Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch Part 4

2. _Ai_, _ay_ corresponding to O.N. _aei_, O.E. _a_ as far as such words can be determined from modern dialects according to --20.

3. The spirant _th_ corresponding to O.N. __, and O.E. _d_.

4. Consonantal a.s.similation of _nk_ to _kk_, _mb_ to _bb_, _mp_ to _pp_, _l_ to _ll_, _zd_ and _rd_ to _dd_, corresponding to similar a.s.similation in Scand.

5. Other consonantal and inflexional forms that are Scand., as opposed to O. Nhb. _d_ for Scand. _d_, O.E. __ excluded, see ----19 and 23.

6. A word that is used in a sense distinctively Scand., as opposed to Eng. or L.G., is to be regarded as a loanword.

7. The distribution of a word in South England diall., or in O.F., O.S. or M.L.G., indicates that the word is not a Scand. loanword.

8. On the other hand, if a word occurs exclusively in Scand.

settlements in England and Scotland, it is to be regarded as due to Scand. influence in Scotch in spite of L.G. parallels.

9. The presence of a word in O.E. excludes Scand. influence, except in cases where the O.E. word has been shown to be a loanword. See Steenstrup and Kluge.

25. REMARKS ON THE TEXTS.

The following dates it may be well to remember:

Barbour's "Bruce" finished about 1375.

Wyntoun's Chronicle written about 1420.

Henry the Minstrel's "Wallace" written about 1450.

Dunbar lived from 1460 to 1520.

Douglas lived from 1475 to 1520.

Sir David Lyndsay lived from 1490 to 1555.

Alexander Scott lived from 1547 to 1584.

"The Complaynt of Scotland" was written about 1549.

Alexander Montgomery lived from 1540 to 1610.

Allan Ramsay lived from 1686 to 1758.

Robert Burns lived from 1759 to 1796.

"The Bruce," Wyntoun's "Cronykale" and the "Wallace" belong, then, to the early period of Scotch, which, for convenience, has been called Old Scotch. The last half of the 15th Century is a transition period. The language of Dunbar and Douglas is already Middle Scotch.

Middle Scotch of the 16th Century is further represented by Lyndsay, Alexander Scott and Montgomery. "The Complaynt of Scotland" is Central Scotch of the middle of the 16th Century. Ramsay represents Early New Scotch. The language of Burns is in all essentials present Scotch. From the Scottish War of Independence down to the Union of the Crowns the literary standard of Scotland was Central Scotch.

After the Union there was no longer a Scotch language of literature and Central Scotch became a mere spoken dialect like the other dialects of Scotland. The writings of Ramsay and Burns represent local dialects just as the large number of Scotch dialect writers of the last and this century have written in their own peculiar local vernacular. The great majority of loanwords are taken from "The Bruce," "The Wallace," Douglas, Dunbar, Scott and Montgomery. "The Bruce" has a large number of Scand. elements; it represents, however, literary Scotch and not Aberdeen Scotch of 1375. "Johnnie Gibb," written in modern Aberdeen dialect, has not a very large Scand. element, while "Mansie Wauch" (modern Edinburgh dialect) has a far larger number. In "The Wallace" Scand. elements are quite prominent. So in the writings of Douglas, Scott and Montgomery. "The Complaynt of Scotland" has comparatively very few loanwords from Scand., while on the other hand the French element is more prominent than in the other works. Norse elements are not prominent in Lyndsay. None of the Scotch writers has as many Scand. words as Dunbar. We may say that they are nearly as prominent in Dunbar's works as in the Ormulum, Midland English of about 300 years before Dunbar's works were written.

The numbers given in the references are self-explanatory. They are generally to page and line, in some cases to book and verse, as in Bruce and Wyntoun. T.W.M. refers to Dunbar's "Twa Mariit Wemen."

F. to "The Flyting with Kennedy." F. after Montgomery's name refers to "The Flyting." G.T. refers to Dunbar's "Golden Targe," and C. and S. to Montgomery's "Cherrie and the Slae." M.P. to the "Miscellaneous Poems" and S. to the "Sonnets."

Only words that are specifically Scotch in form or usage have been included. Very well known Scotch words, that occur in older Scotch as well as the modern dialects, such as _blether_, _busk_, _ettle_, _kilt_, etc., are given without references to texts where they have been found, otherwise one or more references are given in each case.

For the sake of comparison and ill.u.s.tration Shetland and c.u.mberland forms are frequently given. Wherever a W. Scand. source is accepted for a loanword the O.N. form is given if it be different from O. Ic. Examples from Danish dialects or Swedish dialects are given as Dan. dial. or Sw. dial. Those from Norse dialects are cited as Norse simply. Those that are specifically literary Norse are cited as Dano-Norse.

PART II.

LOANWORDS.

AGAIT, _adv._ uniformly. R.R. 622. Sco. _ae_, one, + O.N. _gata_ literally "ae way," one way.

AGAIT, _adv._ astir, on the way. See Wall.

AGROUF, _adv._ on the stomach, grovelling. Ramsay, II, 339. O.N.

_a grufu_, id. See _grouf_.

AIRT (e?rt), _vb._ urge, incite, force, guide, show. O.N. _erta_, to taunt, to tease, _erting_, teasing. Norse _erta_, _orta_, id. Sw. dial. _erta_, to incite some one to do a thing. Sw.

_reta_ shows metathesis. M.E. _ertin_, to provoke.

ALLGAT, _adv._ always, by all means. Bruce, XII, 36; L.L. 1996. O.N.

_allu gatu_. O. Ic. _ollu gotu_. See Kluge, P.G.(2)I, 938.

ALGAIT, ALGATIS, _adv._ wholly. Douglas, II, 15, 32; II, 129, 31.

See Kluge, P.G.(2)I, 938.

ALTHING, as a _sb._ everything. Gau, 8, 30, corresponding to Dan.

_alting_. "Over al thing," Dan. _over alting_. Not to be taken as a regular Sco. word, however. Gau has a number of other expressions which correspond closely to those of the Dan.

original of Kristjern Pedersen, of which Gau's work is a translation.

ANGER, _sb._ grief, misery. Bruce, I, 235. Sco. Pro. 29. O.N.

_angr_, grief, sorrow. See Bradley's Stratmann, and Kluge and Lutz. The root _ang_ is general Gmc., cp. O.E. _angmod_, "vexed in mind." M.L.G. _anxt_, Germ. _angst_, Dan. _anger_.

The form of the word in Eng., however, is Scand.

ANGRYLY, _adv._ painfully. Wyntoun, VI, 7, 30. Deriv., cp. Cu.

_angry_, painful, O.N. _angrligr_, M.E. _angerliche_. The O. Dan. vb. _angre_, meant "to pain," e.g., _thet angar mek, at thu skal omod thorn stride_ (Kalkar).

APERT, _adj._ bold. Bruce, XX, 14. _apertly_, boldly, XIV, 77.

Evidently from O.N. _apr_, sharp, cp. _en aprasta hri_, "sharp fighting," cited in Cl. and V. Cl. and V. compares N.Ic. _napr_, "snappish," cp. furthermore _apirsmert_, adj.

(Douglas, II, 37, 18), meaning "crabbed," the second element of which is probably Eng. _Apr_ in O.N. as applied to persons means "harsh, severe" (Haldorson).

a.s.sIL-TOOTH, _sb._ molar tooth. Douglas, I, 2, 12. See Wall.

AT, _conj._ that. O.N. _at_, Norse, Dan. _at_, to be regarded as a Scand. word. Might in some places be due to Celtic influence, but its early presence, and general distribution in Scand.

settlements in England, Scotland, Shetland, etc., indicates that it is Scand.

AWEBAND, _sb._ "a band used for tying cattle to the stake."

Jamieson, Lothian. O.N. _ha-band_, "vinculum nervos poplitis adstringens" (Haldorson). Norse _habbenda_, "to tie cattle with a rope between the knees to keep them from running away."

Cp. O. Sw. _haband_, Sw. dial. _haband_, "a rope that unites the oar with the oarlock."

AWKWART, _prep._ athwart, across. Wallace, III, 175; II, 109. Same as the Eng. adj. "awkward" which was originally an adv.

Etymologically it is the O.N. _afugr_ (O. Ic. _ofugr_) + Eng.

_ward_ (Skeat), cp. the Norse vb. _afvige_, to turn off.

I have not found the prepositional use of the word in Eng. Cp.

"toward."

AWSOME, _adj._ terrible, deriv. from _awe_ (O.N. _agi_). The ending _some_ is Eng. O.N. _agasamr_, Norse _aggsam_, means "turbulent, restless."