Scandinavian Influence

Dance, Richard and Pons-Sanz, Sara M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8752-0652 2025. Scandinavian Influence. Wright, Laura and Hickey, Raymond, eds. The New Cambridge History of the English Language: Volume 1: Context, Contact and Development, Vol. 1 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 219-246. (10.1017/9781009205702.011)

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This chapter introduces and explores the complex evidence for the Scandinavian influence on English. This influence resulted from the period of intense contact following the settlement of speakers of the early Scandinavian languages (Old Norse) in Viking age Britain, and its effects were extensive and profound, most measurably upon the lexicon. We begin by addressing the considerable difficulty of identifying Scandinavian input at the etymological level. We then highlight the wide range of English sources, medieval and modern, which need to be examined in order to find and analyse lexical material influenced by Norse. We assess the evidence provided by some of these sources for how Norse-derived words were integrated into early English vocabulary, paying attention to dialect distribution and to the semantic and stylistic relationships that these terms established with other members of their semantic fields.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISBN:	9781009205689
Last Modified:	14 Apr 2026 11:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186374

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item