How Vikings Influenced the English Language

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The English language as we know today, is the product of many invasions into the British isles. Around the 8th century, Britain faced a very violent and aggressive invasion of the Vikings or otherwise known as Lochlanach or Norse by the Gaels and Dene or Danes by the Anglo-Saxons. The Vikings were Norse people or Norsemen from Scandinavia who lived through the Viking age during the 8th to 12th century. The majority of Vikings that arrived in Britain came from Denmark; however there were some from Sweden and Norway. It was around the 800’s (year 793) that the Norse raiders first came in contact with the Western Europe and attacked a monastery at Lindisfarne which off the coast of England. They continued to raid the British isles, and managed to conquer and essentially control the whole eastern side of England around the year 878, especially an area called Danelaw when King Alfred made an agreement with the Norsemen raiders in the year 886, which basically enabled them to live in the north-east third of England. The Vikings spoke in Old Norse and the Anglo-Saxons spoke and wrote in old English. One of the reasons why they were able to communicate with each other during that time and why English was affected by Old Norse was because both languages originated from the same Proto-Germanic language. The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons learned to live coexisting together and continued to do so for centuries, this resulted in numerous surnames, general words and names of English places that originated from Scandinavia. The name ‘Eric’ came from the common name in Norse ‘Erik’ or ‘Eirik’. ‘Garth’ came from Old Norse word which meant a forest clearing, and the name ‘Howard’ seems to be a come from the word ‘Havard’ in Scandinavian. English names that have the addition of the patronymic –son at the end of a word is most likely the furthermost common Norse contribution in
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