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COPYRIGHT 2006 Adam Mickiewicz University
ABSTRACT
The paper concentrates on the following two issues concerning Scandinavian loanwards in English in the fifteenth century: (i) the obsolescence of loanwords and (ii) the appearance of new Scandinavian loanwords which survived later in non-standard varieties of English. The possible reason for the disappearance of the obsolete loans seems to be the rivalry of synonyms, mostly of French and native origin. It is also interesting to observe that despite the influx of French vocabulary, Scandinavian loanwords surfaced in English dialects even four centuries after the Viking period. Some of them disappeared a few centuries later, e.g. hink, nait, ra, straw, stoop, etc., however, most of them survived well into the 20th century, e.g. arwal, garth, marrow, slape and soop.
0. Introduction
The history of Britain in the period from the end of the 8th to the 11th centuries was marked by the presence of the Vikings. They first came to plunder, then trade and finally to settle. During this period language contact took place between Norsemen speaking Old Norse (ON) and Englishmen speaking Old English (OE), which resulted in a number of Scandinavian loanwords in the English lexicon.
The present paper is devoted to the examination of Scandinavian loanwords in a later period, the 15th century. During that period a considerable number of words of Scandinavian origin went out of use. At the same time a high proportion of words of the same origin were recorded for the first time and survived exclusively in English dialects in the 19th and the 20th centuries.
The paper consists of two parts: the first part is devoted to the obsolescence of loanwords. Special interest will be attached to the rivalry between the obsolete words and their synonyms, especially those of French and native origin. The second part of the study deals with the appearance of new Scandinavian loanwords in the local dialects.
The material for the present study comes from the Oxford English dictionary (OED) supplemented by the Middle English dictionary (MED) as well as Wright's Dictionary of English dialects, Orton's Survey of English dialects (SED), McIntosh's A linguistic atlas of Late Medieval English (LALME), as well as Bjorkman (1900-1902), Rynell (1948), or more recent Hug (1987), Townend (2002) and Dance (2003).
1. Obsolete loanwords
Out of over 1500 Scandinavian loanwords found in the MED and the OED, 258 became obsolete in the 15th century, (2) which constitutes about half of all the Scandinavian obsoletisms found in the dictionaries. They exhibit a large diversity of meanings. Nouns constitute the largest group of investigated words, i.e. over a hundred. The second largest group, as far as the number is concerned, consists of verbs (81), then adjectives (46), adverbs (25) and two conjunctions and two prepositions.
The major reason for the disappearance of loans seems to be competition with both French and native synonyms. The largest group of obsolete words had an equivalent of French origin. It is not possible to examine all of them in the context of this paper, hence, only a few examples from each group will be described to illustrate the process of obsolescence.
The first loanword analysed is ME brinie 'armour for the body; a coat of mail' (3). It entered the English language in the second half of the 12th century. Etymologically, this word corresponds to OE byrne. However, both the form and the meaning of the ME brinie point to ON brynja 'breast-plate' as its immediate source. It is recorded in such works as Cotton Homilies, Layamon's Brut, King Horn, Havelok, Sir Tristrem, King of Tars, the last occurrence being dated to 1450. The word could have been replaced by the following French synonyms: brigandine, an OF word borrowed into English in the 15th century, meaning 'body armour composed of iron rings or small thin iron plates, sewed upon canvas, linen, or leather, and covered over with similar materials'; hauberk 'a piece of defensive armour: originally intended for the defense of the neck and shoulders; but already in the 12th and the 13th c. developed into a long coat of mail, or military tunic, usually of ring or chain mail, which adapted itself readily to the motions of the body'. The word was introduced at the end of the 13th century. It was first recorded in R. Gloucester. Additionally, the French noun cuirass 'a piece of armour for the body (originally of leather); spec. a piece reaching down to the waist, and consisting of a breast-plate and a back-plate, buckled or otherwise fastened together; still worn by some European regiments of cavalry' was introduced at the end of the 15th century. At the same time, Caxton, as the first, used the expression coat of arms, which is a direct translation from French.
Another Scandinavian obsoletism which was displaced by a French synonym was...
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