Norse loanwords in Old and Middle Irish - a semantic analysis of the Irish-Norse (language) contact situation

Abstract

Ever since we found records of the coming of the Norsemen to Ireland, this topic has been a major area of interest within the fields of history, archaeology, literary studies and linguistics. As a result, much research on the Norse impact on Ireland has been done in the past, and already a large part of its mystery has been revealed. One of the aspects that has been researched in the past is the evidence of Old Norse loanwords in Old and Middle Irish. These studies often focussed on the phonetic developments of those borrowings, and although the borrowings have been catalogued and discussed according to their semantic value, no clear study exists on the semantic development from the source language (i.e. Old Norse) to its target language (i.e. Old and Middle Irish). It is my objective to detect what the semantic development of Norse loanwords in Old and Middle Irish can tell us about the language and social contact situation of the Irish and the Norse raiders and settlers during the Viking Age.