Editing History of English (section)

===Scandinavian influence===
{{Old Norse language map}}
[[Vikings]] from modern-day [[Norway]] and [[Denmark]] began to [[Viking invasions of Britain|raid parts of Britain]] from the late 8th century onward. In 865, a major invasion was launched by what the Anglo-Saxons called the [[Great Heathen Army]], which eventually brought large parts of northern and eastern England, the [[Danelaw]], under Scandinavian control. Most of these areas were retaken by the English under [[Edward the Elder]] in the early 10th century, although [[Scandinavian York|York]] and [[Northumbria]] were not permanently regained until the death of [[Eric Bloodaxe]] in 954. Scandinavian raids resumed in the late 10th century during the reign of [[Æthelred the Unready]]. [[Sweyn Forkbeard]] was briefly declared king of England in 1013, followed by the longer reign of his son [[Cnut the Great|Cnut]] from 1016 to 1035, and Cnut's sons [[Harold Harefoot]] and [[Harthacnut]], until 1042.

The Scandinavians, or [[Norsemen]], spoke dialects of a [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]] language known as [[Old Norse]]. The Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavians thus spoke related languages from different branches (West and North) of the [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] family. Many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammatical systems were more divergent. It is likely that significant numbers of Norse speakers settled in the [[Danelaw]] during the period of Scandinavian control. Many [[toponymy|place-names]] in those areas are of Scandinavian provenance, those ending in ''-by'', for example. It is believed that the settlers often established new communities in places that had not previously been developed by the Anglo-Saxons. The extensive [[language contact|contact]] between Old English and Old Norse speakers, including the possibility of intermarriage that resulted from the [[Treaty of Wedmore|acceptance of Christianity by the Danes]] in 878,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fennell|first1=B|title=A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach|date=2001|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|location=Oxford}}</ref> undoubtedly influenced the varieties of those languages spoken in the areas of contact. 

During the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the first half of the 11th century, a kind of [[diglossia]] may have come about, with the West Saxon literary language existing alongside the Norse-influenced Midland dialect of English, which could have served as a [[koiné language|koine]] or spoken lingua franca. When Danish rule ended, and particularly after the [[Norman Conquest]], the status of the minority Norse language presumably declined relative to that of English, and its remaining speakers assimilated to English in a process involving [[language shift]] and [[language death]]. The widespread [[bilingualism]] that must have existed during the process possibly contributed to the rate of borrowings from Norse into English.<ref name="CHEL320">Hogg, Richard M. (ed.). (1992). ''The Cambridge History of the English Language (Vol. 1): the Beginnings to 1066.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 320ff.</ref>

Only about 100 or 150 Norse words, mainly connected with government and administration, are found in Old English writing. The borrowing of words of this type was stimulated by Scandinavian rule in the Danelaw and during the later reign of Cnut. Most surviving Old English texts are based on the [[West Saxon dialect|West Saxon]] standard that developed outside the Danelaw. It is not clear to what extent Norse influenced the forms of the language spoken in eastern and northern England at that time. Later texts from the Middle English era, now based on an eastern Midland rather than a Wessex standard, reflect the significant impact that Norse had on the language. In all, English borrowed about [[List of English words of Old Norse origin|2,000 words from Old Norse]], several hundred surviving in [[Modern English]].<ref name="CHEL320" />

Norse borrowings include many very common words, such as ''anger'', ''bag'', ''both'', ''hit'', ''law'', ''leg'', ''same'', ''skill'', ''sky'', ''take'', ''window'', and even the pronoun ''[[they]]''. Norse influence is also believed to have reinforced the adoption of the plural [[Copula (linguistics)|copula]]r verb form ''[[Copula (linguistics)#English|are]]'' rather, than alternative Old English forms like ''sind''. It is considered to have stimulated and accelerated the [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] simplification found in Middle English, such as the loss of [[grammatical gender]] and explicitly marked [[case (linguistics)|case]], except in pronouns.<ref>Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. ''The History of the English Language''. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 92–105.</ref> That is possibly confirmed by observations that simplification of the case endings occurred earliest in the north, and latest in the southwest. The spread of [[phrasal verb]]s in English is another grammatical development to which Norse may have contributed, although here a possible [[Celtic languages|Celtic]] influence is also noted.<ref name="CHEL320" />

Some scholars have claimed that Old English died out entirely and was replaced by Norse towards the end of the Old English period and as part of the transition to Middle English, by virtue of the Middle English syntax being much more akin to Norse than Old English.<ref>Faarlund, Jan Terje, and Joseph E. Emonds. "English as North Germanic". Language Dynamics and Change 6.1 (2016): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00601002</ref> Other scholars reject this claim.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=English is (still) a West Germanic language|first1=Kristin|last1=Bech|first2=George|last2=Walkden|date=May 15, 2016|journal=Nordic Journal of Linguistics|volume=39|issue=1|pages=65–100|doi=10.1017/S0332586515000219|s2cid=146920677 |doi-access=free}}</ref>