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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2007-09 > 1189259047
From: David <>
Subject: Re: Brits vs. Normans [was Re: Why This Continuing Loony InfatuationBy The British With Diana?]
Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2007 06:44:07 -0700
References: <jrXDi.305$YE3.664@eagle.america.net><46e04d4a$0$662$bed64819@news.gradwell.net><1189107536.224027.11220@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com><46e05bff$0$656$bed64819@news.gradwell.net><1189128236.437656.171420@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com><1189139428.649290.305640@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com><h2g3e31hm1q5hbn7k20msh3brtgttqvtde@4ax.com><1189202625.639737.81490@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com><s82dnXNFeIsJ-3_bRVnzvQA@telenor.com>
In-Reply-To: <s82dnXNFeIsJ-3_bRVnzvQA@telenor.com>
On Sep 8, 4:07 am, "Tron" <> wrote:
> The Saxons not, but the Angles ...?
> AFAIR, people from England, via Frisia and Denmark, to Norway could converse
> in much the same language as late as 1000 CE. So, geographically, were is
> the fine
> line to the Norse?
I have also heard the claim that Old English and Old Norse were
mutually intelligible at the time of the Viking invasions, but a study
of both languages and their histories convinces me that that
characterization cannot be true. Certainly the speakers of the two
languages could have recognized many words in each other's
vocabularies, and it would have been easier for an Englishman to pick
up "Dansk" than, say, Old French; but he could hardly have understood
the language without extended study. In phonetics, and in many other
ways, the two languages were at least as unlike as, say, Modern
English and Modern Dutch (whose linguistic ancestor, btw, very
probably *was* intelligible to the English at that period). In terms
of language, there was, not a fine line, but a very bold one,
separating Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and other Scandinavian dialects
on the one hand, from Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon and other
low Germanic languages on the other hand. Culturally they were also
quite different.
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