(_a_) #Norse.# Although many Norse words first appear in English in late texts, they must have come into the spoken language before the end of the eleventh century, because the Scandinavian settlements ceased after the Norman Conquest. The invaders spoke a dialect near enough to OE. to be intelligible to the Angles; and they had little to teach of literature or civilization. Hence the borrowings from Norse are all popular; they appear chiefly in the Midlands and North, where the invaders settled; and they witness the intimate fusion of two kindred languages. From Norse we get such common words as _anger_, _both_, _call_, _egg_, _hit_, _husband_, _ill_, _law_, _loose_, _low_, _meek_, _take_, _till_ (prep.), _want_, _weak_, _wing_, _wrong_, and even the plural forms of the 3rd personal pronoun (§ 12). It is not always easy to distinguish Norse from native words, because the two languages were so similar during the period of borrowing, and Norse words were adopted early enough to be affected by all ME. sound changes. But there were some dialectal differences between ON. and OE. in the ninth and tenth centuries, and these afford the best criteria of borrowing. For instance in ME. we have _þouȝ_, _þof_ (ON. _þō̆h_ for _*þauh_) beside _þei(h)_ (OE. _þē(a)h_) II 433; _ay_ (ON. _ei_) 'ever' XVI 293 beside _oo_ (OE. _ā_) XV _b_ 7; _waik_ (ON. _veik-r_) VIII _b_ 23, where OE. _wāc_ would yield _wǭk_; the forms _wǭre_ XVI 17 (note) and _wāpin_ XIV _b_ 15 are from ON. _várum_, _vápn_, whereas _wēre(n)_ and _wĕppen_ V 154 represent OE. (Anglian) _wēron_, _wēpn_. So we have the pairs _awe_ (ON. _agi_) I 83 and _ay_ (OE. _ege_) II 571; _neuen_ (ON. _nefna_) 'to name' XVII 12 and _nem(p)ne_ (OE. _nemnan_) II 600; _rot_ (ON. _rót_) II 256 and _wort_ (OE. _wyrt_) VIII _a_ 303; _sterne_, _starne_ (ON. _stjarna_) XVII 8, 423 and native _sterre_, _starre_ (OE. _steorra_); _systyr_ (ON. _systir_) I 112 and _soster_ (OE. _sweostor_) XV _g_ 10; _werre_, _warre_ (ON. _verri_) XVI 154 (note), 334 and native _werse_, _wars_ (OE. _wyrsa_) XVI 200, XVII 191; _wylle_ (ON. _vill-r_) V 16 and native _wylde_ (OE. _wilde_) XV _b_ 19. Note that in Norse borrowings the consonants _g_, _k_ remain stops where they are palatalized in English words: _garn_ XVII 298, _giue_, _gete_ (ON. _garn_, _gefa_, _geta_) beside _ȝarn_, _ȝiue_, _for-ȝete_ (OE. _gearn_, _giefan_, _for-gietan_); _kirke_ (ON. _kirkja_) beside _chirche_ (OE. _cirice_). Similarly OE. initial _sc-_ regularly becomes ME. _sh-_, so that most words beginning with _sk-_, like _sky_, _skin_, _skyfte_ VI 209 (English _shift_), _skirte_ (English _shirt_), are Norse; see the alliterating words in V 99. There is an excellent monograph by E. Björkman: _Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English_, 1900.