Topic 3.

Vikings and their influence on old English

Learning results
You are competent when you:

 Recognize the linguistic outcomes of Vikings invasion and the implication of the
Danelaw to the English language.

 Use appropriate reading comprehension strategies :

o Read texts to understand main ideas and for specific information.

 Produce short academic texts with fluency and coherence.

Working time
4 hours

Content/ description
The language that was described along this didactic unit was not merely the product
of the dialects brought to England by the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. These dialects
formed the basis of Old English, the basis of its grammar and the source of the
largest part of its vocabulary. Surprisingly there are a number of Scandinavian loans
that entered English near the end of the Old English period. What these loans were
and how they came to be part of English is the subject of study of this thematic unit.

The first Viking attacks on England occurred around 800 AD, but some fifty years
later these attacks had become more serious and groups had even started settling
in Britain. The resistance from the English people was not successful and the lack of
unity in England made easier for the Vikings to travel by and attack the countryside.
The Vikings, usually referred to as ‘Danes’, successfully took control of large parts
of England, and by the end of the ninth century they became interested in Wessex,
which was the strongest of the Saxon kingdoms. By that time the conquering of
England came to an end when King Alfred and the English people´s courage and
resistance triumphed. Viking troops surrendered in 878. However, the Danes were
not forced to leave England, and they remained in a territory defined by a line from
Chester to London. This area was the subject to Danish law and it thus known
as Danelaw.
The Vikings were successful not just in invading, but also in settling, especially in
northern England. They established villages near the existing Anglo-Saxon villages.
With the time, speakers of English and of Norse, which was the language brought
by the Vikings, mixed. Thus, languages influenced each other. Norse lent many
words to English. More than 1,400 places in the north East and East of England bear
Scandinavian names (Bough & Cable, 2001, p. 95). It is also speculated that this
language contact affected English grammar as well, accelerating the decline of the
rich inflectional system of Old English.
 The following activities will help you to recognize the influence of the Viking invasion
on Old English and its implications in Modern English. They will also help you to
summarize the lexical invasions of during Old English period.

Evidences
At the end of this topic, you need to present the following evidences:

 Knowledge: 1
 Attitude: 1
 Procedure: 1

Source of information
Ávila Losada, Ma. Luisa, Calhoun, Virginia S.B., and Pérez Román, Iván (2010). The
Vikings and Alfred the Great [Fragment]. The long and winding road: A life story of
the English Language (pp. 32-41). Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas.
Baugh, Albert C. and Cable, Thomas. (2001) A History of the English Language. (5th
Edition) USA: Prentice Hall.
Crystal, David (1995) Old English. [Fragment]. In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the
English Language (pp..25-26). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.