The History of English Language: The Vikings Era

History of The English Language: The Vikings Era

Conquer

The World Map

Scandinavia

United Kingdom

Who are the Vikings?

• The Vikings, originally from Scandinavia (modern Norway, Sweden, and Denmark)
• Traveled extensively by sea and river, reaching places like North America, Russia, Lapland, the Mediterranean, and Iraq.
• They were skilled craftsmen, boat-builders, explorers, and traders.

Scandinavia

Who are the Vikings?

• The Viking Age, roughly from 800 to 1150 AD, marked their relationship with England and beyond
• They expanded through warfare, exploration, settlement, and trade.
• Approximately 200,000 Scandinavians settled in places like Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Russia, and Sicily during this time.

Scandinavia

Who are the Vikings?

• Their history is pieced together from archaeology, poetry, sagas, treaties, and writings of others.
• They also traded with the Muslim world and served as mercenaries for the Byzantine emperors.

Scandinavia

The Vikings began their attacks on England: 780-850

England

• In the final decade of the eighth century, Viking raiders attacked a series of Christian monasteries in the British Isles.
• These monasteries had often been positioned on small islands and in other remote coastal areas so that the monks could live in seclusion.
• It made them isolated and unprotected targets for attack (Blair, 2003).

Invasion and Danelaw: 865-890

• From 865, the Viking attitude towards the British Isles changed, as they began to see it as a place for potential colonization rather than simply a place to raid.
• Larger armies began arriving on Britain's shores, with the intention of conquering land and constructing settlements there (Richards, 2004).

England

Invasion and Danelaw: 865-890

• After the Battle of Edington, a treaty was agreed that set out the lasting peace terms between the two kings that included the boundaries of each of their kingdoms.
• It is known as the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum.

England

Invasion and Danelaw: 865-890

• The areas to the north and east became known as the Danelaw because it was under Viking political influence.
• The areas to the south and west remained under Anglo-Saxon dominance (Richards, 2004)

England

Invasion and Danelaw: 865-890

• The areas to the north and east became known as the Danelaw because it was under Viking political influence.
• The areas to the south and west remained under Anglo-Saxon dominance (Richards, 2004)

England

The End of The Vikings Age

Harold Godwinson, King of England, defeats Harald Hardrada, King of Norway at the battle of Stamford Bridge.

Painting of the battle of Stamford Bridge. – Peter Nicolai Arbo (1831-1892)

The End of The Vikings Age

• Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, led an invasion of England in 1066 with 300 longships and 10,000 soldiers, attempting to seize the English throne during the succession dispute following the death of Edward the Confessor.
• He met initial success, defeating the outnumbered forces mustered by the earldoms of Northumbria and Mercia at the Battle of Fulford.

The End of The Vikings Age

• Harald's army was surprised by a similarly sized force led by King Harold Godwinson, which had managed to force march all the way there from London in a week.
• Hardrada was killed along with most of his men.
• Hardrada's invasion and defeat has been described as the end of the Viking Age in Britain (Manley, 2023).

How did the Vikings Influenced English Language?

How did the Vikings Influenced English Language?

• The English language has adopted over 100 Norse words.
• A lot of words that were borrowed belonged to the open-class words, while there were cases where the closed-class words were adapted into the English language as well.
• Example: The personal pronoun was derived from the possessive pronoun their, while their was originally derived from the Old Norse pronoun þeir

How did the Vikings Influenced English Language?

• The modification of grammar, syntax and pronunciation had also left a great mark on Old English (Kapetanović, 2018).
• Proper nouns and names of places underwent the biggest change.
• The Norse words that managed to survive in the English language and are visible even today. They belong to different categories: warfare, law, objects, phenomena, weaponry and personal.

How did the Vikings Influenced English Language?

• The Norsemen did not only manage to reshape the language but also managed to leave traces in the culture and history on the English territory and historical books.
• Even though there are borrowed words from the Old Norse that managed to survive, there is a great deal of borrowed words which became obsolete over the time.

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Thank You !

References:

Blair, Peter Hunter (2003). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Richards, J. D. (2004). Viking Age England. (New paperback edition ed.) Tempus Publishing. Brendan Manley (2023). Last of the Vikings – Stamford Bridge, 1066. HistoryNet Retrieved from https://www.historynet.com/last-of-the-vikings-stamford-bridge-1066/. Kapetanović, Nataša (2018). The influence of Old Norse on English. Bradely, Henry. (1904). The Making of English. New York: The Macmillan Company; London, Macmillan & Co., ltd. https://archive.org/details/makingofenglish00bradiala. Treharne, Elaine. (2014, September 18). Legacy of the Vikings. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/conquest/after_viking/legacy_vikings_03.shtml.