Scandinavian Elements in English
Answer
The contribution of the 'Viking' settlers had been a very vital factor in the growth of British civilization. The chief Norse influences of the English Vocabulary belong properly to the history of the Old English Period, though their affects became visible in the Middle English to a marked extent. The Scandinavians included the Danes and Norwegians first came to England on a raiding expedition 787 and came on such raids at short intervals till 850 which included the shaking of Lindisfarne and Jarrow in 783 and 784. Alfred made peace with them and concluded the 'Treaty of Wedmore' in 878 leaving the whole of the North and North Western England to them as Daneland.
The native and the Norse lived peacefully side by side intermarrying and virtually getting fused into one nation. Inspite of occasional hostilities, the relationship between the English and the Scandinavians had been long and intimate. It is therefore, natural many scandinavian words found peace in English Vocabulary. Skent who studies the subjects found about five hundred current English Words, later studies put the figure a little higher near to one thousand.
The type of words borrowed was naturally pertaining to each custom, the skills or the institutions of the Norseman and a few such terms have been parts of the British Language, though many were too technical and ephemeral to last.
The Anglo-Saxon and the Norseman could almost understand one another. For the dialects if the invaders, whether Danes, Norwegian, Swedens or Icelanders were members of the Germanic family and were descended from the same stock as that of the English. According to Wrenn "Among the aristocracy of England and Scandinavian there was a common Germanic heroic tradition are many commonly inherited culture which Christianity in England had not obliterated." Many Scandinavian words became so thoroughly assimilated that one can never think of regarding them as anything but English. We are for the most part "Struck with the completeness which the Scandinavian words have become one with language and the way they have exactly the same kind of feeling and connotation as words of purely Anglo-Saxon origin."
The Scandinavian elements that entered the English language are as such made their way in to it through the give and take of everyday life. The influence of the Scandinavian therefore was on the common place sphere and was in respect of words in everyday use. Their character can be best conveyed by a few examples showing words in everyday use. Their characters can be best conveyed by a few examples showing words in everyday use:
(a) Among nouns that came in are 'Husband', 'Fellow', Sky', 'Sister', 'Want', 'Window.'
(b) Among Adjective may be mentioned 'Low', 'Happy', 'Rotten', 'Scant', 'Seemly.'
(c) Among common verbs we find 'Call', 'Thrive', 'Die', 'Take', 'Crave', 'Give.'
(d) There are also Pronouns like 'They', 'Them', 'There.' Some Adverbs like 'Thence', 'Hence', 'Whence.'
(e) Conjunctions like 'Though', and Preposition like 'For' and 'Till' etc.
According to A.C. Baugh, "lists such as these suggested better than any explaination the familiar everyday character of the words which the Scandinavian invasions and subsequent settlement brought into English."
French words represent high intellectual or emotional subjects or fashionable matters in general. While Scandinavian words represent conversational matters in daily life. Just as it is impossible to speak or write in English about higher intellectual subjects or about fashionable matters without drawing largely upon the French and the Latin Elements in the same manner Scandinavian words will cope up together with the Anglo-Saxon ones in any conversation. To illustrate this Jesperson says that, "An Englishman cannot thrive or be ill or die without Scandinavian Words, they are to the language what bread and eggs are to the daily life."
The domestic and democratic characters of English Language has been largely influenced by the infiltration of many common Scandinavian words into English vocabulary. The importance of the Scandinavian loan words lies in the fact that they significantly throw a flash of light on the culture and civilization of the Scandinavian when they invaded England and also the relationship that existed between the two nations. The nature of these non-technical loan words can show us nothing about the mental or industrial superiority of the Scandinavian. This loan belongs to the domestic sphere that shows reciprocal homely relations between the two racial types which led to an intimate fusion of the two without lessening the 'Homogeneousness' (Wrenn) of the language.
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