scholarly journals Old Norse and Old English Language Contact: Scandinavian Legal Terminology in Anglo-Saxon Laws

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola Miglio
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
English Language ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon

The Scandinavian occupation of wide territories in the British Islands from about 900 CE onwards has left a number of vestiges both in place-names, in the pronunciation and lexicon of northern dialects, especially Scottish, as well as loanwords in standard English, some of which are remarkably common, ugly, to take and window to name but three.

Old English and Old Norse Studies to the Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Timothy Graham
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Early English ◽  
First Time ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

This chapter examines the committed scholarship that facilitated the recovery of Old English language and literature from the mid-sixteenth century and, about a hundred years later, applied itself to the study of Old Norse texts, including the Poetic and Prose Edda and the sagas. Varying impulses—religious, legal-historical, and nationalistic—motivated the initial investigation and publication of Anglo-Saxon texts. Early English interest in Old Norse coincided with a growth in correspondence with continental scholars and found full expression in explorations of the Germanic origins of the English that drew extensively upon vernacular material published in Scandinavia. The chapter concludes with an appraisal of the work of the Oxford Saxonists and their collaborative efforts on the monumental Thesaurus of George Hickes, in which, for the first time in England, Old English and Old Norse texts were analysed and discussed together, providing a rich fund of material upon which subsequent generations could draw.

scholarly journals Translating the Gospel in Viking Age England: The Evidence from Two Old Norse Loan Translations from Old English

2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-560
Author(s):  
Nikolas Gunn
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Contact Situation ◽  
Biblical Translation

Abstract A recent resurgence of interest in Old Norse linguistic borrowings in Old English has greatly expanded our knowledge of the contact situation between these two speech communities in the early medieval period and beyond. However, there are a significant number of words that have been considered borrowings in the “other” direction, i. e. from Old English to Old Norse, which have not attracted the same amount of attention in current scholarship. Much of this material requires reassessment and this paper provides a case study of two parallel compound formations in both languages – OE bærsynnig [mann]/ON bersynðugr [maðr] (‘one who is openly sinful; publican’), and OE healsbōc/ON hálsbók (‘phylactery, amulet’, lit. ‘neck-book’) – that have traditionally been considered loan translations from Old English to Old Norse with little evidence other than their formation from cognate elements. In the absence of clear-cut linguistic criteria for identifying loan translations between these two closely related languages, this paper draws on a range of literary evidence to argue for a strong likelihood of a relationship between the two compounds. Both words offer important evidence for biblical translation practices, and contribute to our knowledge about the Christianisation of Norse speaking peoples and Anglo-Norse language contact in Viking Age England.

Conditions for the voicing of Old English fricatives, II: morphology and syllable structure

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Fulk
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Personal Names

Old English fricatives at points of morpheme juncture are studied to determine whether they conform to the rule of voicing between voiced sounds that applies morpheme-internally. Should we expect a voiced or a voiceless fricative in words like OE heorð-weorod, Wulfweard, and stīðlīce? The evidence examined regards chiefly compounds and quasi-compounds (the latter comprising both forms bearing clear derivational affixes and ‘obscured’ compounds, those in which the deuterotheme has lost its lexical independence), though a small amount of evidence in regard to voicing before inflectional suffixes is considered. Evidence is derived from place-names, personal names, and common nouns, on the basis of Modern English standard pronunciation, assimilatory changes in Old English, modern dialect forms, post-Conquest and nonstandard Old English spellings, and analogous conditioning for the loss of OE /x/. A considerable preponderance of the evidence indicates that in compounds as well as in quasi-compounds, fricatives were voiced at the end of the prototheme when a voiced sound followed, but not a voiceless one. It follows from the evidence that there was no general devoicing of fricatives in syllable-final position in Old English, despite Anglo-Saxon scribes' use of <h> for etymological [Γ] in occasional spellings like <fuhlas> and <ahnian>. Old English spellings of this kind need be taken to imply nothing more than a tendency for <h> and <g> to be used interchangeably in noninitial positions, due to the noncontrastive distribution of the sounds they represent everywhere except morpheme-initially. Rare early Middle English spellings of this kind may or may not have a phonological basis, but they cannot plausibly be taken to evidence a phonological process affecting /v, ð, z/.

An explanation for the early phonemicisation of a voice contrast in English fricatives

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN LAKER
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Allophonic Variation

Most handbooks and grammars contend that in Old English the voiced fricatives [v, ð, z] were merely allophones of /f, θ, s/ in sonorous environments. How these voiced fricatives became phonemes is debated among scholars. In this article, all previous accounts are critically reviewed. A new proposal is then presented, which explains the facts in a more direct way than previous theses. I argue that phonemicisation of a previous allophonic voice alternation in fricatives had already taken place in many areas of Anglo-Saxon England through language contact with Brittonic. Voiceless as well as voiced fricative phonemes existed in Brittonic at the time of contact, and language shift would have led directly to the phonemicisation of the previous allophonic variation found in early Old English.

The æecerbot charm and its Christian user

1977 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 213-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas D. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
The Rich

The Old English æcerbot charm, whichs is preserved in London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A. vii, in a hand of the first half of the eleventh century, has always attracted a good deal of attention, since it is one of the few surviving texts which unquestionably reflect the influence of Anglo-Saxon paganism – pagan religion, not merely pagan magic, if one can make the distinction. Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon paganism is so limited, particularly in comparison with the rich corpus of myth and heroic legend preserved in Old Norse-Icelandic, that inevitably scholars give close attention to any text which reveals something of it. So far as the æcerbot charm is concerned, this has meant a preoccupation with distinguishing between pagan elements and Christian accretions. For instance, in Stopford Brooke's translation of lines 30–42 quoted by Storms in his edition, ‘old’ pagan parts of the prayer are printed in italics and ‘new’ Christian ones in roman print. Storms doubts the possibility of drawing a hard and fast line in all cases, but his quite lengthy commentary on the charm as a whole shares the same fundamental concern.

Place-names: a review

Antiquity ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 25 (98) ◽  
pp. 60-65
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Present Writer ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Country Houses ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Social Gathering

Some years ago the present writer had occasion, at a social gathering, to mention the subject of place-name study, one of the foremost exponents of which happened to be one of the party. His remark was met with a blank stare, followed by the question ‘What is place-name study’? Such illiteracy has deep roots in the English cultural tradition which owes more to the dilettante than to the professor. The understanding of place-names demands some knowledge of the early languages spoken in this country (Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon—;or, as it is now called, old English); and that is acquired in universities rather than in country houses and parsonages. But it also demands a familiarity with topography such as can best be acquired by a native who is permanently resident and knows the lie of the land at first hand. The best results are obtained from a combination of both, of book-learning enlivened by field-work.

Why English is not dead: A rejoinder to Emonds and Faarlund

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gjertrud Flermoen Stenbrenden
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old English ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Counter Argument

AbstractThis article argues against the claim by Emonds and Faarlund (2014,English: The language of the vikings. Palacký University: Olomouc) that English died out after the Norman Conquest, and was replaced by a North Germanic variety referred to as “Anglicised Norse”, which had been formed in the Danelaw area in a concerted effort by the Norse and Anglo-Saxon populations, presumably to overthrow the ruling French elite. Emonds and Faarlund base their claim on the existence of some 20–25 linguistic features which are said to have been absent from Old English, but which are present in Present-Day English and in Scandinavian languages. This article argues that genetic affiliation cannot be inferred from shared syntactic, morphological or lexical features, which may easily result from independent convergence in historically related languages. The main counter-argument, however, is chronological: the majority of the features adduced are indeed attested in Old English and often in other West Germanic languages also, and hence may not be attributed to Old Norse; nor can features which are not attested in English until late Middle English or early Modern English come from Old Norse. The continuity of English in the written record likewise renders the suggested scenario highly unlikely.

scholarly journals Orality, Germanic Literacy and Runic Inscriptions in Anglo-Saxon England

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52
Author(s):  
James Daly
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Language ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Secondary Orality ◽  
Primary Orality ◽  
Runic Inscriptions

The presence of runic writing before the influx of Latinate literacy in Anglo-Saxon England is often neglected when investigating the transitional nature of orality and literacy in vernacular Anglo-Saxon writing. The presence of runes in Anglo-Saxon society and Old English manuscripts supports the theory that Old English poetry operated within a transitional period between orality and literacy (as argued by O'Keeffe (1990), Pasternack (1995), Amodio (2005)). However runic symbols problematize the definition of orality within Old English oral-formulaic studies because runic writing practices predate Latinate literacy in England. This article explores the possibility that the orality contained within Old English poetry is a form of secondary orality due to the pre-existence of runic writing in Anglo-Saxon England. This form of secondary orality occurs within the wider social cultural shift between primary orality and modern hyper-literate states as runes act as a literary representation of change within the construction of thought and literature in the English language. This article suggests that runes can be understood as a type of ‘transitional literacy’ between primary orality and Latinate derived literary practices. They act as a way of composing and recording thought as text while still maintaining elements strongly associated with the construction of a primary oral culture in how the texts are interpreted by a culture familiar with writing. Therefore clarification must be made when understanding Old English as a transitional poetic form, namely that the nature and degree of transition contained within Old English poetry builds upon runic inscriptions as it represents a transition between  a Germanic and Latinate forms of textuality and literacy.

English in Ireland: Intra-territorial Perspectives on Language Contact

2020 ◽  
pp. 322-346
Author(s):  
Patricia Ronan
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
English Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
Strong Position

This study investigates in how far Schneider’s Dynamic Model and the Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces Model can explain the rise of the English language in Ireland. The study uses a largely qualitative approach with data drawn from historical texts and corpora. It is argued that the English language, in spite of the strong position of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman settlers, was a minority language potentially under threat of extinction at the beginning of the early Modern Period and developed into the de facto first language in Ireland due to continued extra- and intra-territorial pressure. Irish language speaking population groups nevertheless retained sufficient linguistic influence to allow for some language contact features to observable in the resulting contact variety of English.

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