "viking" (wicing) is actually used to translate the Latin word pirata.
I’ve always wondered if my surname (Dale) is Norse in origin. England’s Yorkshire Dales are just south of Northumberland, after all, so it’s likely Viking settlement occurred there. And there is a town in Norway named Dale, famous for its sweater industry (https://us.daleofnorway.com/).
Old English does have the ancestor to dale (dæl), but the use of dale may have been strengthened by the Old Norse equivalent (dalr), since dale continued as the normal word for valley longest in the North.
One of the biggest influencen of old Norse on English is the fact we form the pluralen of worden by adding an "s" instead of the Germanic "en" - as hinted at by your eggs/eyren example.
Funnily enough, both -s and -en plurals are found in Old English as -as and -an: wer 'man' pluralizes to weras 'men', and oxa 'ox' pluralizes to 'oxan'.
"Children" and "oxen" being throwbacks to pre-Norse days!
"Children" was a Middle English innovation. In Old English the plural was "childer". "Oxen", though, is a throwback to Old English.
I remember one of my great aunts, born in the early years of the 20th century in Leeds, UK, using the word childer.
Just to add more confusion, I'm northern Irish and we speak hiberno-english dialect and "the childer" is very common still today on use.
I recently finished reading “The Vikings: A History,” by Robert Ferguson. I never realized how large an impact the Vikings had throughout Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, not just on our language, but also on our system of government.
Interest in Vikings seems to be having a modest bump, which just could be I’m noticing it more. (Insert bad football team joke here.)
Something else I've noticed is that here in England there's something I call the "Eccles cake line". Eccles cakes are small round cakes make of flaky pastry and containing currants. It seems you only get them north and east of a line that I like to think corresponds to the boundary of the old Danelaw. Here in Birmingham you never see them in cafes but you do if you do about 20 miles to the northeast towards Leicester, which was in the Danelaw.
Ah. that's amazing! Are they any good?
I really like them but live the wrong side of the line 😉
Delicious Eccles cakes were normal fayre in cake shops in Birmingham in the 1970s and 80s. I've since moved west to Wales..are Eccles cakes a rarity in English Midlands now?
I’ve never seen them here in the 25 years I’ve lived in the West Midlands.
Damn, that's a shame.
"Strangely, many Norse loanwords don't appear in written English until centuries after the Vikings settled. This suggests that words of Norse origin circulated in everyday speech long before they were deemed acceptable enough to write down."
Isn't this explained by the Danelaw being almost entirely illiterate after the destruction of the monasteries? The texts we have from the period are from Wessex, right?
Right, although interestingly there are a few Norse loans in literary Old English, e.g. griþ 'truce', which we see in the Battle of Maldon.
This is excellent! Thanks Colin!
Thank you, Omar!
Thank you for your essays, which give me the opportunity to scratch my linguistic itch. (Years ago, I taught a college course that included a unit on the history of English—one of my favorite subjects.) This essay reminded me of the story that printer William Caxton told of a woman who, when asked for eggs, said she didn’t speak French. She was familiar with the Old English word “eyren” instead of the Norse-inspired term. Do I have that story right? I had to look online to check it, since I’m away from my library.
Yes, that's right! That story is from Caxton.
Seriously, I appreciate the article. I have learned to look at the origin of words (etymology) from reading Tolkien (as a philologist).
Thanks! Tolkien is the perfect gateway drug to philology.
Because I'm a six foot, blue-eye, red head?
þancword! A word of thanks!
Þē sīe þanc! Thanks to you!
super interesting, thank you!
Thanks, Zara!
This article seriously tickled my etymological fancy. Thank you for your writing!
Thanks, Kyle!
Grammatical cases and gender expressed by adding endings to words are still very much part of the Norwegian language
Is there a difference between vikings and pirates?
To think of vikings as pirates is a good way of thinking about it. The Old English version of "viking" (wicing) is actually used to translate the Latin word pirata.
Was there any changes to old Norse from English?
Good question! Not to my knowledge.
I’ve always wondered if my surname (Dale) is Norse in origin. England’s Yorkshire Dales are just south of Northumberland, after all, so it’s likely Viking settlement occurred there. And there is a town in Norway named Dale, famous for its sweater industry (https://us.daleofnorway.com/).
Old English does have the ancestor to dale (dæl), but the use of dale may have been strengthened by the Old Norse equivalent (dalr), since dale continued as the normal word for valley longest in the North.
Oh, how cool!