English and Old Norse

or why Danish is a lot like English.

Danish and English both belong to the Germanic family of languages so it shares many words with German and English. English speakers will recognize many "loan words" in Danish which have been borrowed from English in recent times as English has become an international language. But the deeper connections between Danish and English go back to Viking times and before that to the Angles, Saxon and Jutes who settled Britain before Roman times. The famous Viking raiders of the middle ages were actually Danish farmers and many of them settled permanently in England during the Viking expansions between about 700 and 1100 AD. I have heard it said that up to a third of England's population was of Danish origin towards the end of that time. Canute the Great, who became Denmark's king in 1018, conquered England fifty years before William the Conqueror and remained king of England for twenty five years. Many old English words are of Danish origin.

Here are a few English words which are identified by the Oxford dictionary as being from Old Norse. As you can see, they are usually short words of one or two syllables and they refer to things which would have been familiar to Danish farmers in the middle ages.

English	Modern Danish	Notes
arm	arm
book	bog	The noun, not the verb.
calf	kalv
cake	kage
can	kan, kunne	The verb, not the noun. Kan is present of kunne.
cold	kold
come	kom, komme	kom is the present of komme
cow	ko
ear	øre
eye	øje	j in Danish is pronounced as y in English, which explains the English spelling.
fish	fisk
gum	gumme	Fleshy part of mouth. The other meaning of resin is from Greek and French rather than Danish.
head	hoved
hot	hed
ice	is
hail	hagl	As in pellets of frozen rain. Pronounced the same as in English.
know	kende	Know of rather than know about.
lamb	lam
lay	lagde, lægge	As in to put down. lagde is the present of lægge.
leg	læg	læg only refers to the calf part of the leg.
land	land
long	lang	Same two meanings - of length and to yearn.
man	mand
rib	ribbe
ring	ring, ringe	Same two meanings - ring is a circle, ringe is to ring.
sea	sø
see	se
set	sætte	The verb.
slay	slå	slå means to beat or hit, not necessarily to death.
small	små	små is only for plural things.
snake	slange
snail	snegl	Pronounced the same as in English
snow	sne
stone	sten
tide	tid, tidevand	tid in Danish mean time or season and is pronounced teeth. tidevand means tidal cycle of the ocean.
time	time	time in Danish means an hour and is pronounced teema
toe	tå
tooth	tand
warm	varm
wind	vind

Danish for English Speakers