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The Gersum Project: the Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary

格尔苏姆项目：斯堪的纳维亚对英语词汇的影响

基本信息

批准号：
AH/M011054/1
负责人：
Richard Dance
金额：
$ 44.01万
依托单位：
University of Cambridge
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2016 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FM011054%2F1
关键词：
Gersum Project Scandinavian Influence English

项目摘要

In the early Middle Ages, Scandinavian influence on British life, language and culture was profound. Long before the rise of 'Nordic noir' and Danish haute cuisine, the Vikings had a major and lasting impact, and their legacy still resonates strongly in modern constructions of British identity and heritage. Scandinavian settlement began in earnest in the late ninth century, especially in the North and East of England, and probably its most significant, and certainly its most enduring and pervasive effect, was on the English language. A large number of important English words have been ascribed an Old Norse (ON) origin, including such basic items as sky, egg, law, leg, call, take, window, knife, die and skin, and even the pronouns they, their and them. These are cultural artefacts which link us directly to the Vikings, and which all English speakers still use on a daily basis; and there are hundreds of other similar borrowings in standard and regional English usage, especially Northern dialects. The nature and contexts of the contact between speakers of Old English and ON in Viking-Age England have been the subject of important research in the last few decades. But there has still been surprisingly little intensive work on the borrowed vocabulary itself, and there is a huge amount about the early histories of these words yet to be discovered. Even identifying which English words really were borrowed from or influenced by ON is a very complex business. And we still know relatively little about how and by whom these words were used in the first few centuries after their adoption into English, especially in the crucial Middle English (ME) period, whose most important texts - particularly those composed in areas heavily settled by ON speakers - have never seen sustained exploration from this perspective. The main aim of the Gersum project (named after the ME word gersum, borrowed from ON gersemi 'treasure') is to remedy this deficiency. Its research will result in a detailed catalogue of up to 1600 words for which an origin in ON has been suggested in a corpus of major, late ME alliterative poems from the North of England - a catalogue which will include words as diverse and intriguing as hernez 'brains', muged 'drizzled', stange 'pole' and wothe 'danger'. The catalogue will be presented as a publically accessible online database, fully searchable by the meanings, distributions (regional and chronological), etymologies and other aspects of the words it contains, and linked to electronic texts of the poems chosen. These will include renowned works of literature like 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', 'Pearl', and the 'Alliterative Morte Arthure'; the project will greatly enhance knowledge and appreciation of their vocabularies, and how the originally ON element contributes to their style and meaning. In short, this will be the fullest survey ever undertaken of words derived from ON in ME, and a lasting platform for all future research into this major area of English language history. Above and beyond this survey and its related research questions, the project will actively coordinate interest in the fascinating subject of the ON linguistic heritage in English, and communicate it to various beneficiaries. Public engagement will include talks to local groups of people who speak the modern versions of the dialects of the project's texts, exploring and celebrating the local language of the North of England and its role in some of the great literary monuments of the Middle Ages. The project's website will act as a general resource for all those interested in the subject, introducing key issues and contexts to both specialist and non-specialist users. Through an accompanying conference and book, Gersum will also create a cross-disciplinary conversation between the linguistic analysis of the Viking legacy and other aspects of the scholarly study of Anglo-Scandinavian cultural interaction in a way never before achieved.

在中世纪早期，斯堪的纳维亚对英国人的生活、语言和文化产生了深远的影响。早在“北欧黑色”和丹麦高级美食兴起之前，维京人就产生了重大而持久的影响，他们的遗产仍然在英国身份和遗产的现代建设中产生强烈的共鸣。斯堪的纳维亚人在世纪后期开始定居，尤其是在英格兰北部和东部，其最重要的影响，当然也是最持久和最普遍的影响，可能是对英语的影响。许多重要的英语单词都被认为是源自古诺尔斯语，包括诸如sky、egg、law、leg、call、take、window、knife、die和skin等基本词汇，甚至代词they、their和them。这些是将我们与维京人直接联系在一起的文化产物，所有说英语的人每天都在使用它们;在标准英语和地区英语用法中，还有数百种其他类似的借用，特别是北方方言。在过去的几十年里，维京时代英格兰的古英语和ON之间的接触的性质和背景一直是重要的研究课题。但是，令人惊讶的是，对外来词汇本身的深入研究仍然很少，而且还有大量关于这些词汇的早期历史尚未被发现。即使是确定哪些英语单词真的是从ON借来的或受ON的影响也是一件非常复杂的事情。我们对这些词在进入英语后的最初几个世纪里是如何使用的，以及是由谁使用的，仍然知之甚少，特别是在关键的中古英语时期，其最重要的文本--特别是那些在ON使用者大量定居的地区撰写的文本--从未从这个角度进行过持续的探索。Gersum项目（以ME单词gersum命名，借用ON gersemi的“宝藏”）的主要目的是弥补这一缺陷。它的研究将导致一个详细的目录，多达1600个单词的起源已被建议在一个语料库的主要，晚ME头韵诗从英格兰北部-一个目录，其中将包括各种各样的和有趣的词，如hernez 'brains'，muged '毛毛雨'，stange 'pole'和wothe 'wothe'。该目录将作为一个在线数据库提供，可通过其所包含的单词的含义、分布（区域和时间）、词源和其他方面进行全面搜索，并与所选诗歌的电子文本相链接。这些将包括著名的文学作品，如“高文爵士和绿色骑士”，“珍珠”，和“头韵死亡阿瑟”;该项目将大大提高知识和欣赏他们的词汇，以及如何原来的元素有助于他们的风格和意义。简而言之，这将是有史以来对ME中来自ON的单词进行的最全面的调查，也是所有未来研究英语语言历史这一主要领域的持久平台。除了这项调查及其相关的研究问题之外，该项目还将积极协调对ON语言遗产这一迷人主题的兴趣，并将其传达给各种受益者。公众参与将包括与讲该项目文本方言的现代版本的当地人群进行会谈，探索和庆祝英格兰北部的当地语言及其在中世纪一些伟大文学纪念碑中的作用。该项目的网站将作为所有对该主题感兴趣的人的一般资源，向专业和非专业用户介绍关键问题和背景。通过伴随的会议和书籍，Gersum还将以前所未有的方式在维京海盗遗产的语言分析和盎格鲁-斯堪的纳维亚文化互动的学术研究的其他方面之间建立跨学科的对话。