The Vikings have traditionally been seen as the bad guys of history, raping and pillaging their way through Northern Europe. But the violence they’re remembered for is only part of the story. In the year 793, invaders from what is today Denmark and Norway started arriving by longboat on the northeastern shores of Britain. Initially, these Norsemen —meaning ‘people from the North’— didn’t plan to settle in Britain. These first trips were raids, to steal treasure and women. On June 8th of that year, Vikings attacked the holy island of Lindisfarne off the northern coast of Northumbria, stealing everything they thought was of value and killing the priests. Many more terrifying attacks on Britain followed.
Getting established
Then, gradually, some Viking raiders began to settle permanently in England. In 878, after losing a battle to the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great, these settlers reached an agreement allowing them to stay in Britain but within strict boundaries. They established their own system of laws and government called the Danelaw and ruled over territory including the whole northern and eastern part of England. In 1016, a prince from Denmark named Cnut became king of all England. Norse influence had reached the highest level of society.
Make life simple
During the years of the Danelaw, when Anglo-Saxon speakers needed to trade with their Old-Norse-speaking neighbours in the East of the country, the Anglo-Saxon language had to be simplified. Anglo-Saxon was, like modern German, an inflected language. This meant that extra information about words was added in suffixes or prefixes. It was extremely hard for non-native speakers to use the language well enough to avoid misunderstanding. So, some of the complicated Anglo-Saxon word endings were dropped, and simple-to-use prepositions, like ‘to’ and ‘from’ were introduced instead. The Old Norse pronouns ‘they’, ‘their’, ‘theirs’ and ‘them’ replaced the confusing Anglo-Saxon ones that had been used until then.
DANELAW
The Danes and other Norsemen arrived in the British Isles in the late 9th century. They then colonized the northern, central, and eastern region of Anglo-Saxon England, imposing their own customs and laws until the early 11th century. Therefore, the region became known as the Danelaw —also spelled Danelagh or Danelaga— from the Old English Dena lagu (“Danes’ law”).
Old Norse words in English
About 150 Old Norse words were adopted into the developing English language, including the words for ‘egg’, ‘happy’, ‘law’, ‘husband’, ‘gift’, and ‘sky’. It isn’t that many compared with the tens of thousands of words that the Norman invaders from France would introduce after 1066, but the language of the Vikings did have other important influences on English.
Old Norse is reflected in hundreds of place names around Britain, especially in the areas of the North and East of England where the Vikings settled. For example, the cities of Grimsby and Selby incorporate the Old Norse word ‘by’ meaning ‘town’ or ‘farm’; Edale and Dovedale incorporate the Old Norse ‘dale’ word for ‘valley’. Many of today’s most common British surnames reflect the Norse tradition of adding ‘-son’ to a person’s name to show a family connection. These include: Stephenson, Wilson, Richardson and, of course, Johnson, the surname of the current British prime minister.
What’s the difference?
Most linguists agree that English has the largest vocabulary of any language ever, and that’s partly because English has no problem keeping two words that mean the same thing. Take ‘frightened’ and ‘scared’, for example: ‘frightened’ comes from Anglo-Saxon, while ‘scared’ was introduced from Old Norse. What’s the difference between them? In terms of meaning and register there’s practically no difference at all. A similar example is ‘sick’ and ‘ill’. The word ‘sick’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘seoc’, while the word ‘ill’ comes from ‘illr’, which arrived with the Vikings. Why keep both words? A better question would be, ‘why not?’
harald “bluetooth” gormsson
Here’s a fun example of how Nordic culture has continued to influence the English language into the internet age. In 1996, representatives of several tech companies, including Scandinavian firms Ericsson and Nokia, met to discuss a new technology that would unite various devices through a wireless link. This new thing needed a name and someone suggested ‘Bluetooth’. Why? They were thinking back to Scandinavian history and the Norse king, Harald “Blåtand” (Bluetooth) Gormsson, who in the year 958, successfully united the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway. As nobody came up with a better alternative, the name stuck. Today, it doesn’t seem to matter that most people who use bluetooth technology have never heard of Harald and his unusually-colored tooth and so don’t get the historical reference. The iconic bluetooth logo is a combination of the Norse king’s initials written in runes: (H) and (B) combined into one (a bindrune) gives the familiar X. How cool is that!
the old norse iN modern ENGLISH
The Old Norse ‘vikingr’ means ‘someone who embarks on an overseas expedition’. Indeed, their trace on the English language includes quite a few words concerning war and destruction like ‘knife’, ‘gun’, or ‘berserk’ (from ‘bear-shirt’, meaning ‘a warrior wearing a bear skin as armour’). But various other Old Norse have been incorporated into modern English, for instance, ‘Thursday’, meaning ‘Thor’s day’.