Comments on: Viking Words in English

By: Ted Relphj

Ted Relphj — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:27:09 +0000

I am Editor of the LDS JOURNAL. We are interested in the ‘Scandinavian’ element in our dialect, but would like to be more precise and find out if and how the ‘Old Norse’ of the Norweginan Vikings differed from that of the Danish Vikings. It appears the Lake District of Cumbria was mainly attacked/settled/influenced from the Irish sea by Norse Vikings, around 930AD, whereas the Eastern side was ravaged/settled/occupied by the Danes from Yorkshire and the North East some 70 years earlier.
Many of the ‘Old Norse’ words in our dialect were of course common to Norway and Denmark; do you know of any which were peculiar to one or the other??

THANKS ! TED

By: Jeff Watt

Jeff Watt — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:27:35 +0000

Hi! Well, me I’m not a linguist or expert in Old Norse (wish I were!) and, in fact, I’ve posted on the ‘viking mottos’ forum (looking for a VERY ELUSIVE translation from modern English) – but I AM a keen amateur philologist

.. and I do know that English evolved from a kind of amalagam of Anglo-saxon and Old Norse. As some of you may know, the Danes and Norwegians, coming first as plunderers, began to settle down in England – especially in the North-Eastern half of it – from about the ninth century onward. By Knut’s time (circa the 1030′s to 1040′s ) the famous Earldoms (more than half of them former ‘Danelaugh’ territory) had become well established, each pretty much with their own dialect.
The two languages – Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse – had quite a lot of etymology in common but some important differences of case inflexion, verb conjugations and pronouns – with the result that the amalagam that emerged (which became known as ‘English’) simply threw away a lot of these. English is fairly unique among world languages in having so few verbal conjugations and case inflexions.
If we read MIDDLE ENGLISH (by Chaucer’s time – i.e. late 13th century) we already see many of these beginning to disappear – for mood and person and for tense, for example.

But there was some duplication also; ‘Craft’ comes from an Anglo-Saxon, ‘skill’ from Old Norse (add Norman French ‘expertise’ and it becomes still more interesting!); similarly: ‘Sick’ (from Anglo-Saxon), ‘ill’ (from Old Norse), ‘poorly’ (from Norman French) and so on ..
still more interesting, perhaps, was what happened to names – especially girl’s names: the good old English and Old Norse ones (like Ethel and Thora – to give just one example of each) were all but swept away by the Norman French (essentailly Biblical) ones like: Mary, Anna or Anne, Josephine, Margaret, Matilda, Elizabeth and so on … and for boys; John, Paul, David, George etc. Only a very few pre-Norman ones, like Edward, Eric and William (not Norman-Frenchified to Guiilaume) and Harold survived. And the Old Norse boy’s names??? You tell me! What were they? And where did THEY go?

Jeff (also known as Edward The Confessor!!)

By: viking james

viking james — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:55:18 +0000

Hus – still exists today – the word for house
Bonde – meaning farmer – as above ‘one who works the land he owns’.. also still in use

Also ‘Binde’ – to bind or tie may offer further connection

‘Krekse’ is a favourite old norse word a friend taught me – means ‘ impossible woman’ – so I’m told!

—
Strength & Honour
VJ

By: Viking Rune

Viking Rune — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:07:19 +0000

OE husbonda "male head of a household" from ON húsbóndi "master of the house." From hús "house" + bóndi "householder, dweller, freeholder, peasant." Böndr (singular: bóndi) were free men who worked on the land that they owned, see Viking Society in Iceland: Key Concepts.

By: dana pallessen

dana pallessen — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:53:19 +0000

hus bondi=husband=a man in servitude to the house. as in a bonded servant hus is clearly house.

By: Viking Rune

Viking Rune — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:50:12 +0000

Dear Asgeir,
Thanks for your comment. To be sure, both in Old English and Old Norse there are very many words, which were not borrowed but share the same common Germanic or west Germanic root. For example, Old English fæther and Old Norse faðer come from the same root, and the English word father is not a loanword from Old Norse. However, many words are proven to be loans. Old English word for “leg” was sconken, and it was replaces by a loanword, whereas sconken became “shanks”.

By: Asgeir Reynisson

Asgeir Reynisson — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:41:28 +0000

Dear Sir.
Regarding words of Scandinavian provenance they may also be originated in old English as old English and the Scanidinavian languages are closely related. You will find thiese words also in German which is a W- Germanic language as English. All Germanic languages are of the same root so “new” words in English are often words forgotten reappearing. In Icelandic we use the word “stafróf” for alphabet, it is a old English word “stævrow” or a row of staves. Its a wery see-trough word that you should use again.

Best regards,
Asgeir