The Scandinavian and French Influences on the English Language

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The Scandinavian and French Influences on the English Language

The English language is a changing language, and it has always been one. An English speaker from the twelfth-century would not have understood the English from the seventeenth-century, and vice versa. Now, no one would be surprised if you ordered a _filet mignon_ instead of beef filet at a restaurant. And, if you visit the little village Utterby in Lincolnshire, you are visiting a town named by the Vikings. Although these words entered the English language centuries ago, they are still present in the contemporary English. The Scandinavian and French languages had a great influence on the English language, and thanks to both, the English language is the language we know now.

The most extensive influence the Norse language had on English is found in the lexicon. A great deal of the Scandinavian vocabulary was borrowed by the English. About 400 words among the most common words were borrowed, and in the rural dialects it can get up to 2000 words (qtd. in Gramley 51). An important influence the Scandinavian language had on English is found in place-names and family names. "…[P]lacenames ending in {-by}, {-holm}, {-thorpe} and {-toft}…" (Gramley 52) thank their endings to the Scandinavian languages, just as family names ending in {-son} do (52). It is remarkable how many everyday words, which have an Old Norse source, have entered the English language. The most remarkable of all is the Old Norse influence on the verb to be (Crystal 25). "The replacement of _sindon_ by _are_ is almost certainly the result of Scandinavian influence…" (25). With the English and the Scandinavians living in such close contact for so long, a lot of equivalent words must have existed next to each other. It is almost impossible to explain why one word survived and the other did not (26). "Sometimes the Scandinavian word was kept. "[For instance]…this is what happened with _egg_ vs _ey_" (26). In some other cases the Old English word remained and the Old Norse word disappeared, and in some cases both words retained. In this case the two words had to develop an advantageous difference in the meaning (26). These cases include for example the Old Norse word "sick" and the Old English word "ill", and the Old Norse word "skirt" versus the Old English word "shirt" (26).

Old Norse did not only have an influence on the lexicon, but also on the English syntax and English inflections. Substantial changes can be seen in simplifications of inflections and the loss of grammatical gender and most of the Old English cases (Gramley 57). The bilingualism in England most likely had to have led to a "grammatically unstable situation in which speakers were uncertain about endings" (54). An important innovation was the introduction of the _-es_ ending in the third person singular present tense, which used to be an _-eth_ ending (Crystal 25). The source for this phenomenon may be the Old Norse third person singular ending, which sometimes was -_r_ but regularly changed to an _-s_ (Gramley 54)_._ Another feature that most likely developed under the influence of Old Norse are the relative particles. "In [Old English] the relative particle was most usually the word _þe_, which could take an antecedent of any type and which was not further distinguished for case or number…" (56). Old Norse also contributed to the use of the relative particle _as_, as it corresponds to the Norse word "_som_"(54). This is more likely to be found in northern English dialects. An example of this phenomenon is: "the man _as_ came yesterday" (56).

Norman French had also an enormous impact on the English lexicon, even though unlike the Vikings not much French immigrated to England. Only between 1% and 1.6% of the English population was French (Gramley 69). In 1066 there were only fifty French loan words found in English texts, but by the end of the Middle English period almost 30% of the English vocabulary was of French origin (111). This is an enormous growth. French was the language of the upper classes, even though there must have been intermarriages between the French and English the lesser nobility (69). The period when the most French words entered the English language was when the aristocracy started speaking English again, after a period of only speaking French. They knew all these French words and used them in their English (87.) A lot of English native words disappeared and were replaced by French loan words. It was also possible that the old words continued to exist beside the new French words. It was even used as a stylistic device in Chaucer 's time. The native word next to the French equivalent may have had a heightened effect on a text (109). "The French word is often more formal, more polite, more refined and has a less strong hold on the emotional side of life" (110). For example: you can use the word "_wish_", but you can also use "_desire_", a word from French origin. Or as Stephan Gramley gives as an example, "a cottage is finer than a hut" (110).

Norman French also had an influence on the grammar, pronunciation and poetry, but it 's safe to say that it is way less excessive than the lexical influence. One of the things Norman French had an influence on is pronunciation. Old English already knew the fricative sounds like [_f_], [_s_], [_θ_] and [_∫_], but the French influence helped to distinguish the hard, fricative sounds to their voiced counterparts [_v_], [_z_], [_ð_] and [_ʒ_] (Lawless). Because of this addition of initial voicing meaning distinctions could be made. For example, the comparison between the Modern English word _fan_ and _van_ (Gramley 75). Also, "[h]igh back rounded /u:/ was frequently spelled <ou> in French fashion" (76). Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries French used to be the literary language of England and was written under the encouragement of the Court (90). At that time, French was the language that was best understood by the upper class. The French poetry written in England led to the adoption of some of the French tradition of poetry and the fall into disuse of the Anglo-Saxon traditions. Poetry conforms to the metrical and rhyming conventions of French poetic writing (90).

Without the help of Old Norse and Norman French, the English language would also have naturally developed, but these two languages accelerated the process and helped it go to a certain direction. Old English and Old Norse stood in close contact in the North, because over fifty percent of the population was Norse (Gramley 57). This is the place were the language changes were the most visible and the most excessive. It 's save to say that changes were already going on, but the Norse influence speed up the process. "The Norse influence on English was pervasive, in the sense that its results are found in all parts of the language; but it was not deep except in the lexicon" (qtd. in Gramley 51). In the Middle English period, when the Norman French influence was great in England, other parts of the English language developed too, with the help of Latin, or just naturally. Vowels changed, grammar developed, verbs changed, a lot of things changed without the help of French.

To conclude, the English language we know now has a lot to thank to Old Norse and Norman French, but they are not the only reason that English developed. The biggest influence both Old Norse and Norman French had in common is the influence on the English lexicon. One could wonder how the insides of English dictionaries would look like without the Norman Conquest and the Scandinavian invasions.

Works Cited

Crystal, David. _Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language_. 2nd Edition. United Kingdom: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.

Gramley, Stephan. _The History of English an Introduction_. 1st ed. Abingdon:

Routledge, 2012. Print.

Lawless, Laura K. "How French Has Influenced English" About Education. n.d. Web. 19 Aug. 2014.

Cited: Crystal, David. _Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language_. 2nd Edition. United Kingdom: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print. Gramley, Stephan. _The History of English an Introduction_. 1st ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Print. Lawless, Laura K. "How French Has Influenced English" About Education. n.d. Web. 19 Aug. 2014.