Effect of the Scandinavian Invasions

§ 281. Though the Scandinavian invasions of England are dated in the OE period, their effect on the language is particularly apparent in ME.

We may recall that since the 8th c. the British Isles were ravaged by sea rovers from Scandinavia, first by Danes, later — by Norwegians. By the end of the 9th c. the Danes had succeeded in obtaining a permanent footing in England; more than half of England was yielded to the invaders and recognised as Danish territory — "Danelaw". While some of the Scandinavians came to England merely to plunder and return to their homeland, others made their permanent home in North East England.

The Scandinavian invasions

In the early years of the occupation the Danish settlements were little more than armed camps. But gradually the conditions stabilised and the Danes began to bring their families. The new settlers and the English intermarried and intermixed; they lived close together and did not differ either in social rank or in the level of culture and customs; they intermingled the more easily as there was no linguistic barrier between them. (OE and O Scand belonged to the Germanic group of languages and at that time were much closer than their descendants are today.) The colonisation and the intermixture of the newcomers with their former foes continued from the 9th c. on, during two hundred years', which witnessed diverse political events: the reconquest of Danelaw under Alfred's successors, the renewal of Scandinavian onslaughts in the late 10th c. under Sweyne, and the political annexation of England by Denmark under Canute (see §98).

§ 282. In the areas of the heaviest settlement the Scandinavians outnumbered the Anglo-Saxon population, which is attested by geographical names. In Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Cumberland — up to 75 per cent of the place-names are Danish or Norwegian. Altogether more than 1,400 English villages and towns bear names of Scandinavian origin (with the element thorp meaning "village", e.g. Woodthorp, Linthorp; toft 'a piece of land', e.g. Brimtoft, Lowestoft and others). Probably, in many districts people became bilingual, with either Old Norse or English prevailing.

Eventually the Scandinavians were absorbed into the local population both ethnically and linguistically. They merged with the society around them, but the impact on the linguistic situation and on the further development of the English language was quite profound.

The increased regional differences of English in the 11th and 12th c. must partly be attributed to the Scandinavian influence. Due to the contacts and mixture with O Scand, the Northern dialects (to use OE terms, chiefly Northumbrian and East Mercian) had acquired lasting and sometimes indelible Scandinavian features. We find a large admixture of Scandinavian words in Early ME records coming from the North East whereas contemporary texts from other regions are practically devoid of Scandinavian borrowings.

In later ages the Scandinavian element passed into other regions. The incorporation of the Scandinavian element in the London dialect and Standard English was brought about by the changing linguistic situation in England: the mixture of the dialects and the growing linguistic unification[27]. Yet neither in the South nor in Standard English did the Scandinavian element ever assume such proportions as in the North-Eastern ME dialects.

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