Contact Linguistics. Chap

him “them” Qei-m theim
hira “their Qei-ra theire

Quantifiers twejen, twa “two” twinr-r “twofold” twinne

lae:ssa “less” minne minne
syndrij/sundrij se:r (dat. and pl. seer
“various” of refl/recip. pro.)

Prepositions to: “to” til til

fram/from fra: fraa/froa

T&K (1988:292) list a total of 57 grammatical traits of Norse origin in northern varieties of ME, which make up 20% of all comparable traits (a total of 269) in these dialects. Most of these grammatical features were close phonological variants of their counterparts in OE. The diffusion was facilitated by the close typological similarity between OE and Viking Norse, reinforced by the close contact between Norse and English speakers, leading to extensive bilingualism. The intimate association of the two languages is reflected in the fact that many items of basic vocabulary were adopted from Norse to replace native English equivalents. English speakers may have been motivated to use Norse features by the prestige of the latter group, and the economic advantages that followed from knowledge of the language. At the same time, it appears likely that Norse speakers simply retained many features of their language when they “switched” to English. Though Norse influence was and still is most pronounced in the (rural) dialects of the north and midlands, it spread somewhat into southern varieties and eventually into London English, via Leicester (east midlands). This influence can be seen in contemporary standard English, where we still find Norse survivals such as give, run, thrive, get, etc., pronominal forms they, them, their, and function words like though, till, and again(st).

Thomason & Kaufman appear somewhat indecisive about the causes of the Norse impact on Northern ME, ascribing it either to level 3 borrowing or to “influence through shift [i.e., substratum influence –DW] or (more likely both” (281). Elsewhere they refer to it as an instance of typologically favored borrowing (97). If we extrapolate from the other situations examined in this chapter, it would appear that substratum influence played a significant role in the structural changes that occurred in Northern ME. In other words, Norse features were introduced by Norse speakers into the variety of Northern English that was the outcome of the contact. In addition, the high degrees of morphological simplification found in this dialect might be attributed to the effects of language learning, as well as leveling across the typologically similar varieties. As is well known, such leveling is quite common in cases of contact between dialects or closely related languages (Siegel 1985; Trudgill 1986).
Dawson (2001) suggests that the variety of Northern English that emerged from the contact between Viking Norse and Northern Old English was in fact a koiné – a blend of elements from the two languages. The formation of this compromise variety involved selections from both varieties, with gradual elimination of competition between variants through leveling (selection of one option). This suggestion is attractive, since it explains the retention of Norse grammatical features more satisfactorily than a borrowing scenario does. We saw in the previous chapter, as well as earlier in this one, that the direct borrowing of structural features (under rl agentivity) is rather rare. The massive diffusion of Norse grammatical features into Northern Old English is therefore not what we would expect if the agents of change were speakers of Old English importing Norse features into their speech. A more feasible explanation is that both Norse and English speakers continued to use their own varieties to each other, and that later generations of bilingual or bidialectal speakers (especially children) forged a compromise language, as tends to happen in so many situations of contact. This explanation would be in keeping with other scenarios in which koinés have emerged (Siegel 1985; Hinskens 1998; Kerswill & Williams 2000).