The Danes and the Danish Language in England: An Anthroponymical Point of View

Abstract

Evidence is provided by place names and personal names of Nordic origin for Danish settlement in England and Scotland in the Viking period and later. The names show that Danish settlement was densest in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire but can also be traced outside the Danelaw. In the North, Danish settlers or their descendants moved across the Pennines to the Carlisle Plain, and from there along the coast of Cumberland and on across the sea to the Isle of Man, and perhaps back again to southern Lancashire and Cheshire before the middle of the tenth century. There,was also a spread of Danes around south-western England in the early eleventh century, reflecting the activities of Cnut the Great and his followers. After the Norman Conquest, Nordic influence spread into Dumfriesshire and the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It was in the more isolated, northern communities that Nordic linguistic influence continued to thrive.