Abstract
Mutual Intelligibility of Timber Trade Terminology in the North Sea Countries during the Time of the ‘Scottish Trade’<sup>1</sup>
Highlights
This essay developed as a side-shoot out of an investigation into the possibility that the distinctiveness of the Scots dialect of the North-East of Scotland, often referred to as the Doric, may to some degree be a result of lexical borrowing from Norwegian in particular
N o similar pidgin has been found in connection with the trade further south in the North Sea, which is most probably an indication that there was at least some degree of linguistic mutual intelligibility among the parties involved, possibly even to the extent of what Braunmüller calls semi-communication, as described above
Based on the evidence in the etymological examination above, limited as it is to these fifteen items, there wouldseem to b e an indication that the tetms for timber used in the Scottish Trade between Scotland and Norway were very probably mutually intelligible
Summary
This essay developed as a side-shoot out of an investigation into the possibility that the distinctiveness of the Scots dialect of the North-East of Scotland, often referred to as the Doric, may to some degree be a result of lexical borrowing from Norwegian in particular. It is unlikely that, as far as timber terminology is concerned, any lexical borrowing would only have been evident in the dialect o f the North-East It is Scots in general which is the focus o f this essay. Descriptions of this trade activity, written by present-day historians in both English and Norwegian, were consulted to find out more about the contact between the two linguistic communities. Some of these descriptions refer to the main types of timber products involved. H o w did they all communicate, in order to do business?
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