Language andRunes Extracts of Swarkestone runic verse These dialects were spoken across what are from The now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and were in Ransome of Egill the Scald taken to Iceland when the Vikings settled there. Derbyshire and The Dying Ode of Regner Modern Icelandic is the closest surviving form combines Lodbrog on the title page of this medieval tongue; many Icelanders today the Old of their first English can still easily enjoy the medieval Icelandic Norse translation. Thomas sagas of the 12th-14th centuries in their original personal Percy, Five written form. name Pieces of Runic Poetry Swerkir with the Old English Translated from Anglo-Saxons spoke Old English, the ancestor Pp 1-2 from Magnús Ólafsson’s the Islandic element -tun (meaning ‘farm’ Old Icelandic dictionary with runic Language to our modern language. Old English was headwords and Latin definitions. (London or ‘homestead’), suggesting Magnús Ólafsson, Specimen lexici 1763). another Germanic language, with close kinship runici, obscuriorum qvarundam vocum, Eiríkur perhaps that a Viking took qvae in priscis occurrunt historiis & Benedikz to Old Norse, so it is plausible that Old poëtis danicis (Copenhagen 1650) Icelandic over an Anglo-Saxon farm. Special Collection Oversize PD2093.W6 Collection English and Old Norse speakers could, to a PT7245.E5 certain extent, understand one another. Early The Scandinavians also brought their system medieval Scandinavians had a notable effect on of writing with them: runes. The runic the development of modern English: words alphabet the Viking settlers employed is such as skirt, sky, window, and egg are all derived known as the Younger Futhark and consists from Old Norse. Loanwords such as these are of sixteen characters that represent the most The Vikings not only brought their material culture with evidence of the integration of Scandinavian common spoken sounds in Old Norse. The them to Anglo-Saxon England: they also brought their culture into Anglo-Saxon England. Scandinavian settlers commonly used runes to mark possessions, memorialise their dead on language. The first Scandinavian settlers spoke a language This integration is further displayed in English runestones, and celebrate their achievements. now called Old Norse, a Northern Germanic language with place-names in the Danelaw area, where there many local dialects. is a wealth of English-Norse hybrid names.