Language and History in Viking Age England: Linguistic Relations Between Speakers of Old Norse and Old English

Language and History in Viking Age England: Linguistic Relations Between Speakers of Old Norse and Old English
ISBN-10
2503512925
ISBN-13
9782503512921
Category
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General
Pages
248
Language
English
Published
2002
Publisher
Brepols
Author
Matthew Townend

Description

This is the first ever book-length study for the nature and significance of the linguistic contact between speakers of Old Norse and Old English in Viking Age England. It investigates in a wide-ranging and systematic fashion a foundational but under-considered factor in the history and culture of the Vikings in England. The subject is important for late Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age history; for language and literature in the late Anglo-Saxon period; and for the history and development of the English language. The work's primary focus is on Anglo-Norse language contact, with a particular emphasis on the question of possible mutual intelligibility between speakers of the two languages; but since language contact is an emphatically sociolinguistic phenomenon, the work's methodology combines linguistic, literary and historical approaches, and draws for its evidence on texts in Old English, Old Norse and Anglo-Latin, and other forms of linguistic and onomastic material

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