[7.] The First Keltic Element.—This first contribution contains the following words: Breeches, clout, crock, cradle, darn, dainty, mop, pillow; barrow (a funeral mound), glen, havoc, kiln, mattock, pool. It is worthy of note that the first eight in the list are the names of domestic—some even of kitchen—things and utensils. It may, perhaps, be permitted us to conjecture that in many cases the Saxon invader married a British wife, who spoke her own language, taught her children to speak their mother tongue, and whose words took firm root in the kitchen of the new English household. The names of most rivers, mountains, lakes, and hills are, of course, Keltic; for these names would not be likely to be changed by the English new-comers. There are two names for rivers which are found—in one form or another—in every part of Great Britain. These are the names Avon and Ex. The word Avon means simply water. We can conceive the children on a farm near a river speaking of it simply as “the water”; and hence we find fourteen Avons in this island. Ex also means water; and there are perhaps more than twenty streams in Great Britain with this name. The word appears as Ex in Exeter (the older and fuller form being Exanceaster—the camp on the Exe); as Ax in Axminster; as Ox in Oxford; as Ux in Uxbridge; and as Ouse in Yorkshire and other eastern counties. In Wales and Scotland, the hidden k changes its place and comes at the end. Thus in Wales we find Usk; and in Scotland, Esk. There are at least eight Esks in the kingdom of Scotland alone. The commonest Keltic name for a mountain is Pen or Ben (in Wales it is Pen; in Scotland the flatter form Ben is used). We find this word in England also under the form of Pennine; and, in Italy, as Apennine.
[8.] The Second Keltic Element.—The Normans came from
Scandinavia early in the tenth century, and wrested the valley of the Seine out of the hands of Charles the Simple, the then king of the French. The language spoken by the people of France was a broken-down form of spoken Latin, which is now called French; but in this language they had retained many Gaulish words out of the old Gaulish language. Such are the words: Bag, bargain, barter; barrel, basin, basket, bucket; bonnet, button, ribbon; car, cart; dagger, gown; mitten, motley; rogue; varlet, vassal, wicket. The above words were brought over to Britain by the Normans; and they gradually took an acknowledged place among the words of our own language, and have held that place ever since.
[9.] The Third Keltic Element.—This consists of comparatively few words—such as clan; claymore (a sword); philabeg (a kind of kilt), kilt itself, brogue (a kind of shoe), plaid; pibroch (bagpipe war-music), slogan (a war-cry); and whisky. Ireland has given us shamrock, gag, log, clog, and brogue—in the sense of a mode of speech.
[10.] The Scandinavian Element in English.—Towards the end of the eighth century—in the year 787—the Teutons of the North, called Northmen, Normans, or Norsemen—but more commonly known as Danes—made their appearance on the eastern coast of Great Britain, and attacked the peaceful towns and quiet settlements of the English. These attacks became so frequent, and their occurrence was so much dreaded, that a prayer was inserted against them in a Litany of the time—“From the incursions of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us!” In spite of the resistance of the English, the Danes had, before the end of the ninth century, succeeded in obtaining a permanent footing in England; and, in the eleventh century, a Danish dynasty sat upon the English throne from the year 1016 to 1042. From the time of King Alfred, the Danes of the Danelagh were a settled part of the population of England; and hence we find, especially on the east coast, a large number of Danish names still in use.
[11.] Character of the Scandinavian Element.—The Northmen, as we have said, were Teutons; and they spoke a dialect
of the great Teutonic (or German) language. The sounds of the Danish dialect—or language, as it must now be called—are harder than those of the German. We find a k instead of a ch; a p preferred to an f. The same is the case in Scotland, where the hard form kirk is preferred to the softer church. Where the Germans say Dorf—our English word Thorpe, a village—the Danes say Drup.
[12.] Scandinavian Words (i).—The words contributed to our language by the Scandinavians are of two kinds: (i) Names of places; and (ii) ordinary words. (i) The most striking instance of a Danish place-name is the noun by, a town. Mr Isaac Taylor[2] tells us that there are in the east of England more than six hundred names of towns ending in by. Almost all of these are found in the Danelagh, within the limits of the great highway made by the Romans to the north-west, and well-known as Watling Street. We find, for example, Whitby, or the town on the white cliffs; Grimsby, or the town of Grim, a great sea-rover, who obtained for his countrymen the right that all ships from the Baltic should come into the port of Grimsby free of duty; Tenby, that is Daneby; by-law, a law for a special town; and a vast number of others. The following Danish words also exist in our times—either as separate and individual words, or in composition—beck, a stream; fell, a hill or table-land; firth or fiord, an arm of the sea—the same as the Danish fiord; force, a waterfall; garth, a yard or enclosure; holm, an island in a river; kirk, a church; oe, an island; thorpe, a village; thwaite, a forest clearing; and vik or wick, a station for ships, or a creek.
[13.] Scandinavian Words (ii).—The most useful and the most frequently employed word that we have received from the Danes is the word are. The pure English word for this is beoth or sindon. The Danes gave us also the habit of using to before an infinitive. Their word for to was at; and at still survives and is in use in Lincolnshire. We find also the following Danish words in our language: blunt, bole (of a tree), bound (on a journey—properly boun), busk (to dress), cake,
call, crop (to cut), curl, cut, dairy, daze, din, droop, fellow, flit, for, froward, hustings, ill, irk, kid, kindle, loft, odd, plough, root, scold, sky, tarn (a small mountain lake), weak, and ugly. It is in Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lincoln, Norfolk, and even in the western counties of Cumberland and Lancashire, that we find the largest admixture of Scandinavian words.