Viking and Norman Influences on the English Language

During the eighth and ninth centuries, Vikings from Scandinavia from the North attacked the Germanic tribes living in England (Smith "External"). Around the same time period, Danish Vikings assailed and conquered the northern area of France, which became the dukedom of Normandy (Baugh and Cable 92). Only two hundred and fifty years later in September 1066, the Norman French led by William the Conqueror invaded England from the South and won the Battle of Hastings (Baugh and Cable 108-111). Both Old Norse and Norman French contributed linguistically to the English language. Whereas the changes attributed to the Viking language are often viewed positively by otherwise delightful English language historians, linguistic affects credited to the Norman French language are considered negative to the Germanic nature of English. Regardless of the value judgments of foreign influences on English, both Old Norse and Norman French significantly attributed to the phonetics and vocabulary of the language.

Many common words were identical or strikingly similar in both Old English and Old Norse (Baugh and Cable 97). As Jespersen recounts, consumers living in England were confused as whether to purchase an English ey or a Scandinavian egg (70). Often, with evidence of Modern English vocabulary, the Scandinavian form replaced the Old English form as in the case of ey and egg (Jespersen 70). However, the borrowing of egg from Old Norse into English is not only an example of vocabulary exchange but also of phonetic addition (Smith "Sounds"). The Modern English sounds [g], [k], and [sk] are all of Scandinavian borrowing (Smith "History"). Words such as egg, give, get, and kid are pronounced with hard [g] and [k] sounds because of Scandinavian influence (Baugh and Cable 97). Likewise, Modern English words that are pronounced with an alveo-palatal [š] are of Old English origin whereas words pronounced with a hard [sk] sound are borrowed from the corresponding Old Norse (Smith "History"). For example, the Old English scyrte and the Old Norse skyrta were the same word during the Old English period but became the distinctive shirt and skirt of Modern English because of the borrowing of [sk] from Scandinavian (Baugh and Cable 97).

Although languages rarely borrow grammatical words from other languages, Old English borrowed pronouns and verb forms from the Viking language. As illustrated in (A), the third person plural pronouns are extremely similar in form to the third person singular pronouns in Old English:

Compared to modern forms of the third person singular pronouns as illustrated in (B), the third person plural pronouns of Modern English bear negligible resemblance to the Old English forms:

The third person plural pronouns they, them, and there are instead of Scandinavian origin (Jespersen 73). As Baugh and Cable suggest, the rare borrowing of pronouns by English may be the result of confusion in distinguishing the similar singular and plural forms experienced by Viking invaders hearing and speaking Old English (102). Instead of developing into hi from hī just as he developed from hē, the Scandinavian form þei replaced the Old English form and developed into they (Baugh and Cable 162). In addition to gaining the third person plural pronouns from Scandinavia, Old English also borrowed verb forms such as the plural form of the most common verb to be from the Viking language (Baugh and Cable 102). The plural form of to be in Wessex, which was the most powerful kingdom in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy during the Viking invasion (Smith "Characteristics"), was syndon (Baugh and Cable 102). Like the Modern English third person plural pronouns, the present plural and second person singular are is also of Scandinavian origin (Baugh and Cable 102). Although borrowing of grammatical words is uncommon, Old Norse contributed both pronouns and verbs forms to Old English.

Rather than provide significant contributions to the grammaticization of English, Norman French contributed to the phonolozation of certain Old English phonemes. As illustrated in (C), [f] and [v] are allophones of the phoneme /f/ just as [s] and [z] are allophones of the phoneme /s/ in Old English:

The voiceless allophones [f] and [s] only occurred at the beginning or end of words such as in freond and segst. Correspondingly, the phonetic environment of the voiced allophones [v] and [z] is only between two vowels such as in ofer and cǣsa. Unlike for /f/ and /s/, [š] is the only possible sound for the phoneme /š/ in Old English such as in sceap and scip. When the Normans invaded England in 1066, speakers of Norman French introduced the phonetic sound [ž] to the English language such as in the modern words measure, lingerie, and Kosur. During the Middle English period, phonolozation occurred because of the addition of the voiced [ž] sound. The allophones [f], [v], [s], [z], [š], and recently-acquired [ž] split into the separate phonemes /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /š/, and /ž/ in Middle English. Because of the influence of Norman French, English words now begin with both [v] and [z] as well as both [f] and [s]. (Smith "Sounds")