How the Vikings Changed the English Language

About 600-900 common English words come from Old Norse that was the language of the Vikings. In this video we look at the history of the Vikings in Britain and how they influenced the English language. If English is not your first language you'll learn a lot of vocabulary and useful expressions too.

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0:00 What is Old Norse?
01:64 The Brittonic Tribes
02:48 The Romans
03:25 The Anglo-Saxons
04:32 The Vikings
05:26 Viking names in modern Britain
06:18 Old Norse influence on Modern English
09:41 Is English a Scandinavian language?
13:52 Old English/Old Norse doublets
14:59 The ill- prefix
17:05 Egg on and Scot free
18:42 10 Viking words to improve your vocabulary
21:22 Norn and Nynorn

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[jonbeargenx]

Being Norwegian and having a great deal of English speaking friends this is something that I been thinking about as well as talked about. Languages are like a history map.

[oleplanthafer]

Here's a surprising relic of norse in modern English: Dashboard! The "daskebord", "later daskebrett, was the vertikal plank in the very front of a sleigh or carriage on which the bridles would be slapped ("dasket"). Hence, "dashing" means slapping, in a sense of striking surprise. All the best from Norway! We love your beautififul grammar! 😁

[Vitaskuld]

Being Icelandic (icelandic had changed very little since old norse) this makes so much sense to me. Im a language buff and ive always been wondering how and why many of our words are similar to english, the grammar as well ofc, and it makes honestly more sense that english was more influenced by old norse than vice versa

[LuisaAlfaro-syzo]

I just discovered your channel. I'm a Costa Rican (Spanish) native speaker. You explain very clearly that for me to enjoy your videos very much. Thank you. Greetings from Costa Rica, América Central, Luisa

[jonntischnabel]

I always love these linguistic history videos. As a northerner but with Swedish heritage I am fascinated by this.

[davos]

As a native English speaker I had little difficulty in getting the gist of articles printed in a Norwegian newspaper. And that was before I started to learn Norwegian seriously. The word order and the similarity of many words (taking into account the various dialects used in the British Isles) probably make written Norwegian the easiest foreign language for the English speaking world to learn. The spoken language is another matter!

[oliverwright]

Gideon, great video. Here are some thoughts on Faarlund's theory:

Though I entirely agree that English is structurally more similar to Mainland Scandinavian than to German or even Dutch, I think this is less due to English being Scandinavianised than in it is to both English and Scandinavian going through a similar levelling process, and becoming more analytical, as a result of intensive contact with fairly closely related languages. In the case of English the contact was with Old Norse. In the case of the Scandinavian languages it was Low German, not during the Viking period but during the Hanseatic period, several centuries later. Before that, the Scandinavian languages were heavily synthetic, as indeed Icelandic still is (presumably because it had little such contact). 

The group genitive is an example of this. It's true that this exists in both English and Mainland Scandinavian. It's also true that it didn't exist in Old English and still doesn't in German. But it didn't exist in Old Norse either. So rather than showing a genetic link, this is an example of parallel evolution in similar circumstances.

[blotski]

This is fascinating. I am English but speak Swedish (and therefore understand Norwegian and Danish to a fair extent) and am currently studying Icelandic. I have long thought that English had more in common with the Nordic languages than Dutch or German but I didn't realise any linguists had proposed it as a theory. I think it has a lot going for it.
I am originally from county Durham and it is clear that the pronunciation of some vowels in this area is very similar to the Nordic languages. For example, the vowel in 'go, no, home' is not a diphthong in the north-east but sounds like the vowel written as å in Swedish. Similarly, the vowel in 'stay, play, day' is not a diphthong for us but similar to the way stressed 'e' is pronounced in many Swedish words like 'leka' (to play). The glottal stop said simultaneously with a consonant rather than instead of a consonant (glottal reinforcement) is reminiscent of Danish. You hear it in the way Geordies say 'happy, sticky, letter'. In terms of vocabulary you have words like bairn for child (Swedish/Icelandic - barn). I always remember my dad saying somebody looked 'loppy' if they looked dirty or unwashed. I later learned that the Swedish for a 'flea' is 'loppa'. Geordies talk about their snacks or packed lunches as 'bait' and I recently learned that Icelandic for a snack or a morsel is 'biti'.

[mette]

I live in Denmark and grew up in the northwestern corner of Jutland called Thy. When i began learning the english language in school i thought the sounds in english reminded me of the sounds in “thybomål” which is the local dialect where i lived. Sometimes i suddenly switched to thybomål while speaking english because it was so similar in sounds and pronounciation of words.

[DevPreston]

I really appreciate the level of depth of this video, which is just right for me. I have learnt quite a bit of Norwegian over about 10 years, though I am far from fluent. The language varies widely around the country and they have a couple of written standards (Bokmål and Nynorsk - meaning "Book language" and "New Norwegian" respectively), but in general there are such a lot of similarities to English that it really is fun to learn, and I am happy to put my vote towards viewing English as a Scandinavian language. One thing that strikes me, apart from grammatical similarities, is the very large quantity of shared idiomatic phrases between English and Norwegian - far more overlap than I perceived existing between French and English when I was at school. Of course, my lack of knowledge of modern German or its neighbours puts my opinion on pretty shaky ground.

[annesaffer]

Spot on about the English and Norwegian grammar. I have gotten conversational in French and Spanish and a bit more fluent in Norwegian. Norwegian was by far the easiest to get started in! I describe it broadly as English grammar, German words. You don’t have 30+ forms of the verb to learn (only about 7 in E & N), the sentence structure is very similar. You can almost start by speaking English, but using Norwegian words. You then learn and incorporate the particular Norwegian word orders so it doesn’t sound so odd to a Norwegian speaker. I have also learned many Norwegian expressions by hearing native speakers do the same in English!
It is a beautiful and fascinating language!

[fredbrenno]

In Norway we got 2 official written standards, namely Bokmål and Nynorsk. The examples of Norwegian in this text is given in "Nynorsk" which is a new standard that was contructed from several dialects of Norway of that time (ca 1800), but when given spoken examples, the reader in this case talks "Bokmål. Example on "I have read the book" is on Nynorsk "Eg har lese boka" while on "Bokmål" would be "Jeg har lest boken"" and Bokmål "Dronningen av Englands hatt" and Nynorsk "Dronninga av englands hatt" All Norwegian learn both written standards in school :-) Thank you for an excelent chanel !

[ejlufpedersen]

Thanks for a brilliant and informative video. I can confirm your theory. I'm Danish and from the western part of Jutland born and bred ( Jutland is the peninsula of Denmark closest to the UK with the Northsea between us) The original dialect in this part of Denmark is very close to English. Many words are similar and the pronunciation sounds English. The grammar is closer to English than to correct Danish.
Nowadays the dialect has faded away more or less. I only speak it when it comes naturally with people I know. Today day it has turned into an accent which immediately will tell people from the eastern part of Denmark that I'm from West Jutland. Comparable to a Scouser vs a Londoner. Being from West Jutland makes the pronunciation in English very easy. When Danes speak English I can normally tell from their accent if they are from West Jutland or Copenhagen. I had a DNA test taken some years ago, which showed that my roots were quite English. No doubt that we shared more than the language back in the Wiking age.🤔😉

[dros]

I am French from Paris and I appreciate you a lot, Gideon. Your videos are very interesting on the history of the English language. Plus, you bring a sensitive human dimension. It does us good in this world of violence. Thank you again, Gideon. Keep going.

[billmullins]

I have studied German and could never understand how the two languages could be in the same family while having such radically different syntax. The notion that English is a Norse language makes perfect sense to me.

Note: when I studied German the cases and syntax were very hard to get down. That and the whole gendering of all nouns and the associated inflection of articles. I am sorry to admit that it actually took me until my 3rd semester of German to reliably wrap my head around all the inflection in German. However having absorbed the idea of cases etc. while studying German, it actually made it easier to get into Koine Greek. Imagine that.

[zoolook]

"Scot free" still exists in Danish language: "Skattefri" which is tax-free. Scot=Skat
Ministry of Tax in Denmark is: Skatteministeriet (Scot ministry)
We also use "ransack" similar way; danish: "Ransage" (eg. the Police look through everything in ones appartment)

[LetThemTalkTV]

Two corrections from in the video. It's been pointed out that Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic are Goidelic and not Brittonic.
Secondly that in the language tree diagram West and East Scandinavian are labelled the wrong way round.
Lots of comments about the two dialects of Norwegian. Bokmål and Nynorsk (a fact I did not know until after releasing the video). Apparently the written text is in Nynorsk which some commenters have said is unusual because it's only spoken by a small minority of Norwegians. I do not speak Norwegian (I wish I did because it sounds beautiful) but this is the text I found during my research. If I have blundered then please be gentle on me.

[TheMarilita]

What an amazing research you have done! I am Greek living in London and I am obsessed with linguistics. Also, I really like your examples of old Norse words/expressions being in use today. Thank you so much for your videos, please keep offering us all this knowledge!

[Vermont]

Brilliant presentation and brilliant presenter!! Please keep doing these fantastic expositions!!

[suzkstein]

This video was absolutely amazing!! I am a native English speaker with ancestry from Sweden. I found this SO fascinating! It makes me want to study Swedish or Norwegian, since it would be easy for me to learn. Seriously, this was a great treat.