The Scandinavian Influence On The English Language

Scholarly Paper aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Anglistik Linguistikeinseitig bedruckt Note 71 von 80 University of Manchester School ofLanguages Linguistics ... » 

Scholarly Paper aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Anglistik Linguistikeinseitig bedruckt Note 71 von 80 University of Manchester School ofLanguages Linguistics and Cultures Veranstaltung Introduction to MiddleEnglish Language 7 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis Sprache EnglischAbstract In the history of English the language came into contact withdifferent speech communities. Influences of Celtic Latin Scandinavian andFrench left their mark from the beginning in AngloSaxon times onwards and thecolonial expansion of the British Empire in the last three centuries resultedin the contact with even more speech communities. Through these languagecontacts English changed a lot it showed the tendency to incorporate foreigninfluences especially lexical ones more likely in the first place itsgrammar changed from being and analytic one towards being synthetic and interms of the lexicon it changed from being a Germanic to a partly Romanicinfluenced language. In this essay I want to examine the influence of theScandinavian language on English and to what extent it was responsible for thegeneral changes mentioned above. 45 per cent of the commoner words and 25 percent of the general lexis1 in the present day English lexicon are a result ofthe language contact between Old English and Old Norse during the period ofScandinavian invasions and settlement in the eighth and ninth century but thelexical influences are only one result of the language contact and I will tryto show the other effects the Scandinavian influence had on English as well.Abbreviations The Abbreviations I will use in this paper are EME for EarlyMiddle English ModE for Modern English ON for Old Norse OE for OldEnglish and PDE for Present Day English. «