Scandinavian loanwords

1.

Scandinavian
loanwords

2.

Some history…
● A significant layer of foreign words entered the English language mainly in the
9th to 11th centuries.
● Scandinavian languages and English are genetically close (both belong to the
Germanic group).
● Common roots and function words facilitated mutual understanding between
Scandinavians and English speakers.
● Borrowing words from one language to another occurred thanks to this
commonality.

3.

Characteristics of scandinavian loanwords
● Loanwords occurred through direct communication
● Loanwords are words from everyday life: root, wing, anger, fellow, gate, husband,
window, low, ill, ugly, weak, loose, odd, wrong, happy, cast, cut, die, hit, take, call,
want
● Anglo-saxons took some prepositions and pronouns: they, them, their, both, same,
till
● Scandinavians left the mark on the toponymy of England: (Sc byr – 'settlement') –
such as Derby, Whitby, Rugby; -thorp, -torp (Sc torp 'village') – like Althorp,
Linthorpe; -toft (Sc 'plot of land') – as seen in Eastoft, Brimtoft, Nortoft, as well as thwaite (Sc 'clearing') – examples include Applethwaite, Braithwaite, Langthwaite.
➢ clearing in russian means порубка (место, где рубят лес)

4.

● Scandinavian loanwords primarily entered English during the specified period
(9th to 11th centuries), with only occasional Scandinavian borrowings noted in
later periods: geyser, clumsy, to doze, saga, ski, skald, viking, and valkyrie are
examples of late Scandinavian loanwords that entered the English language
through translated literary works.
● Words with "sk" or "sc" have scandinavian origin: sky, skin, skull, scant, skill,
scanty, whisk, to scare, to screak, to scrape, to bask.
NB: the Old English sound complex "sc" changed to the fricative sound [ʃ] as a
result of palatalization – compare Old English "scip" to Middle English "ship"
and Old English "sceort" to Middle English "short"

5.

● Words with the plosive pronunciation of velar consonants "g" and "k" in
combination with front vowels "i" and "e" (in Old English, these consonants
underwent palatalization - [j], [tʃ]). For example: get, gift, guess.
● Scandinavian languages influenced English is through the existence of
Scandinavian lexical equivalents of English words: examples include: "bloom"
(Old English "bloma" meaning 'mass of metal', Scandinavian "blomi" meaning
'flower', 'blooming'); "to dwell" (Old English "dwellan" meaning 'to lead astray',
'to hinder', 'to deceive', 'to err', Scandinavian "dveljask" meaning 'to live').