The scandinavian influence on the english and gaelic languages hardcover january 1, 1971 by john geipel author visit amazons john geipel page. The scandinavian influence on the english language. The influence of french in middle english syntax essay. In its 1500year history, the english language has seen dramatic grammatical changes. His book helped in standardising a large number of current spellings baugh, cable. Before i read their paper, i was thinking similar things myself.
Swedish language reference, scandinavian languages. The bulk of the language in spoken and written texts is from this source. Sources for the study of scandinavian influence on oldand middle english. These pages are intended as a resource for students of the history of englishand for those interested in language contact phenomena. Scholars do not agree on the scandinavian influence on the english syntax. Emma pardo rench and the scandinavian languages often referred to collectively as norse are amongst several prolific languages that have dramatically influenced the development of english. Baugh and cable 103105 claim that the scandinavian influence not only affected the vocabulary but also extended to syntax. Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
This book tries to demonstrate that during all this lexical sharing, the grammar. The distribution of a word in english dialects frequently helps to ascertain its real history, and may become a final test where those of form and meaning leave us in doubt. One of the most important scandinavian words in english is the present plural of the verb to be are. Viking influence on the english language norse mythology. The extent of the influence the extent of a foreign influence is seen from the number of words borrowed. Oclcs webjunction has pulled together information and resources to assist library staff as they consider how to handle coronavirus. When considering the scandinavian loanwords in english one can compare them with those from french. A significant subsequent influence on the shaping of old english came from contact with the north germanic languages spoken by the scandinavian vikings who conquered and colonized parts of britain during the 8th and 9th centuries, which led to much lexical borrowing and grammatical simplification. Numerous and frequentlyupdated resource results are available from this search. The scandinavian influence on the english language johannes huhmann term paper english language and literature studies linguistics publish your bachelors or masters thesis, dissertation, term paper or essay. This book offers a comprehensive and readerfriendly account of the major developments, including changes in word order, the noun phrase and verb phrase, changing relations between clausal constituents and the development of new subordinate constructions.
I can absolutely see where the researchers are coming from, but in any family, relationships are complicated my knowledge of scandinavian is limited to a few norwegian folk songs, but compare the english translation of the per spelmann folksong a. The core of the english language descends from old english, the language brought with the angle, saxon, and jutish settlers to what was to be called england from the 500s. Kirch lish vocabulary as a result of the settlement the influence of scandinavian on engof the northmen in england before the norman conquest was well established over fifty years ago by bjorkman. The discussion on the subject of whether english is a scandinavian language or not can go a long way, but can we take a moment to appreciate the english language for its beauty and acceptance worldwide. It is generally held that personal pronouns are among those grammatical closed class. The scandinavian effect on old english morphology and syntax the scandinavian influence not only affected the vocabulary but also extended to morphology and syntax. Noteworthy occurrences happened at that time, however in this term paper we will focus on the scandinavian language, which had its huge impact on english. As a statistical rule, around 70 percent of words in any text are anglosaxon. Even more problematic is the fact that middle english and modern english syntax is scandinavian rather than west germanic. The present article is a summary of the book english.
Those who know one or the other can easily see the relationship to english, but english is certainly the one that has broken away the most from the others. A significant portion of the english vocabulary comes from romance and latinate sources. With this background, we will proceed to describe the syntax of v2 in the southern and northern. In striking contrast to the southern dialect, however, the northern dialect of middle english appears to have developed the verbmovement syntax of a standard cpv2 language and hence to be similar in its syntax to the modern mainland scandinavian languages. To say that scandinavian had an influence on the syntax of later middle english negation does not necessarily mean it created a total innovation here. We will now take a look on what caused the viking influence on the english language, and l will give you some examples on which english words that has an old norse origin, and are still in use today.
The scandinavian influence on the english language johannes huhmann on. Old english grammar resembles the grammar of modern german. These periods are old english 4501150, middle english 11501500, early. Scandinavian influences on grammar and some other borrowings infiltrate the text too. The influence of low saxon and dutch on the scandinavian languages during the late medieval and early modern period has been profound. A case study in language contact and language change. The ovvo word order change in early middle english. Why scandinavian prisons are superior the atlantic. The history of english language is usually divided up into four major periods that can be justified both on the basis of linguistic differences and on the basis of historical events that influenced the later development of english language. On the one hand the varieties of old norse brought to england were much closer to the english of the time than was anglo.
It was probably brought to great britain by anglosaxon settlers in the mid5th century, and the first old english literary works date from the mid7th century. Scandinavian influence on syntax irelative clauses without any pronoun were very rare in old english, but they became very common in mid. The scandinavian influence on old english fernas noman. The influence of french in middle english syntax in contrast to scandinavian, french did not change the oe phonology or syntax but its vocabulary. We believe it is because old english quite simply died out while scandinavian survived, albeit strongly influenced of course by old english, he says. French became the most substantial source of new words in written middle english. The scandinavian influence on the english language ebook.
The major claim of the book and of this article is that there are lexical and, above all, syntactic arguments in favor of considering middle and modern english as descending from the north germanic language spoken by the scandinavian population in the east and. Old norse and scandinavian influence on english english. Pdf a relevance theory approach to the scandinavian influence. According to geipel himself, his publication is the first of its kind for nearly 120 years. Enough minor place names survive in manuscripts for us to compare scandinavian influence on middle english dialects in different parts of the country. English is a germanic language, as are german, dutch and the scandinavian languages. Department of humanities, midsweden university, english c, linguistics, january 2004 abstract. Clause structure and verb syntax in scandinavian and english. Examine the scandinavian influence on the english language.
The middle english period 11501500 was marked by momentous changes in the. Compare and contrast influence on english of the scandinavian. In this essay, i want to examine the influence of the scandinavian language on english and to what extent it was responsible for the general changes mentioned above. Clause structure and verb syntax in scandinavian and english 1st edition. There have been speculations for some time by the historians that there was an overpopulation problem in scandinavia during the 9th and 10th century. Compare and contrast influence on english of the scandinavian languages and french. English is still a west germanic language cambridge core.
Some commentators have compared it to the huge influence, both at the lexical and structural levels, that norman french exerted on late old english. Old norse influences in the transition from old english into middle english. Clause structure and verb syntax in scandinavian and english crc press book. The influence of middle low german on the scandinavian. This was the subject of my doctoral research, which focussed on areas of north west england where we think settlement was predominantly by norwegians rather than danes. If scandinavian did not affect the abstract formal properties of english syntax, linguistic contact between the respective language communities could straightforwardly be seen as having been a matter of borrowing lexical items via transactional relations between adult speakers, rather than of scandinavian influenced speech providing input to.
The scandinavian influence on the english language grin. We will be postingdocumentary evidence and photographs relevant to the type and the extent of theeffects of the viking invasions and settlements of the late old english periodon the syntax, morphology and phonology of english. Within old english, only 3% of words had been borrowed from other. The scandinavian influence on the english language english. I think the claim is plausible, but i dislike the way they frequently exotify the claim. In the study of norse or scandinavian influence on lowland scotch the question of gaelic vi influence cannot be overlooked. Norse underwent essentially no grammatical changes other than. The scandinavian influence on the english language johannes huhmann term paper english. Scandinavian influence has been proposed as a driving factor in a number of processes of grammar change in northern middle english.
The scandinavian influence on the english language, published in 1971. Old norse and scandinavian influence on english english language essay. Contact with scandinavian and late middle english negative. Immediately very obvious differences between the two cases are observed.
Language log scandinavian influence on english syntax. In textual parameters in older language, susan herring et al. Foreign influences on old english linkedin slideshare. Two papers on scandinavian influence on the syntax of english the middle english verbsecond constraint. What can linguistics tell us about the vikings in england. Reliable information about the coronavirus covid19 is available from the world health organization current situation, international travel. Many of these differences have been traced to the linguistic influence in the north of the eighth and ninth century viking invaders who first. The language of the vikings, joseph embley emonds and jan terje faarlund attempt to make the case that from its middle period onwards, english is a north germanic language, descended from the norse varieties spoken in medieval england, rather than a west germanic language, as traditionally assumed. Although inflections are rarely transferred from one language to another, a certain number of inflectional suffices in the northumbrian dialect are attributed to scandinavian influence. The scandinavian influence extended to grammatical words pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and even a part of the verb to be. More precisely, we will deal with a specific sort of an early middle english text, known as the ormulum and analyse there in syntactic and nonsyntactic evidence for language change.