EARLY ENGLISH BORROWINGS Although the English acquired no inconsiderable number of Latin words from the Romanized town-dwellers of Britain who spoke Latin, it is remarkable that they borrowed hardly any Celtic words from the country-dwelling Britons who had retained their own language. O.E. dunn, "brown, dun-coloured," and binn, "a manger," Mod. Eng. bin, are probably among the few words bor rowed from the native speech of the Britons. Dun, "hill, a down," is Celtic, but may have been borrowed in Continental times. O.E. dry, "wizard sorcerer," is from 0. Irish drui, "soothsayer," and de rived from the Irish missionaries to the north of England. The English druid, a late word, is from Lat. druidae, itself borrowed from a Celtic cognate of drui. Although the archaeologists are divided on the question, it seems probable that the humbler classes of Britons, speaking generally, were neither completely ex terminated, nor all driven away, but rather that many were gradu ally absorbed into the English population. It was formerly widely held that in such names as Walton, Walcot, and others the prefix was derived from O.E. weala-, Gen. Pl. of wealh, "foreigner, Briton," later often used in the sense of "serf," especially "British serf," and that such place-names implied the existence of villages or homesteads where groups of Britons were allowed to remain, and live separate from their English conquerors. This view is now largely discredited, and the linguistic evidence derived from the earliest forms of the greater number of the Wal- names, as well as other considerations, makes it more likely that the prefix is O.E. weall, "wall," a word used in various senses, and possibly in place names, implying a boundary wall or a sea wall, or embankment. (See Zachrisson, Romans, Kelts and Saxons in Ancient Briton, Uppsala, 1927, pp. 39, etc.) But whatever the truth in this mat ter, whether the Celtic speaking Britons were wiped out, or driven to the western borders ; whether they were here and there per mitted to dwell in communities segregated from the English, or, on the other hand, were gradually absorbed by marriage, the fact remains that their language has left no appreciable mark upon that of the conquerors.
A certain number of Celtic words referring to geographical features are found in place-names scattered in many parts of the country. A few of these may be mentioned. Pen, "head, top, hill, top of a hill," in Pendledon, Penhill, Pentridge, Penburg, etc.; British cronka, "hill," cf. Cornish cruc, Irish crunch, variously modified in O.E. to cric, ciric, cyrc, etc., and appearing in Mod. English as Crick, Crook, Creech, Church, etc. ; British keto, "wood," cf. Welsh coed, in Modern Cheetwood, Chetwood, Cheetham, Chute, Chettle, O.E. cethyll, and so on (see Zachrisson, op. cit. pp. 47, etc.) .
Within the vast area now settled by Scandinavians it is probable that the two populations, English and Danish, were first separate, each speaking their own language ; gradually a fusion of peoples took place, and there was a time when the inhabitants were bi lingual. Then English remained as the sole tongue, but pro foundly affected in vocabulary, and to some slight extent also in inflexions by Danish.
The later invasion of England by Svein in 1013 led to the flight of the English king, Ethelred, to Normandy. After the sudden death of the Danish leader came the election of his son Cnut as king of the Danes. Ethelred died in 1016 and was succeeded by his son Edmund Ironside as king of England. The English and Danish kings made an agreement whereby the country was divided be tween them, but a year later Edmund died and Cnut became king of the whole land. Danish kings ruled England till, on the death of Cnut's son Harthacnut in 1042, another son of Ethelred, Edward, later known as the Confessor, came back to the throne of his ancestors. Such very briefly were the historical events which led to a very deep penetration of our language by Scandinavian influ ence in many areas, and introduced innumerable words into the English vocabulary of everyday life.
The language of the Danes and No: semen of the O.E. period, although belonging to a different branch of Germanic, was still so like English that hundreds of words in both were almost identical in form and meaning. In spite of many important differences the two peoples can have had little difficulty in understanding each other. As Jespersen remarks (Growth and Structure of English, p. 64), if we had no remains of English before the Conquest, it would now be quite impossible to tell, in regard to a large number of com mon words, whether they had come down to us from the O.E. native tongue, or had been borrowed from the Danes. He gives as examples among others, man, wife, mother, folk, house, thing, will, can, meet, come, see, stand, sit, full, wise, will, better, mine, thine, over, under, etc. All of these are, as a matter of fact, pure English and are found in the oldest sources, but had they been Scandinavian their forms would hardly have been different. Among undoubted Scandinavian words found in pre-Norman times, are several for special kinds of ships—sicgf, cnearr, barda ; ora, the name of a Danish monetary unit; and the Anglicized (W.Sax.) eeallian, "to call, shout," the la",er form of which is nearer to the original kalla. It is probable that O.E. lagu, "law," is an early borrowing, through a common word in O.E., by the side of the purely native Fe (w). Rusting, husping, "council, meeting," also raised dais, occurs in the latest O.E. period.
During the 12th and 13th centuries Norse words appear in large numbers in texts from the north, and from the east Midlands. From the latter area many gradually penetrated into the speech of London, and survive to this day in standard English, while hun dreds more survive in local dialects.
In some instances the Scandinavian words have completely ousted the native words expressing the commonest ideas or objects, or have become more current than the former. In some cases both English and Scandinavian words are in use with differentiation of meaning. Examples of complete supersession in common words of native words by Scandinavian, are sky for O.E. ly f t, uprodor, etc.; die, verb for O.E. steor f an, sweltan, starve, surviving in a spe cialized sense, the new verb being closely associated with Eng. dead and death; take—took, O.N. taka, tok, for native niman; fellow for O.E. ge f era; knife for seax; leg for O.E. seeanca, "shank"; low, adj., for O.E. niper-, neoporic; window for O.E. eag-pyrel, literally "eye-hole," or fenester from Latin ; egg, for O.E. æg, pl. ægru, M.E. ei, ey-ren; awe for O.E. ege, "fear," M.E. eie. The following are Scandinavian and native English respec tively, with differentiation of usage : ill—sick; skirt—shirt; trigg true; skin—hide; root—wort. Sometimes where forms in the two languages bore a close resemblance, the English type has dis appeared in favour of the Scandinavian. Thus give instead of O.E. gie f an, ge f an, M.E. 3ive, 3eve; get instead of O.E. -gietan (which only appears with the prefix and-, be-, for-, etc.), M.E. 3ete; sister, O.N. systir, instead of O.E. swestor, M.E. swester, swuster, suster, etc.
Often the Scandinavian word has imparted its meaning to its English cognate :—bread in O.E. meant "crumb, morsel," while in M.E. and Mod. Eng. the sense is due to O.N. brazil"; O.E. dream meant "joy," but the word is used in M.E. as now with the same sense of O.N. draumr; O.E. ploh was a measure of land, but O.N. plogr was the implement with which land was broken up for sow ing, a meaning transferred to the present-day plough which has dispossessed O.E. sulk; O.E. eorl was originally "a man of noble birth, a gentleman," but it gradually acquired the sense of Scandinavian jarl, a title applied to the governor of a province, corresponding to O.E. ealdormann, and later still the name of a grade in the peerage corresponding with Fr. count. The English beigh was ousted by pouh, "though"; in some eastern dialects of M.E. Scand. oc is found for O.E. eac, "also, and" ; Norse kettle has taken the place of English "chettle," O.E. e (i) etel.
The English borrowed from the Danish settlers a certain num ber of words expressing legal ideas, and some names of territorial divisions and kinds of jurisdiction. Thus wapentake, O.E. wæp nagetæe, from O.N. vapnatak; O.E. hamscen from O.N. heim sokn, "house-breaking," and the punishment for this ; præll. "thrall"; North-, East-,W est-riding (Yorks) from O.N. pripjungr, "third part"; By-(law), and the same element in Derby and other place-names, from Danish, meaning "town, village." Perhaps the most remarkable fact connected with Scandinavian influence on English, is the gradual introduction of the O.N. pro nouns of the third person plural, they, their, them, which have finally entirely superseded the native hir, her, hem, except for the colloquial survival 'em. This process was no doubt facilitated by the use of the plural forms of the O.E. Def. Art.pæra,pæm, in much the same way.
In concluding this account of the O.E. period, two important facts call for mention. The first is the use of West Saxon from the 9th century onwards as a common literary standard. This was due to the hegemony of Wessex established by King Alfred and his successors, to the great king's zealous activities in the cause of education, his own copious writings, and the decay of the ancient learning in Northumbria. The great bulk of O.E. liter ature, both verse and prose, has survived only in a West Saxon form, and later local documents such as the boundaries in land charters are written mainly in this dialect, with only an occasional typical local form.
The other characteristic feature of O.E. is the existence of a peculiar and highly developed poetic diction. Not only is there a large number of words whose use is confined to poetry, but we find a most elaborate system of metaphorical expressions and round about ways of referring to such things as the sea, the sun, ships, the sky, battle, a prince, a sword, the human body, and so on. Many of these become stereotyped and recur again and again; some of them are purely conventional and have no particular poetic value, while others are vivid and bear the impress of the poet's individuality. (See, on this, Wyld, "Diction and Imagery in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," in Vol. vi. of Essays and Studies by Mem bers of the English Association, Oxford.)