Assimilating Culture - what language tell us about immigration and integration

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:08:00 GMT

They’re a firm part of our language and even speak to us of our national culture — but some words aren’t quite as English as we think.

Terms such as ‘law’, ‘ugly’, ‘want’ and ‘take’ are all loanwords from Old Norse, brought to these shores by the Vikings, whose attacks on England started in AD 793. In the centuries following it wasn’t just warfare and trade that the invaders gave England. Their settlement and subsequent assimilation into the country’s culture brought along the introduction of something much more permanent than the silk, spices and furs that weighed down their longboats — words.

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