Low German and Scandinavia

1 3 2
3
The Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture is 121 ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI CXXI
121
a national academy based in Uppsala. According to its statutes, one of
the means by which the Academy is to pursue its object of promoting
research into Swedish folk culture, understood in a broad sense, is by
CONTACT
CONTACTBETWEEN
publishing, in its various series, research findings in areas that it is
charged with fostering. The main series is the Acta Academiae Regiae
Gustavi Adolphi, the first volume of which appeared in 1933. Other
Contact between
between Low
Low German
German and
series include Folklivsskildringar och bygdestudier (Studies of Folk
Contact and
BETWEENLOW
Life and Local History), Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademiens småskrifter
(Short Publications of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy) and
Svenska sagor och sägner (Swedish Folk Tales and Legends).
Scandinavian in
Scandinavian in the
the Late
Late Middle
Middle Ages
Ages
This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at the Uni- 25 Years of Research
LOWGERMAN
versity of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway, in 2010 on the new methods
used in and findings emerging from the last twenty-five years of re- Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr (editors)
GERMANAND
search into contact between Low German and the Scandinavian lan-
guages in the late Middle Ages.
The editor of the various series is the Secretary to the Academy,
ANDSCANDINAVIAN
Associate Professor Maj Reinhammar, maj.reinhammar@agora.se.
SCANDINAVIANININTHE
THELATE
LATEMIDDLE
MIDDLEAGES
Distribution:
Swedish Science Press
AGES
Box 118
SE-751 04 Uppsala ISSN 0065-0897 UPPSALA 2012
E-post: info@ssp.nu ISBN 978-91-85352-97-5
1
ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI

121
2
sid2
3
ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI CXXI
Contact between Low German and

Scandinavian in the Late Middle Ages
25 Years of Research
Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr (editors)
UPPSALA 2012
Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien

för svensk folkkultur
4
© The authors and Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur 2012
ISSN 0065-0897
ISBN 978-91-85352-97-5
Printed in Sweden 2012

Textgruppen i Uppsala AB
5
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr: 25 years of research on the

contact between Low German and Scandinavian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Arnved Nedkvitne: A post-national perspective on the German Hansa

in Scandinavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Gro-Renée Rambø: Language contact, communication and change . . . . . 39
Peter Trudgill: Gender reduction in Bergen Norwegian: a North-Sea

perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Agnete Nesse: Norwegian and German in Bergen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Kurt Braunmüller: Semi-communication and beyond. Some results

of the Hamburg Hanseatic Project (1990–1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Stefan Mähl: Low German texts from Late Medieval Sweden . . . . . . . . . 113
Birgit Christensen: A survey of Low German loan words in Danish in

the medieval period and the transition from Low German to High
German as the written language in Tønder in the 17th century . . . . . . 123
Helena Wistrand: Middle Low German loanwords in medieval

charters issued in the Swedish province of Närke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Kurt Braunmüller and Steffen Höder: The history of complex verbs

in Scandinavian languages revisited: only influence due to contact
with Low German? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Ludger Zeevaert: Low German influence and typological change

in Swedish: some results from a research project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Erik Simensen: Low German and Nynorsk – a strained relationship?

A glimpse into Norway’s most recent language history . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
6
7
Preface
This volume grew out of an international conference at the University of Agder

in Kristiansand, Norway, held in November 2010 entitled “Contact between
Low German and Scandinavian in the late Middle Ages – 25 years of research”.
The background to the conference was the intense research activity over the
past 25 years or so which has completely revived a traditional field of study:
Low German–Scandinavian contact. During this period, new theories of lan-
guage contact and new methods of studying it have been employed to investi-
gate this field in a fundamentally different way from all previous efforts. From
Lennart Elmevik’s 1977 presentation of his project using post-war theoretical
ideas about language contact to Gro-Renée Rambø’s 2009 University of Agder
socio-historical PhD dissertation on the contact situation throughout Scandina-
via in the Hansa period, completely new perspectives and aspects about this
historical language-contact period have given rise to a multitude of new in-
sights and results. The study of Low German–Scandinavian contact has now,
in our view, been established on a more elaborate level theoretically and meth-
odologically. This field’s rapid development has also substantially helped to
further and stimulate theoretical developments in the new research field of his-
torical sociolinguistics.
We, the organizers of the Kristiansand conference and this volume’s editors,
are very pleased that so many of the central researchers in this field, who have
made essential contributions to its development over the past 25 years, par-
ticipated in the conference and gave papers in which they summarized the main
results of their research. We have also included a few papers which were sub-
mitted after the conference. Our main objective in this volume is to provide an
overview of many of the exciting results from this period, especially for an in-
ternational audience. Many of these important reports have so far only been
published in a Scandinavian language. Therefore, we hope that this volume, in
English, will help inform the interested international community of language
contact researchers of the numerous new and compelling results from the past
quarter century.
We thank the University of Agder, Kristiansand, and the Royal Gustavus
Adolphus’ Academy for Swedish folk culture, Uppsala, for supporting the con-
ference financially, and the Academy for including the volume in its Acta series.
Finally, we thank Jean Hannah for her thorough copy-editing of the papers and
Maj Reinhammar, editor of the Acta series, who undertook a final review of the
text.
Uppsala and Kristiansand, September 2012
Lennart Elmevik Ernst Håkon Jahr

8
Contact between Low German and Scandinavian in the Late Middle Ages 9
Twenty-five years of research on the

contact between Low German and
Scandinavian
Lennart Elmevik, Uppsala University
and Ernst Håkon Jahr, University of Agder
Language contact between the Scandinavian languages and Middle Low Ger-
man in the late Middle Ages is a topic which has concerned a great number of
researchers over the last century. A number of lengthy and short dissertations
have been written describing the results of the immense influence to which
mainland Scandinavian was exposed, particularly in the 14th and 15th centuries,
when the German Hanseatic League was at the pinnacle of its power. With
Lübeck as their centre, the Hansa merchants controlled a powerful northern
European empire, a kind of late medieval EU. (Cf. Nedkvitne’s contribution.)
But compared to today’s EU, the Hansa market had one great advantage: Low
German was in use over the entire area. From Novgorod in Russia in the east
to London in the west, from Bruges, Cologne and Cracow in the south to
Bergen in the north, Low German served as the lingua franca of trade. This fact
opens up interesting prospects and possibilities for comparative historical
studies of language contact.
Until about the mid-1970s, however, it was supposed that progress in lin-
guistic research required the assumption of a linguistically homogeneous and
self-contained language community. Within the theoretical paradigm of the
Neogrammarians as well as within the later paradigms of structuralism and
generativism, this has been considered a useful pragmatic assumption.
However, in the past two generations it has been shown beyond doubt that
a language community is never homogeneous, and hardly ever self-contained.
Although most linguists can agree with this statement, it is still a fact that lin-
guists working on language change at earlier times often neglected to reflect
this in their work. When working on linguistic change from a diachronic per-
spective, linguists have often ignored extra-linguistic factors. This has been the
case with research on language contact between Middle Low German and the
mainland Scandinavian languages in the Late Middle Ages.
Within the Neogrammarian framework, which was the dominant paradigm in
Scandinavian philology and historical linguistics up until the 1970s, descriptions
of the result of language contact are generally restricted to various types of loans.
If an element X from language A is transferred (“borrowed”) into language B,
this can easily be integrated into a Neogrammarian description. Neogrammarian
10 Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr
“Stammbaum” theory could only explain clear and identifiable loans, be it on the
lexical, morphological or syntactic level. Results of the contact situation which
could not be traced to the influencing language, in our case Low German, were
simply outside of the scope of what this paradigm could incorporate into the lin-
guistic description. Up to only a few decades ago, most students of this transition-
al period have concerned themselves mainly with problems of loan word adop-
tion, i.e. they have tried to map the Low German loanwords which were adopted
for use in different domains. Other types of linguistic consequences that the con-
tact situation may have had have not been given much attention. There is a long
tradition in Scandinavian historical linguistics of studying and classifying Middle
Low German loanwords in the Scandinavian languages. A substantial amount of
sound philological work has been carried out in this field over the past hundred
years or so, and a great deal of empirical evidence has been presented. Thousands
of loanwords have been identified, explained and classified. (Cf. Simensen’s
contribution; Skancke 2001.)
During the past generation, however, it has been established that language
contact can result in a multitude of different linguistic and sociolinguistic phe-
nomena, and that various mechanisms of language contact may bring about
language change, short-term as well as long-term. It has been emphasized that
a language contact situation has to be studied and described as an interplay be-
tween linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Language and language use are so-
cial phenomena that are influenced by extra-linguistic as well as intra-linguistic
factors. Direct loans, previously the sole focus of interest, are thus only one of
the many consequences of language contact. Thanks to post-war developments
within language contact theory, it has now been possible to pick up this old dis-
cipline and reanalyse the sources by means of methods, theories and view-
points other than those offered by the 19th century Neogrammarian paradigm.
Equipped with new knowledge of what results language contact may actually
yield in addition to loanwords, one can now ask new questions and discover
outcomes and answers other than those presented in earlier research. Therefore,
projects over the past 25 years have aimed at describing the language changes
which can be observed in the Scandinavian languages in the 14th and 15th
centuries as a combined result of language contact and social and language
system-internal causes.
One very important aspect that was soon brought to light was that linguistic
interaction took quite different shapes in the various parts of the vast area of the
Hanseatic trading empire, and as a consequence of this, the linguistic and
sociolinguistic results of contact were not the same in all places. The conditions
governing linguistic interaction were completely different in Russia and
Estonia, for example, from those in Scandinavia. Even within the Scandinavian
area we do not find the same type of contact everywhere. The sociolinguistic
conditions, which defined the bounds of interaction everywhere, varied enor-
mously from town to town. (On the differences within Scandinavia, see Ram-
bø’s contribution; Rambø 2009.)
The new start or approach for investigating medieval Low German/Scandi-

navian contact using post-war theories and perspectives can be dated to the late
1970s and 1980s. One of the first was a project in Stockholm led by Professor
Lennart Elmevik (cf. Elmevik 1977, 1979), resulting inter alia in Lena
Moberg’s 1989 dissertation, and another was the Mannheim-based Swedish
professor Sture Ureland’s initiative which resulted in the conference volume
Sprachkontakt in der Hanse (Ureland 1987). The five conferences in the series
“Niederdeutsch in Skandinavien” (between 1985 and 1993) also provided im-
portant input (cf. Elmevik & Schöndorf 1992). Then, from about 1990, came
the innovative Hamburg project led by Professor Kurt Braunmüller (cf. Braun-
müller’s contribution; Braunmüller & Diercks 1993; Braunmüller 1995; Jahr
1995), and from 1997 the project “Språkhistoriske prinsipp for lånord i nor-
diske språk” [Language-historical principles for loan words in the Scandina-
vian languages], financed by the Nordic Council and led by Professor Ernst
Håkon Jahr, then at the University of Tromsø (cf. Jahr 1998a, 2000, 2006,
Skancke 2001, Nesse 2002, Rambø 2009).
Most articles and dissertations through the years (starting in the 19th century)
on contact between Low German and mainland Scandinavian have, as men-
tioned above, discussed loanwords, i.e. direct loans from Low German into
Scandinavian. One was Clara Holst’s dissertation in 1903, when she became
the first woman to defend a PhD in Norway (Holst 1903; cf. Jahr 2006). There
is no doubt that the new words which entered the Scandinavian word stock
within only a couple of centuries changed the character of these languages
completely. At the same time, a typological change from synthetic to analytic
language structure took place, so that by the beginning of the 16th century the
Scandinavian languages had reached their modern stage.
This volume brings together contributions which summarize a great many
of the results and perspectives developed and followed up during the last 25
years of intensive research on contact between the Low German of the Hanse-
atic League and the Scandinavian languages.
One major result of the past 25 years of research: the

refutation of the “mixed language” theory (cf. Jahr
1997, 1998b, 2001)
The influence of Low German on the mainland Scandinavian languages, both
on the lexical and structural level, was enormous and unparalleled in Scandi-
navian language history, and may be compared with the huge influence that
Norman French exerted on Old English following the Norman Conquest.
A typological shift occurred simultaneously in Danish, Swedish and Nor-
wegian, all of which had close contact with Low German, but it did not take
place in Icelandic, which had much less contact with Low German.
The main question here, is this: what role, if any, did language contact play
in the Late Middle Ages with respect to the typological change that the main-
land Scandinavian languages underwent during this period? The most impor-
tant period of change coincided exactly with the hundred years or so when con-
tact between Low German and the Scandinavian languages was most intense.
It is difficult to imagine that this contact had no effect whatsoever on the typo-
logical shift.
The question of how the decline in inflectional morphology came about is,
of course, not new, and Scandinavian philologists and historical linguists raised
the issue relatively early on. The explanation adhered to by most Scandinavian
philologists of the Neogrammarian persuasion was to postulate a grammatical-
ly simplified Scandinavian language used originally by the German merchants
when communicating with the natives, or a mixed-language type of idiom con-
sisting of Scandinavian (Swedish, Danish or Norwegian) and Low German el-
ements. These varieties, which never have been given a precise description –
for obvious reasons – were then thought to have caused or at least been a cata-
lyst for the overall deconstruction of the Scandinavian case system. This view
has been especially popular among Swedish scholars.
As early as 1889, Tegnér suggested the possibility of a written mixed variety
among the upper classes, but it was Wessén (1929) who developed the theory:
When towards the end of the Middle Ages the rich inflectional system of the old lan-
guage dissolved and underwent simplification, this has, with good reason, been ex-
plained partly by the fact that the German immigrants could never learn to use the
old case forms and inflections correctly; their simplified morphological system was
gradually adopted by the country’s own children. (Wessén [1929] 1954, p. 27; trans-
lated from the Swedish original.)
According to Wessén, then, the Germans used a morphologically simplified

Swedish, not necessarily a mixed language with Low German and Swedish/
Scandinavian elements. In later publications, however, this distinction is not
maintained. Törnquist (1954) for example, assumes a mixed language, a kind
of pidgin, which was used between German and Swedes, and subsequently
among Swedes themselves. On the other hand, he also claims that Swedish
merchants acquired Low German and that their Swedish was affected by this
because Low German carried high social prestige.
Such a concrete mixed language was postulated in 1913 by Cederschiöld,
who claimed that the Low German loanwords in Swedish had
probably been a feature of the mixed language spoken by merchants – travelling or
resident in Sweden – as well as by artisans from Northern Germany and their assis-
tants, mercenaries, etc., when they needed to make themselves understood by the
Swedes, and which was later adopted by the Germans’ Swedish colleagues, the in-
habitants of the town. (Cederschiöld 1913, quoted by Elmevik 1979, p. 227; trans-
lated from the Swedish original.)
Ronge (1967, p. 275) expressed the following opinion:

In towns with a strong German element, the linguistic communication between Ger-
mans and Swedes probably resulted in some kind of mixed language, a variable spo-
ken language, internalized very differently from speaker to speaker, and thus diffi-
cult to pin down. [...] It is possible that this hypothetical mixed language, which
arose in certain ‘core areas’, has served as the direct link in the linguistic influence
which Middle Low German had had on Old Swedish. This influence has resulted in
a vast number of German loanwords, even functional words, as well as a number of
prefixes and suffixes, and it has also changed Swedish morphology and syntax in
various ways. (Translated from the Swedish original.)
In two dissertations (Moberg 1989; Winge 1992) the mixed language theory is
discussed. Winge (1992, p. 17) claims that even though in her view it can be
proved that the upper strata in Denmark were bilingual at certain points in time,
it was also the case that “the socially lower classes earlier communicated
through a mixed language or simply (like the Scandinavians do today) through
semi-communication” (translated from the German original; on semi-commu-
nication, cf. Braunmüller 1994). As for the Swedish situation, Moberg (1989,
p. 12) writes:
In easy linguistic transactions Swedes and Germans must obviously have had
relatively good chances of making themselves understood across linguistic barri-
ers without much knowledge of the other language. Working from this assump-
tion, Scandinavian linguistics has not infrequently described the code or codes
which were used in the interaction between Swedes and Germans in terms which
make one think of what we today refer to as pidgin. (Translated from the Swedish
original.)
And, finally – with respect to the Norwegian situation – Skard (1973, p. 132)
writes that
the Norwegians have in part used a kind of lingua franca – a mixed language – in
their interaction with the Germans. [...] As a result, they [i.e. the Germans] did not
need to learn the complex peculiarities of the Norwegian inflectional system but
could instead speak ‘Norwegian’ as they pleased. This simplification of Norwegian
could easily have spread. There were already forces inherent in the language sup-
porting such a tendency, which would then have been helped on its way by foreign
influence, resulting in an even more radical departure from earlier language tradi-
tions. (Translated from the Norwegian original, cf. also Dalen 1994.)
What then are we to make of all the discussions concerning a mixed language
during the Hanseatic period, which come up time and again? Are they all un-
founded?
It would appear so. The most concrete reference to the existence of a mixed
language of the pidgin type was presented by Wahl (1927, p. 226, note), who
translated a directive to the Bergenhus Fort, dating from around 1530, into
modern Norwegian. Wahl writes that this directive “is drawn up in the lan-
guage used by the mercenaries of the time – a curious mixture of Northern Eu-
ropean languages, in particular Low German”. (Translated from the Norwegian
original.)
Wahl gives no indication of the origins of the source, nor does he provide
any example of this “curious mixture”, as he calls it. But Wahl’s short note has
subsequently been referred to frequently (initially by Brattegard 1932, p. 303)
as evidence that such a pidgin language existed in Bergen in the 16th century.
Simensen (1989) finally established that Wahl’s source must have been Charter
No. 566 in Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 13. However, this charter is writ-
ten in the Low German of the period, and there is nothing in the text which
merits the term ‘mixed language’.
It must be concluded that, to date, no one has been able to provide any actual
proof that a pidgin or mixed language derived from Low German and the Scan-
dinavian languages existed during the Hanseatic period. The most probable
reason for the lack of such a pidgin-like mixed Scandinavian–German idiom is
that, at the time, Scandinavian and Low German were, as it seems, mutually in-
telligible (cf. Jahr 1997, 1998b, 1998c).
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A post-national perspective on the German Hansa in Scandinavia 17
A post-national perspective on the German

Hansa in Scandinavia
Arnved Nedkvitne, former professor, University of Oslo
German cultural and economic influence has been strong in all of Eastern
Europe and Scandinavia since the 12th century, and until 1945 many Germans
lived there in areas with a mixed German and Slav population. German histor-
ians saw it as part of their responsibility to describe and explain the history of
this German diaspora to the east. They felt Hansa history to be important, and
in the century between 1870 to c. 1970 a series of excellent monographs of high
scientific quality were written. The names of Dietrich Schäfer, Wilhelm
Koppe, Friedrich Bruns and Walter Vogel were well known and much referred
to among Scandinavian historians. In the Soviet period (1945–1989) this Ger-
man culture in the east was eradicated. With it also disappeared the most im-
portant ideological basis for traditional Hansa history, and interest in research
into Hansa history declined. But some historians and philologists in both Ger-
many and Scandinavia have maintained the tradition, attempting to liberate it
from its nationalist past. Their central themes remain the same, but the concepts
they employ are often different, as are even the conclusions sometimes.
For this article I have chosen three basic themes which run through general
Hansa history and are highly relevant in a discussion of the Hansa in Scandina-
via:
– Should the Hansa be seen as transmitters of more advanced West Euro-
pean technologies and social practices to Scandinavia and Eastern
Europe?
– How was it possible to keep the international Hansa organisation in exist-
ence for several centuries without military power, compulsory courts of
law and a central bureaucracy?
– Scandinavian towns with German settlers existed as multiethnic societies.
The Hansa as transmitters of West European economic

and social practices to Scandinavia
In 1945 and 1946, 14 million Germans fled or were evicted from Eastern
Europe, many of them from old Hansa towns like Reval, Riga, Königsberg,
Danzig and Stettin. Their ancestors had emigrated eastward over a period of
18 Arnved Nedkvitne
700–800 years and were so numerous that they had kept their German language
and culture.1 There was German immigration to Scandinavia during the Hansa
period on a more modest scale. What made them emigrate and form this large
diaspora? Did they embody a more advanced West European technology and
social organisation? This question was interesting for nationalist historiogra-
phy, and still is today.
In 2000, the German historian Carsten Jahnke published his thesis on the
herring trade in the Baltic region during the period 1100–1600. The first com-
mercial fisheries in the Baltic were located on Rügen, and they became the pro-
totype for the organisation of herring fisheries in the region. The merchants
played the central role; they brought salt, organised the preservation process for
the herring, and transported it to the markets in the German interior. These mer-
chants were Germans, from Bardowiek on the Elbe around the year 1130, later
on mainly from Lübeck and Stralsund (Jahnke 2000, pp. 21–23, cf. pp. 37–38).
The much more important Scanian fisheries catered only for local needs up to
the middle of the 12th century. In the second half of the century these fisheries
were drawn into long-distance trade, with the German interior as an important
market. Lübeck merchants are the first who are mentioned as curing and selling
this herring, and even though Jahnke does not say so explicitly, he presents the
founding of Lübeck in 1159 and the sale of Scanian herring to distant markets
as connected developments (Jahnke 2000, pp. 63–64, 69, 47–48, 352).
In my own PhD dissertation on the Bergen trade (Nedkvitne 1983), I dis-
cussed the origin of stockfish exports from Bergen more explicitly. Stockfish
had been produced along the Norwegian north and west coasts for local con-
sumption centuries before the Middle Ages. Drying cod without salt is simple
to organise, and peasant fishermen needed no help from merchants to produce
the stockfish, but merchants were needed to transport it to foreign markets. In
the last decades of the 11th century this stockfish appeared on the English mar-
ket, and in the 12th century its export became economically important for the
town of Bergen and for the coastal population. The driving force for the first
phase of this long-distance trade came from England, and possibly from West
German ports on the Rhine estuary. The exporting merchants were Norwegian,
English and West German. Around 1250, Lübeck and its neighbouring Baltic
towns took the lead; their merchants had a wide northern European trade net-
work, which the early merchants lacked. They imported large quantities of Bal-
tic grain, which encouraged peasant fishermen to produce more stockfish to
trade for it. Archaeological excavations confirm that around 1250 there was a
substantial growth of fishing villages in northern Norway. Lübeck and the
other Wendish towns (Hansa towns east of Lübeck) exported the fish mainly to
England and to continental North Sea ports between Bruges and Bremen (Ned-
kvitne 1983, chapter I).
The Germans were able to organise their stockfish trade more effectively
1
See a special issue of Der Spiegel in January 2011 entitled “Die Deutschen im Osten”.
and quickly because they were professionals, while the Scandinavians more of-
ten were engaged in it to supplement their main income from farming or ad-
ministering landed property. The Hansa trade had a more permanent character,
and this permitted production of the goods for long-distance trade to become
more entrenched as well. Hansa merchants accumulated more capital, which
enabled each merchant to ship larger quantities and offer credit to their custom-
ers. They also had more extensive trading contacts, which enabled them to
combine exports of high-quality cloth from England and Flanders, fish from
Bergen and grain from the Baltic, giving their customers a wider choice of
products. Carrying out trade in many towns at the same time was possible
through the use of written correspondence and accounts. A literate merchant
could buy and sell for a partner living in another town, and this partner could
exercise a certain amount of control through the accounts he received and the
letters he sent and received (Nedkvitne 1983, chapter IV).
The main exports from Stockholm were copper and iron. Göran Dahlbäck
has been the most active historian of medieval Stockholm in recent decades. He
has never discussed explicitly whether the Hansa created the Swedish metal in-
dustry, but his work leads the reader to think this was the case. Hansa mer-
chants sailed into Lake Mälaren to buy metals from the end of the 12th century
(Dahlbäck 2002, p. 18). Stockholm was founded just before 1250, and one of
the main motives behind its establishment was to protect and control interna-
tional trade. Copper and iron were the town’s main exports throughout the me-
dieval period, and the exporters were almost exclusively from Lübeck, later
also from Danzig. Many of them chose to become citizens of Stockholm. At the
end of the 15th century about one third of the taxpayers in Stockholm were eth-
nic Germans, but there were fewer of them in the lower classes, who did not
pay taxes (Dahlbäck 1988, pp. 16, 52, 71–72, 80; Dahlbäck 2002, p. 40). Did
Hansa merchants create the Swedish mining industry? The question has been
of interest in Swedish and German historiography during the national as well
as post-national period. Research over the last decades has confirmed tradition-
al views about this (Gustafsson 2006, p. 23).
Through the Hansa, Scandinavian producers were assured a permanent mar-
ket at predictable prices and a variety of desirable goods in return. This encour-
aged specialised market production. Few would dispute that this was to the ad-
vantage of Scandinavian fishermen and other producers. The impetus came
from outside and would no doubt have reached Scandinavia even without the
Hansa, but the process would then have been slower, and more transmitters of
the new technologies would have been native Scandinavians. While Scandina-
vian nationalist historiography focused mainly on the slower development of a
Scandinavian merchant class, modern historians concentrated more on the ad-
vantages to the producers. This change of focus is due to a shift of interest
among social scientists from nationalism to social differences within the na-
tion, and from the bourgeoisie to the common people. But the description of the
social realities has not changed radically.
20 Arnved Nedkvitne
In other towns like Kalmar, Oslo and Tønsberg, the Hansa did not develop
new products. They bought butter, hides, furs, bog iron and other goods which
the peasants had produced from time immemorial. These products came as rent
payments to the landowners, who in turn sold the goods to Hansa merchants.
The landowners received from the Hansa prestigious West European products
like quality cloth, objects of copper and bronze, weapons, wine and wheat. The
Hansa trade made it desirable for landowners to demand higher rent from ten-
ants. The result was harsher economic oppression, but also the creation of a
West European-type elite class (Blomkvist 1979, pp. 167–278, 187–188, 264,
276; Nedkvitne & Norseng 1991, pp. 192–193).
Originally all Scandinavian towns were governed by a royal bailiff in co-
operation with the town’s assembly. At the end of the 13th century this arrange-
ment was marginalised, to be replaced by a town council whose members were
prosperous merchants. In Norway and Denmark, the consensus is that the state
was behind this change. In Sweden, the influential Swedish urban historian
Adolf Schück voiced this opinion as early as 1926 (Schück 1926). His German
contemporary Fritz Rörig, on the other hand, maintained that Hansa merchants
who had settled in Swedish towns and became members of the local town coun-
cils were the motivating force. They brought the idea of town councils manned
by the urban elite with them from their Hanseatic home towns (Rörig 1928).
German settlers have also been seen as having an influence on urban legislation
and ordinances regulating trade in general. A modern Swedish voice is Sofia
Gustafsson (2006). She concluded that both royal officials and town council-
lors with German origins were behind new urban legislation. They derived
their ideas mainly from German and English towns, but she rejects the view
that the laws of Lübeck were taken as the main model. The legislators knew
about the norms in North European towns and adopted what was most relevant
to their situation. Scandinavians imported general West European ideas on ur-
ban law, with sections formulated to fit their particular circumstances (Gus-
tafsson 2006, pp. 31–34, 209–211).
In Nedkvitne (1983) I concluded that Norwegian laws and ordinances
from the period 1280–1380 on the rights of foreign merchants in Norway
were modelled on those from England and Germany, possibly also from the
Low Countries. For each regulation or paragraph, it was possible to find
parallels in these countries. Norwegian authorities did not import their legis-
lation from one particular town or district (Nedkvitne 1983, p. 220). This is
the same conclusion as Gustafsson’s for Sweden, but in Norway it is less con-
troversial.
About 1100–1350, Scandinavia experienced a “commercial revolution”, in-
fluenced by Western Europe and not by Germany alone. In Western Norway
trade was initially conducted mainly with England, but later the Hansa towns
became more important. The Danish isles, Scania and Sweden received their
economic influence from Germany from the very start. Legislation accompa-
nying this was taken from German and English towns. With this modification,
there is consensus today that the Hansa introduced more advanced commercial
organisational systems and technologies into Scandinavia.
The ties which united the Hansa

What kept the Hansa together as an organisation for several centuries? For Ger-
man historians in the nationalist tradition, it was the national identity of the
Hansa merchants. According to Rörig, their identity in the 13th century was fo-
cused on the Reichsidee or Reichsgedanken. The Reich is to be understood here
as the German kingdom or empire. In the second half of the 13th century this
empire broke down as a political and administrative structure. What then kept
the Hansa together was exclusively their ethnicity as Germans (Rörig [1940]
1971, p. 539). Modern historians distinguish between “ethnic identity”, which
is an identity among people who speak the same language and have a common
history, and “nationalism”, which is the idea that people with a common eth-
nicity should have a state of their own. Rörig states that Hansa merchants had
a common ethnic identity which in the early period was nationalist.
For German and Scandinavian historians writing in recent decades, the
strength of ethnic and national identities has been less self-evident. But the fact
remains that the Hansa Kontor2 in Bergen, the town councils of Hansa towns
and the Hansa diets (Hansetage) frequently referred to their German ethnicity,
and often added the adjective erbarnn, ‘honourable’, to their titles. The Hansa
diets are time and again called dudischenn erbarnn anse steder (Norges Gamle
Love 1934, p. 674). The Kontor called citizens of Bergen ‘the Norwegians’ (de
Norman), while the Norwegian authorities and the town council of Bergen
called the Hansa merchants ‘Germans’ or de Kopman, which shows that they
too thought in ethnic categories (Norges Gamle Love 1934, pp. 245–248, 251–
257). German ethnicity created ties between Hansa merchants travelling and
living in Scandinavia and around the Baltic, but historians in recent decades no
longer see this as the main force that kept the Hansa together.
Today historians discuss large organisational units like the state less in
terms of ideas and more in sociological terms. A fruitful point of departure here
is Max Weber’s definition of the pre-modern state as an organisation which has
the monopoly on legitimate violence within a certain area, has superior control
over the courts of law, and has a bureaucracy at its disposal.
The Hansa existed on two organisational levels. On the lowest level, it was
an association between individual merchants who visited the same market at
the same time, the most important of these in Scandinavia being in Bergen and
Scania. On a higher level, it was a league between Hansa towns, represented by
their town councils. The Hansa towns were politically independent, and each
exercised state power as defined by Weber.
2
One of four major German trading settlements within the Hanseatic area.
22 Arnved Nedkvitne
The central Hansa institution was the Hansa diet, where representatives of
the member towns met to discuss subjects of common interest. Attendance at
the diet was voluntary, and if a debate took a turn which was not in a particular
town’s interest, its representatives could simply leave, or neglect to implement
the decisions when they returned home. The diet could wage war against an ex-
ternal enemy, but a member town was not obliged to put its soldiers or warships
at the disposal of the Hansa for that purpose. The Hansa diets did not have
courts of law or a bureaucracy of their own, but individual towns put their re-
sources at the disposal of the Hansa for particular purposes. State power be-
longed to individual member towns, and not to the Hansa diets.
In Bergen there was a Hanseatic settlement which in winter numbered about
1000 merchants including their servants, and in summer had more than double
that number, sailors and visiting merchants included. In 1366 they organised
themselves in a Kontor subordinated to the Hansa diets. They elected aldermen,
who exercised extensive state powers over the German settlement; the Hansa
merchants had exterritorial rights. In the period between the establishment of
the Kontor in 1366 up to 1559, the Hansa merchants dominated Bergen mili-
tarily. They were armed and could mobilise between 1000 and 2000 men. In
contrast, the royal castle Bergenhus had only about 50–70 armed men. In 1455
the aldermen’s militia killed 60 Norwegians, including the town’s bishop and
the commander of the king’s castle. The aldermen also acted as judges in inter-
nal disputes between Germans; when there were disputes between Germans
and Norwegians, the Germans were often smuggled out of the country to avoid
facing a Norwegian court. The six aldermen, 18 assistants and the Kontor’s
secretary constituted a small part-time bureaucracy which, among other things,
corresponded with the councils in the Hansa towns. Judgements by the alder-
men could be appealed to Lübeck (Nedkvitne 1983, pp. 260–264, 267; Ned-
kvitne 2011, pp. 140–142).
Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz (2005) has analysed how the aldermen used their
powers. Their main purpose was to organise Hansa trade with Norwegian cus-
tomers to the benefit of all Germans in the Kontor, and prevent Norwegian of-
ficials from interfering to the detriment of Hansa interests. The majority of the
merchants and almost all the aldermen were from Lübeck, and they sought to
organise trade and shipping in a way which was advantageous to winter resi-
dents, particularly those from Lübeck, and discriminated against merchants
from North Sea towns, particularly those from Kampen, Deventer and Zwolle
in today’s Netherlands. The aldermen used strong-arm tactics against Hansa
merchants who collaborated with outsiders like the Hollanders, such as public
humiliation, large fines and expulsion (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2005).
The fair in Scania in Denmark was different because no single Hansa town
dominated, and because the Hansa merchants were present there only 3–4
months a year. Each Hansa town was given its own limited area called a Vitte,
and the town sent a bailiff (Vogt) to administer it. He passed judgement in con-
flicts which originated in the Vitte, here the town had exterritorial rights. Inside
its Vitte, the Hansa town was at liberty to organise trade as they pleased. Indi-
vidual citizens were given plots where they could erect private booths or mar-
ket stalls, selling goods and preparing salted herring without restrictions
(Jahnke 2000, pp. 193, 207). Customs duties and other fees were sometimes de-
cided by the town in question (Jahnke 2000, p. 199). Hansa towns had great
problems cooperating in the settlements they visited abroad because each town
pursued its own interests, and the feeling of communality was weak. A settle-
ment was administratively strong only when one town dominated and in prac-
tice organised it alone.
Urban identity seems to have been stronger than Hansa identity. There
were numerous guilds in all Hansa towns, and a merchant could be member
of several. Their main purpose was to create social ties, exchange informa-
tion, put pressure on the town councils in matters of common interest, and or-
ganise religious rituals to the benefit of guild members. Several of these
guilds organised merchants who traded at certain markets (Wernicke 1999).
There were Bergenfahrer guilds in Lübeck, Wismar, Stralsund, Greifswald
and Deventer, and in Rostock there was a Wiekfahrer guild for merchants
who traded in Oslo and Tønsberg (Brück 1999). In even more towns there
were guilds for merchants trading at the market in Scania. All these guilds
took members from one town only. This was partly for practical reasons; so-
cial gatherings and feasts would be difficult to organise if the members lived
in different towns. But politically these guilds lobbied for certain policies,
and the most effective channels for this were the separate town councils. In
1350–1470 the price of stockfish compared to other goods was particularly
favourable (Nedkvitne 1983, chapter VI), and during this period several pros-
perous Bergenfahrer from Lübeck were members of the town council and the
most prestigious guilds of the town (Burkhardt 2009, pp. 153–167). The
guilds strengthened and encouraged town identity and not Hansa identity,
and the flowering of such guilds is one of several indications that urban iden-
tity was stronger than Hansa identity.
The overall pattern was that state power belonged to the individual Hansa
towns, a merchant’s identity was primarily tied to a specific town, and Hansa
political power functioned best when one town took responsibility and the
others followed its lead. But despite this fact, the Hansa community existed as
an organisation to be taken seriously for 300 years (1250–1550), and in some
form for 500 years (1159–1669). What were the ties that kept the Hansa to-
gether?
The Hansa towns and their merchants followed laws which were largely
identical, or at least similar. In the 13th century numerous new towns were
founded along the Baltic Sea and in Eastern Europe, and they copied each
others’ laws. These were supplemented by ordinances passed by the individual
town councils (Theuerkauf 2006). In Bergen and other Hansa settlements, mer-
chants from several towns adopted statutes which were enforced by elected al-
dermen. In 1494 the Kontor in Bergen had statutes (Wilkor) comprising 100
24 Arnved Nedkvitne
paragraphs (Norges Gamle Love 1934, document number 416). This created a
community of law between merchants from several towns.
It was common for two or three merchants to pool their capital and work in
partnership. This was the rule in the Bergen trade, where one of the partners
would live in Lübeck and usually own most of the capital, and the other would
live in Bergen and do most of the work. In such economic partnerships, both
merchants would usually come from the same town. Merchants living in differ-
ent towns could also order goods from each other by letter and send them by
ship without travelling themselves and without being partners in an economic
sense. In the Bergen trade, the person who organised all of this lived at the Han-
sa Kontor in Bergen, and he received grain and beer from Lübeck, Wismar,
Rostock, Stralsund and Danzig, and cloth and other western goods from Boston
in England, Deventer or Bruges (Nedkvitne 1983, pp. 314–316; Cordes 1999,
pp. 70, 72–76; Burkhardt 2009, pp. 188–190). These buying and selling net-
works created ties between merchants living in different Hansa towns, Kontore
and other settlements abroad.
But the strongest ties between Hansa merchants were created through their
joint efforts to obtain trading privileges in foreign countries. Scandinavia had
laws which were valid for everybody living in a certain region, but they were
mainly meant for peasant societies. In addition, there were urban laws for prob-
lems which were likely to arise in towns and marketplaces. In the 13th century
the foreign merchants grew more numerous at the same time that state power
was being strengthened. State officials wanted special laws for foreign mer-
chants, and the latter demanded to be exempted from duties which the state im-
posed on native merchants. Conflicts concerning the legal position of foreign
merchants erupted all over northern Europe in the second half of the 13th cen-
tury. The conflicts were settled through privileges which were negotiated be-
tween the state and groups of foreign merchants.
Hansa towns often opted for individual privileges instead of those which
were common to all Hansa merchants. The first known privilege related to the
market in Scania dates from 1251, and it gave merchants from Rostock the
right to be judged by their own bailiff according to Rostock’s laws in disputes
among themselves (Jahnke 2000, p. 69). During the period 1319–1340 there
was a civil war in Denmark, and the warring parties sought military support
from neighbouring Hansa towns by granting them almost all the privileges they
asked for in Scania. Individual towns obtained privileges by exerting political
pressure, this favoured the most valuable political allies (Jahnke 2000, pp. 81–
90). The first privileges granted in Norway were negotiated in 1278 by two
councillors from Lübeck, acting on behalf of merchants from unnamed German
maritime towns. Several privileges were granted by successive kings until
1343. During this early period, Lübeck and its Baltic neighbours jointly nego-
tiated their privileges, while North Sea towns like Bremen, Hamburg and
Kampen negotiated individually (Nedkvitne 1983, pp. 31, 198–205).
The military situation in Bergen 1366–1559 described above made it poss-
ible for the Kontor to introduce its own trading practices without worrying too
much about the opinion of Norwegian authorities. The Kontor community
adopted its own statutes, which were kept secret from Norwegian authorities in
Bergen, and they enforced them by mobilising the Kontor militia if necessary.
A Norwegian who owed money to a Hansa merchant had to trade with this mer-
chant until the whole debt was paid back, and Hansa merchants stayed in
Bergen as long as they wished. Neither the Kontor’s organisation nor its prac-
tices described above were legitimised through privileges; they were defended
through the use of military force. Such use of a mobilised militia demanded a
high degree of solidarity among all merchants who were present (Nedkvitne
1983, pp. 270–278; Nedkvitne 2011, pp. 142–149). The strong Bergen Kontor
was exceptional in the Hansa organisation.
A weak central authority made the Hansa organisation flexible. When a
problem arose, the towns which felt their interests to be affected could take ac-
tion. The town which had the strongest authority and interest in the matter took
the lead. The Hansa could mobilise to tackle large problems, but also small
ones where only a few towns had an interest.
Nationalist historiography tended to present the Hansa as a state-like or-
ganisation, and focused on its conflicts and strong-arm tactics in Bergen and
Scania. Modern historiography sees its loose organisation as more interesting.
And it is challenging to try to understand how the Hansa was able to defend its
merchants without support from a strong state. The Hansa in relation to its
member towns was in a similar position as the EU is today in relation to its
member states.
Scandinavian towns with German settlers as multi-

ethnic societies
In the last half century there has been a growing interest in local history all over
Scandinavia, and a large portion of the published work has been authored by
academically trained historians. Today most Scandinavian research into Hansa
history is written as part of the history of a particular town. German minorities
are seen as contributing to the town’s identity, and their economic, political and
social role is discussed in relation to the town as a whole. Problems of integra-
tion arouse great interest in contemporary society and are discussed in the town
histories of Copenhagen (Kjersgaard 1980), Aalborg (Knudsen & Kock 1992),
Malmö (Tomner 1971), Stockholm (Dahlbäck 2002, 1998), Kalmar (Blom-
kvist 1979), Bergen (Helle 1982) and Oslo (Nedkvitne & Norseng 1991).
In the German nationalist tradition, most clearly represented by Rörig, the
first step in German emigration to the Baltic was that merchants from Western
Germany created corporations with clear ideas about how their new settlements
should be organised. Then they sailed east and founded new towns as planned.
26 Arnved Nedkvitne
From the start the German merchants comprised a ruling class who exercised
power through the urban councils (Rörig 1928).
Scandinavian and East European nationalist historians, on the other hand,
took as their main focus the process of building the state in their respective
countries. Some of them saw the German merchant settlers as an instrument in
the kings’ efforts at state-building, as was clearly the case in Sweden. Others
saw the German settlers as over-powerful subjects who were harmful to the
project of creating a state, on the same level as powerful feudal lords, as was
the case in Norway. Since state-building was of paramount importance to na-
tionalists, Swedish historians had a more positive attitude to the Hansa than
their Norwegian colleagues.
It was part of the nationalist way of thinking that when ethnic groups met,
one national culture should dominate the other, and in our case German and
Scandinavian historians held different opinions about which ethnic group dom-
inated in particular towns. Post-nationalist historiography has been more open
to processes of accommodation and integration. This was discussed in Nils
Blomkvist’s 1979 history of Kalmar and in my own 1991 history of medieval
Oslo. Political and administrative power in these and other towns has to be seen
as the result of interaction between the king’s officials, who often resided in a
fortified castle, and the town council, which could be dominated by Germans.
Economic power was a compromise between local landowners and tax collec-
tors, on the one hand, and Hansa merchants on the other. Social integration be-
tween ethnic groups has to be examined from the background of economic, po-
litical and other factors in each town (Blomkvist 1979, pp. 228, 250; Nedkvitne
& Norseng 1991, chapters 8 and 16).
Hansa merchants started to settle in Scandinavian towns after about 1250,
and they grew numerous after about 1370. In the following discussion it is im-
portant to distinguish between Hanseatic ‘summer guests’ who only visited for
a few weeks or months, ‘winter residents’ or liggere who were citizens of a
Hansa town but settled in a Scandinavian town for a limited number of years,
and German merchants and craftsmen who settled permanently in Scandinavia
with their families. The question of integration only arose for the two last
groups. Integration practices largely depended on state legislation, which was
different in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
Denmark
The Danish king had German-speaking subjects who did not come from Hansa
towns. From c. 1200, nobles, townsmen and peasants emigrated from the Ger-
man County of Holstein to the Danish province of Schleswig/Sønderjylland,
where the inhabitants were both German and Danish (Winge 1991, p. 89;
Winge 1992, pp. 33–35). At the beginning of the 14th century most of Denmark
was pledged to the Count of Holstein. During this period German-speaking
nobles won prominent positions in the state administration, at court and among
merchants and craftsmen (Poulsen 2008, pp. 130, 134; cf. Braunmüller 1993,
p. 16). In 1460 the inhabitants of Holstein became the Danish king’s subjects
and were free to settle wherever they wanted in his kingdom. After 1699, 20%
of the inhabitants of Copenhagen had German as their mother tongue, and 20%
of the king’s subjects were Germans, mainly from Schleswig-Holstein (Winge
1991, pp. 91, 108). Many medieval Danish kings had Low German as their
mother tongue, and Christian IV, whose reign began in 1588, was the first king
to be able to write Danish correctly (KLNM Nedertysk sprog).
Hansa merchants were integrated into Danish towns more easily because of
the numerous Germans from Schleswig-Holstein who were there already. In
the 14th century formal citizenship was introduced in Danish towns, and immi-
grants from Hansa towns received citizenship and were elected to the town
council (KLNM Borgare). Hansa merchants were also admitted as winter
residents against the payment of certain taxes or charges (Knudsen & Kock
1992, p. 378; Tomner 1971, pp. 228–230; KLNM Vinterliggare).
The Germans were free to create their own guilds or join the guilds of
Danish merchants. As the market in Scania declined after 1370, Hansa mer-
chants settled in Copenhagen, Malmö and other towns in Scania and Zealand
as citizens or winter residents. In 1382 they founded a German guild (Tyske
Kompagni) in Copenhagen (Kjersgaard 1980, pp. 111, 145). The oldest guild
in Malmö was founded 1329 and was for Germans only: if a member married
a Danish woman, he was expelled. Its aldermen assisted Germans in conflicts
with Danish authorities. In 1475 the king abolished all German guilds in Den-
mark (Tomner 1971, p. 230; cf. Christensen 1957, p. 90). In Jutland there were
fewer Germans, and they found it to their advantage to join Danish guilds. The
members of the Corpus Christi guild in Aalborg were merchants and state of-
ficials from both ethnic groups; about half of them had names which indicate a
German origin (Knudsen & Koch 1992, p. 378; Christensen 1957, p. 90). In
Odense, a German guild was founded in 1435, but a few years later it was
merged with the Danish merchant guild (Christiensen 1957, pp. 90–91). Social
intercourse and feasting in combined guilds must have strengthened integra-
tion.
There were tensions between Hansa merchants and Danes, but they were not
due to integration problems. Denmark had no general urban body of laws with
special sections about foreigners. The Hansa had to negotiate privileges which
could apply to only one town or market or to all Denmark, and these had to be
renewed with each new king (Jahnke 2000, pp. 81–87; KLNM Stadsrett. Dan-
mark). Another source of conflict was the repeated attempts by Lübeck and its
allies to intervene in Danish civil wars, and in wars between Denmark and
Sweden, in the hope of obtaining better privileges.
There is no evidence that Hansa merchants who became Danish citizens or
stayed in Danish towns for a limited number of years had problems integrating
or met opposition from the authorities.
28 Arnved Nedkvitne
Sweden
In Sweden, Kalmar seems to have been the first town to receive Hansa settlers,
starting just after 1200. The newcomers may have applied Lübeck’s legal sys-
tem in conflicts between Germans, since this was what they had done in other
towns along the Baltic (Blomkvist 1979, pp. 172, 174, 258; Gustafsson 2006,
p. 21). Around the year 1250, the Swedish regent Birger Jarl founded Stock-
holm. He saw it as important to keep immigrants from Lübeck and other Hansa
towns under Stockholm’s urban law. Shortly afterwards he ordained that
Lübeck’s ‘summer guests’ were to be free from taxes and customs duties, but
if they wanted to remain in Sweden and live there, the king ordered his officials
to treat them according to Swedish law, and they were eligible for the ruling
town council, which also was the law court of the town (Dahlbäck 1988, p. 20;
Brandt 1953, p. 210). The Swedish state used its military ascendancy to retain
control of urban jurisdiction and at the same time clear the way for immigration
and a smooth integration of Hansa merchants. Like other princes along Baltic
coast in the 13th century, Swedish kings wanted strong urban communities on
their territory and achieved this by making it attractive for German merchants
to settle there. The policy was a success, and the Germans became the core of
urban merchant communities in Swedish towns (Dahlbäck 1988, pp. 17, 53;
Gustafsson 2006, pp. 29–30).
In 1350 the state issued a body of urban laws which were valid for all Swe-
dish towns. Several paragraphs legislated on the rights of German ‘summer
guests’, ‘winter residents’ and Germans who had become citizens in Swedish
towns.3 Swedish citizens with German origins were given half of the seats on
the town councils; the king could do this without endangering his control of the
town because both Stockholm and Kalmar had powerful royal castles. The law
established the rights of Hansa merchants without a time limit, and saved the
urban community from future conflicts about Hansa privileges. Medieval
Stockholm had about 20 guilds, and two of them were for Germans only, the
guilds of St. Gertrud and Our Lady. Both were religious and social, but they
played no political or economic role (Dahlbäck 1988, p. 169).
Lena Moberg claims that Swedes and Germans could speak their own lan-
guage and be understood by the other group, like modern Swedes and Norwe-
gians. Middle Low German and Middle Swedish were more similar than to-
day’s German and Swedish. Many people were also bilingual, and they could
write as well as speak the other language. The Swedish language went through
fundamental changes under German influence, which suggests that communi-
cation between the two groups must have been extensive (Moberg 2004, pp.
417–431).
There were sources of conflict between the two ethnic groups. The Swedish
3
Magnus Erikssons stadslag, Konungsbalken, chapter XIX, and Köpmålabalken, chapters XXX–
XXXIV; Birger Jarl’s first privilege granted for Lübeck included ‘winter residents’ and ‘summer
guests’ in one category, called ‘guests’.
state must have seen it as a problem that Swedish citizens with German family
origins often returned to Lübeck with their capital. This may have delayed the
formation of a group of native patricians who could have helped in the crown’s
administration of urban communities. From the 1430s there were repeated in-
surrections in Sweden against Nordic union. This was primarily directed
against Danish dominance, but also against the Danish royal families with Ger-
man origins (Pommerania, Bavaria, Oldenburg). The conflict did not have its
origin in urban communities but had consequences for Germans living there
(Blomkvist 1979, p. 253).
In the years between 1350 and 1470, an increasing number of merchant
families with German origins came to consider themselves as Swedish, and at
the end of the period Stockholm and other towns had a strong native merchant
class. They came to resent the paragraph in the town law which said that half
of the members of town councils should be ‘Germans’ if possible (Magnus
Erikssons stadslag, Konungsbalken, chapter II). These negative attitudes to
Germans and Danes merged, and in 1471 the town law was changed and only
‘Swedes’ could be elected to the councils. The law’s definition of a ‘German’
and a ‘Swede’ is not clear. Swedish historians have considered it likely that a
German family who had lived for two or three generations in Sweden was con-
sidered Swedish, which means that a citizen whose father was born in Sweden
was classified as Swedish (Dahlbäck 1988, pp. 17, 53; Gustafsson 2006, pp.
29–30). German immigrants had now outlived their usefulness and could be
marginalised. But there are no signs that these political changes led to social
tensions or a reversal of the integration of immigrants.
German members of the town council in Stockholm were drawn into nation-
al politics even earlier, in 1389, when the German-born Swedish king Albrecht
of Mecklenburg was defeated by his Danish-born challenger Margareta. Ger-
man urban councillors of Stockholm then organised the arrest and execution of
many Swedish citizens in order to help Albrecht. The actual circumstances are
only vaguely described in the sources (Lamberg 2000, pp. 64–65), but the ori-
gin of the conflict was not internal problems between ethnic groups in Stock-
holm. Swedish historians in recent decades have described the integration of
the Germans as unproblematic, or at least they have found no indications to the
contrary (Dahlbäck 1988, pp. 52–53, 80; 2002, pp. 32–33; Svanberg 2004, pp.
381, 391; Gustafsson 2006, pp. 28–31; Blomkvist 1979, p. 258).
Norway
Hansa merchants in the two East Norwegian towns of Oslo and Tønsberg had
a local organisation under the protection of the Hansa diets to defend their in-
terests. In 1378 a Hansa diet gave the two local aldermen authority to function
as a court of justice for all Hansa merchants who were present in the towns.
From 1420 at the latest, the town council in Rostock controlled the settlements
and was their court of appeal, since most of the merchants were Rostock citi-
30 Arnved Nedkvitne
zens. The Rostock council passed statutes for how Hansa trade in the two towns
should be conducted (Norges Gamle Love 1912, document number 403) and
regulated “merchants who lie (licht) in Oslo and Tønsberg making use of the
privileges of the Hansa towns”. ‘Lie’ clearly includes both ‘winter residents’
and ‘summer guests’. Numerous citizens and town councillors of the two towns
had German names in the Late Middle Ages. Some definitely came from Hansa
towns, while others may have come from Schleswig-Holstein.
The obstacles to Hansa merchants becoming Norwegian citizens were put
in place by the Hansa. Merchants born in a Hansa town and who later became
citizens of Oslo or Tønsberg initially were allowed to make use of Hansa
privileges abroad in towns like Bruges in Flanders, but from about 1400 the
Hansa no longer accepted this and expelled them from the Hansa. Hansa mer-
chants who, despite this, wanted to immigrate to Oslo and Tønsberg were wel-
comed by local authorities, just as they were in Sweden and Denmark; they did
not experience problems integrating there (Nedkvitne & Norseng 1991, pp.
362–366).
In Bergen, however, no integration took place during the medieval period,
which is exceptional in a Scandinavian context. How should this be explained?
In the period 1247–1299, Norwegian authorities gave foreigners who owned or
hired a house for at least one year in a Norwegian town the same legal status as
Norwegians. Foreigners who hired a house for 6–12 months had some taxes
and charges waived, but these ‘winter residents’ seem to have had the same
economic rights as Norwegians. ‘Summer guests’ were exempted from more
taxes and charges but had to pay customs duties (Nedkvitne 1983, pp. 198–
205). During this period, the Norwegian authorities conducted a policy of inte-
gration which was similar to that in Sweden and Denmark.
In the following period, 1299–1380, Norwegian authorities narrowed the
conditions for obtaining a legal status as a Norwegian, so that it applied only to
a person who was born in Norway, or was married to a Norwegian woman, or
had fled from his country of origin with his whole family (Norges Gamle Love
1849, document number 70). No easy access to citizenship in Bergen was of-
fered. During the reign of King Håkon V (1299–1319), foreigners experienced
severe restrictions; they could only conduct wholesale trade in towns, and not
with other foreigners. In periods winter residence was made illegal. After 1319
Norway became part of a Nordic union, and the king reduced his military and
administrative presence in Bergen. In 1366 the Hansa merchants organised
themselves in the Bergen Kontor, which meant that their military, judicial and
administrative presence was strengthened (Nedkvitne 1983, pp. 205–230). The
1000 winter residents came to feel that their success depended on a strong Kon-
tor and not on favourable privileges from the state. It goes without saying that
this situation was not advantageous to the integration of Hansa merchants. The
Kontor prohibited its members from visiting the same guilds as Norwegians,
and only two guilds exclusively for Germans were acceptable.
Post-nationalist historians have wanted to see the Hansa as promoters of

European integration, bridging ethnic differences. The main promoter of this
view has been a French historian from Strasbourg, Philippe Dollinger, in his
1964 survey La Hanse. The situation in Bergen during the period 1366–1559
has been difficult to fit into this general picture. Dollinger included an incident
in 1455 when the Hansa merchants in the Kontor killed the king’s bailiff, the
Bishop of Bergen and 60 others, and burnt down the monastery where they had
sought refuge. But he is at pains to explain that the episode was an exception
and should not influence our general understanding of the Hansa (Dollinger
1989, pp. 383–384).
Knut Helle, in his history of Bergen in the Middle Ages, tries to argue for
the same general view, but has problems doing so. On several occasions he em-
phasises that he wants to distance himself from the traditional negative attitude
to the Hansa found in Norwegian historiography (Helle 1982, pp. 762, 768,
770–773). But he also relates several incidents where Hansa merchants during
the period 1350–1370 committed acts of violence without answering for them
in court. In the following paragraph he excuses the Hansa leadership by ex-
plaining that Hansa diets were unable to control the Kontor aldermen, who in
turn did not control the violence of individual Kontor members. Despite this,
the Kontor’s leadership “sometimes felt strong enough to promote its mem-
bers’ interests through arrogance and violence” (Helle 1982, p. 734). He also
recognises that the Kontor had a policy of promoting segregation between Ger-
mans and Norwegians (Helle 1982, pp. 761–762). Facts presented in this un-
systematic way nullify each other; what is lacking is an analysis of what the
Hansa’s use of violence and disregard for Norwegian jurisdiction meant for
their integration into Bergen society. Is the best supported conclusion that
Bergen was an exception to the general picture given by Dollinger?
In a collection of articles entitled ‘Die Hanse – Lebenswirklichkeit und
Mythos’, which has been reprinted several times, Carsten Müller-Boysen from
Kiel wrote about the Kontor in Bergen. His empirical material is taken from
Helle’s book, but he makes no effort to present the Hansa in Bergen as civilised
and integrated. The manners of this masculine society were rough and rude, he
sees their rituals and games (spill) as the expression of a violent mentality.
They exploited their power “without pity” to promote economic as well as ju-
dicial interests (Müller-Boysen 2006, pp. 230–232). Perhaps Müller-Boysen
can distance himself more easily from the general understanding of the Hansa
on this point because he is German?
Marko Lamberg compared the town councils of Bergen, Stockholm and
Malmö (which was Danish until 1658). In all three towns, the council spoke for
the local citizens, but its voice was weaker in Bergen because of the Hansa
presence. The Kontor had powers similar to those of a state, and only the com-
mander of Bergenhus castle was able to oppose it, with mixed results (Lamberg
2000, pp. 59–60). Lamberg sees the Hansa merchants’ attack on competing
merchants on the night of November 8–9, 1523 as partly directed against the
32 Arnved Nedkvitne
town council – two of the victims were councillors, and the attackers broke into
the town hall and stole the chest which held documents setting out the privil-
eges given to the town. The town council could not negotiate with the Kontor
aldermen on its own; they depended on support from the state and from com-
mon townsmen. Bergen councillors never became an urban elite with power
and prestige independent from that of state and commoners (Lamberg 2000, pp.
236–237, 246, 249). It was not tempting for individual Hansa merchants to
leave the Kontor and become citizens of Bergen (Lamberg 2000, p. 246).
Dag Lindström studied the craft guilds in Stockholm, Malmö and Bergen for
the period 1350–1622. Craft guilds with statutes grew common in Denmark
and Bergen around 1350, in Sweden somewhat later, about 1450. Until about
1550 these guilds enjoyed a certain amount of independence, but they were all
controlled by an external power; in Sweden and Denmark this was the town
council, which was in turn supervised by the state. Bergen was special because
all the craftsmen were Germans without Bergen citizenship, and external con-
trol was exercised by the Kontor, which in turn was supervised by Lübeck
(Lindström 1991, pp. 254–262). Lamberg states several times that the Kontor
held powers normally exercised by the state, and this influenced the character
of Bergen society (Lindström 1991, pp. 256–257).
Müller-Boysen, Lamberg, Lindström and myself all agree that Bergen dur-
ing the Hansa period, 1366–1559, was different compared to the way the Hansa
normally functioned in other Scandinavian and North European urban commu-
nities. Helle did not hold this view because he did not compare Bergen to other
towns visited by the Hansa. The Kontor exercised violence, issued statutes and
organised courts of law just like the king’s representatives could do, and they
took political action and administered craft guilds like the urban councils did.
The Bergen Kontor merchants were not integrated into urban society and its in-
stitutions, and this created severe problems for Norwegian officials, townsmen
and other foreigners in the town. But Bergen was an exception. In Swedish and
Danish towns, and Oslo and Tønsberg in Eastern Norway, integration went
smoothly. Hansa merchants were close to Scandinavians in language and cul-
ture, and the authorities welcomed them because they were seen as represent-
ing a more advanced West European commercial organisation.
Hansa or state as transmitters of Low German in

Norway?
Of all the cultural impulses which Germans transmitted to Scandinavia during
this period, one of the most important was the Low German language. The pre-
sent publication is part of a linguistic project which has as its aim to analyse
how the three Scandinavian languages changed under the influence of Mittel-
niederdeutsch.
It seems to be a premise in these projects that the basic changes in all the
Scandinavian languages were due to oral communication with speakers of Mit-
telniederdeutsch. In Denmark the arguments for this are convincing, but for
Norway an alternative hypothesis exists: the linguistic changes came through
written Danish. The Norwegian linguist Arnold Dalen points out that it is ex-
tremely difficult to distinguish between the consequences of oral communica-
tion between German Hansa merchants and Norwegian townsmen, and the re-
sult of the situation after about 1400 whereby those who received an education
in reading and writing in Norway increasingly were taught Danish (Dalen
1994, pp. 31–32). Gro-Renée Rambø also mentions this alternative hypothesis,
referring to Dalen (Rambø 2008, pp. 361–363). But neither of them analyses
the problem, nor do they discuss which empirical evidence supports or weak-
ens each hypothesis or draw conclusions as to their relevance. I can only pre-
sent the historical aspects of such an analysis and leave the linguistic side of it
to others.
First, let us look at the influence of the oral language used by Hansa mer-
chants in Bergen, Oslo and Tønsberg. In the period between the founding of the
Bergen Kontor in 1366 and 1559, the aldermen enforced statutes which were
aimed at economic and social segregation. Hansa merchants were forbidden to
visit Bierstuben (ale houses) outside the “Bryggen” quarter of the town (“the
wharf”) where most Germans lived. They were not permitted to stay outside
Bryggen after 9 pm in winter and 10 pm in the summer, or be a member of the
same guild as Norwegians. They were obliged to attend social occasions at
Bryggen. They were forbidden to have close relations with honourable Norwe-
gian women, but nothing was said about prostitutes. There was a group of per-
sonal mistresses who fell into a grey area between the two, but relations with
individual women is not necessarily evidence for generally close social rela-
tions between Germans and Norwegians. There is no evidence of extensive so-
cial contacts between the two ethnic groups in the period 1366–1559 (Ned-
kvitne 2011, pp. 149–157).
In the years after the Reformation, the Kontor gradually was forced by a
stronger state to abandon its policy of economic segregation, and we must as-
sume that they also loosened their policy of social segregation. In the 1560s a
priest in Bergen called Absalon Pederssøn Beyer wrote a diary where, among
other things, he described in detail relations between Germans and Norwe-
gians. At that time Norwegians often seem to have visited the wine cellars and
Bierstuben at Bryggen, probably because the beer was considered to be better
there.4 It was more rare that Hansa merchants visited Norwegian Bierstuben.
The aldermen and eighteen other members of the Kontor leadership were in-
vited to banquets or parties by the Danish commander of Bergenhus castle and
vice versa. But Absalon’s diary does not give an impression of extensive social
ties and communication between Germans and Norwegians.
4
For example, in Absalons Pederssøn’s diary dated 19th April 1566, pp. 114–115, and 23rd Janu-
ary 1567, pp. 126–127.
34 Arnved Nedkvitne
The evidence indicates that oral communication between the two ethnic
groups before about 1560 mainly concerned business. I have difficulty under-
standing how influence from spoken Mittelniederdeutsh could change the
structure of the language spoken in Bergen; it is more reasonable to think that
it may have influenced parts of the vocabulary. Oral communication between
Germans and Norwegians in Bergen was most limited before the Reformation,
but that was the period when changes in the Norwegian written language were
greatest.
In Oslo and Tønsberg there were fewer Hansa merchants, but they were
more integrated into urban society; several of them became Norwegian citizens
and even members of the town council. Closer social interaction in Oslo and
Tønsberg promoted linguistic influence, and what limited this was the fact that
the Hansa merchants were few in number there (Nedkvitne & Norseng 1991,
pp. 365–366).
It is even more difficult to reconcile with the social realities the idea that
important linguistic changes should find their way from the 6000 Norwegian
citizens of Bergen to the 150,000–200,000 inhabitants of the rest of Norway.
Agnete Nesse has shown that the influence from Hansa merchants’ oral lan-
guage created dialect peculiarities in Bergen. This is perfectly reconcilable
with the social realities. But she has not claimed that spoken communication in
Bergen was the source of structural or other changes in the language spoken
throughout Norway (Nesse 2002, pp. 95–100).
From a historian’s point of view, it is natural to see the larger changes as
caused by Danish influence through administrative writing and schooling, to a
smaller degree also orally through Danish state and church officials residing in
Norway. The strongest influence from Low German on Norwegian took place
in the Late Middle Ages, a period when almost all written communication in
Norway was for administrative or other pragmatic purposes (Nedkvitne 2004,
chapter 3).
The Danish and Danish/German kings of the Nordic union increasingly put
Danes, Germans and Swedes into Norwegian church and state offices. In 1370
a Dane was made Bishop of Bergen for the first time (Helle 1982, p. 879), and
in 1407 the first Danish Bishop of Oslo was appointed (Bull 1922, p. 284). For-
eigners became parish priests; in 1432 a German Dominican was parish priest
on Røst in Lofoten (Querini 1583, fol. 204r). Secular power was increasingly
concentrated in the two royal castles of Akershus and Bergenhus. The first for-
eign commander of Bergenhus was a Swede, appointed in 1453 (Helle 1982, p.
827). The first known foreign commander of Akershus was a German, who
took office in 1424 (Nedkvitne & Norseng 1991, p. 413), and during 40 of the
following 50 years the commanders of Akershus – the most important castle in
Norway (Nedkvitne & Norseng 1991, p. 415) – were foreigners. Erik of Pomer-
ania was the Norwegian king from 1389–1439; from this period we know the
names of 26 Norwegian and 16 foreign state officials in Norway (Taranger
1915, p. 278). The officials were Norwegians, Danes and Germans mainly
from Schleswig-Holstein, but it was pragmatic to have one administrative lan-

guage, and that was Danish. After c. 1400 Danish must have replaced Norwe-
gian as the language taught and probably spoken in the schools.
An emphasis on state and elite power gives a different picture of the social
mechanisms at work. Language change is not only determined by voluntary
oral imitation of prestigious models, but also by power relations.
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penhagen. Pp. 89–110.
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38 Arnved Nedkvitne
Language contact, communication and change 39
Language contact, communication and

change
Gro-Renée Rambø, University of Agder
Introduction
Modern Scandinavian language varieties clearly demonstrate effects of contact
with and influence from other languages. Today, English is the most influential
source of language interference on the Scandinavian languages, but historically
Middle Low German is still reckoned to have been the most influential source
of borrowing. In addition to numerous word loans, the Scandinavian languages
also took different kinds of grammatical structures (such as word-formation
categories) from Low German during their intense and lengthy language con-
tact period. Because of this, there is a long tradition within Scandinavian lin-
guistics of studying language contact between Middle Low German and the
Scandinavian languages in the Late Middle Ages, mainly the 14th and 15th cen-
turies, when linguistic interference from Middle Low German was at its strong-
est. This was first and foremost due to the impact of the Hanseatic League in
northern Europe at the time, but also a result of more general cultural influence
from the North Germanic area.
In this article I will discuss some specific aspects of this language contact
period. First, I will present some important information about the history and
background of research on language contact between Middle Low German and
the Scandinavian languages, discuss different focus areas within language con-
tact studies, and then place my own research within the theoretical distinctions
I draw. Then I will present and discuss my research design, as well as some
findings and insights from my doctoral thesis (Rambø 2009). This will include
examples of how we can gain important knowledge and insights about histori-
cal language contact periods by applying the results of research carried out
within the frameworks of modern language contact theory and sociolinguistics/
sociology of language to this traditional field of study. Finally, I will further in-
vestigate some problems and issues which arose while working on my PhD, fo-
cusing more specifically on the language users. I will then discuss what I find
to be important problems and considerations for further research on this period
of language contact.
40 Gro-Renée Rambø
History and background

Scandinavia and the Hanseatic League
There has been a very long tradition of trade between Scandinavia and the low-
lands in the northern parts of Germany – in fact, we can trace this back to pre-
historic times. The most important economic and cultural contacts developed
about 1200–1550, starting with minor trading contacts on Gotland (Visby)
from 1164 onward, and ending up with a vast area of economic influence – the
Hanseatic League.
The Hanseatic League was an alliance of trading cities and their guilds that
established and maintained a powerful trade organization along the coast of
northern Europe, from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland, during the Late
Middle Ages and early modern period (c. 13th–17th centuries). The Hanseatic
cities had their own legal system and provided their own protection and mutual
aid. At its height, the league included some 70 cities and 100 to 130 smaller
towns located in an area that is spread over several European countries today –
from the Zuidersee (Netherlands) in the west to Estonia in the east, and from
Visby (Sweden) in the north to a line running through Cologne-Erfurt-Breslau-
Krakow in the south.
The Hanseatic merchants supplied western and central Europe with luxury
goods, food and raw materials from northern and eastern Europe – for example
furs, wax, cereal, and fish, as well as flax, hemp, wood, and construction prod-
ucts such as pitch, tar and potash. In return, they imported finished products
such as cloth, metal goods (especially weapons), and spices from the west and
south to the north and east.
The Hansa must be considered an important mediating factor for different
kinds of cultural contacts between the various regions and countries in the
vast trade area that they controlled. The effects of contact with their lan-
guage, Middle Low German, gives witness to such cultural contacts. Middle
Low German was the lingua franca used in different trading situations, as
well as other communication situations, throughout the trading area. There
were intimate and long-lasting contacts between North German traders and
craftsmen and the Scandinavians living in urban centers (in particular) due to
the social, economic and cultural position of the Germans at the time. As
Dalen (1994) has pointed out, during any historical period, some nation takes
a leading role, and its culture and language are imitated by other nations.
Thus, France had a dominant position in northern Europe in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and French culture and the French language were then fashionable
all over Europe. The culture and the language of the Hansa were in a similar
position in northern Europe during the Late Middle Ages. Due to this, the
economic and cultural domination of northern Germany during the Hanseatic
period is an important explanatory factor when exploring the contact situa-
tions and effects of this contact.
Historical and social preconditions

It is quite common within linguistics to differentiate between internal and ex-
ternal factors when describing and explaining linguistic changes. Whereas re-
search dealing with internal factors has its main focus on the linguistic struc-
tures involved, research dealing with external factors focuses on issues such as
historical elements (for instance power relations, laws, inventions), the social
environment, cultural conditions, and considerations linked to the language
users themselves, including psychological factors, in order to explore how such
factors affect language use and linguistic choices.
My PhD thesis was an attempt to describe and discuss specific aspects of
this language contact period which have not received significant attention in
earlier research – the historical and social preconditions within which language
contact took place. Even though it is absolutely clear that more work has to be
done at the intra-linguistic level, I have chosen to focus on specific kinds of ex-
ternal linguistic factors connected with language contact, excluding internal
factors (although of course I do not dismiss such factors as unimportant). I have
not tried to analyse specific results of linguistic contact, but have instead con-
centrated on the situations which defined the frames within which contact lead-
ing to linguistic changes took place.
In my thesis, the focus is on language contact between speakers of different
languages and varieties, but I concentrated on the group level, not the individ-
ual. I tried to show how external factors governing different groups of speak-
ers’ possibilities and restrictions for language use choices have an impact on
how both the specific contact situations and the results of language contact may
have varied across Scandinavian countries and cities in the Late Middle Ages.
In doing this, I have drawn on insights from modern language contact theories,
as well as theories within the sociology of language and sociolinguistics.
As Jahr (1997) has pointed out, a renewal of interest in contact linguistics
can be seen in several of the more recent contributions to the field (see for in-
stance Ureland 1987; contributions in the four volumes of Niederdeutsch in
Skandinavien, edited by Schöndorf & Westergaard 1987; Hyldgaard-Jensen et
al. 1989; Elmevik & Schöndorf 1992; Menke & Schöndorf 1992; Moberg
1989; Winge 1992; Braunmüller & Diercks 1993; Braunmüller 1995; Jahr
1995, 1997, 2000). This newer research is innovative in focusing specifically
on the social aspects involved in language contact situations, as well as on
multilingualism, which raises questions linked to what language competence
involves. Both directly and indirectly, these studies demonstrate clearly that
contact linguistics is a highly multidisciplinary field.
Post-war research in language contact and sociolinguistics/sociology of lan-
guage have found that a linguistic community is never fully homogeneous and
self-contained. On the contrary, all languages are in some respects what we
could call mixed languages. Language contact (short term or long term) is quite
common. How we define language contact has importance for what questions
we ask, and, as a consequence, for what answers we obtain.
Language contact – what is it?

It is not languages that are in contact with each other, but rather the speakers of
different languages and varieties. Milroy points out:
What a theory of language change must account for, therefore, are the conditions in
which speaker innovations are successful in penetrating the system, and this implies
of course that we should also try to understand the conditions in which they are not
successful. There appears to be no alternative but to suppose that the conditions in-
volved must be social in a broad sense (including interactional and communicative
aspects of speaker-behaviour), because candidates for change are sometimes accept-
ed and sometimes rejected. Thus, a purely intra-linguistic account will usually fail to
explain why a particular change took place at the time and place that it did and not
at some other time and place when the intra-linguistic conditions were similar.
Furthermore, it will not explain why potential changes that were always inherently
possible did not take place for long periods of time during which the appropriate lin-
guistic conditions existed. (Milroy 1997, p. 313f.)
According to Milroy, then, an intra-linguistic focus will not be sufficient when

studying language contact or linguistic change as a result of contact. Language
contact studies deal with situations in which people using different linguistic
varieties meet and communicate. Communicative possibilities are the crucial
point. If there are several individuals present at a given time in a given place,
and if these individuals use different linguistic varieties, no language contact
takes place unless the individuals actually communicate with one another in
some way or other (through writing or speaking) (see for instance Thomason
2001, p. 1f).
This way of defining language contact calls for special attention to be direct-
ed at two domains. First, there are the individuals themselves. What can we
find out about their linguistic competence(s), both in their society and at an in-
dividual level? Second, what can we discover about restrictions and possi-
bilities governing the communication situations? What are the conditions for
actual bilingual meetings to take place? The first question calls for a descrip-
tion and an understanding of the psychological, social and linguistic compe-
tence of the individual, or groups of individuals, involved in the contact situa-
tion. The second question calls for an understanding of all kinds of conditions
defining the structures within which the contact takes place, such as social
structures within community (or communities), historical frames, general cul-
tural contacts, and so on.
Language contact and language change

All natural languages change through time, and variation at different linguistic
levels is the normal situation. When individuals using different linguistic vari-
eties (languages, dialects) meet and communicate on a long term level, the con-
ditions for language change is strong, if we consider linguistic varieties to be
dynamic entities. What intra- and extra-linguistic conditions are present when
linguistic changes occur as a result of contact and communication between

people using different linguistic varieties, and what determines whether some
changes are short term and others long term? What changes which occur in the
actual communication situation cause long-lasting changes in a linguistic vari-
ety? We necessarily have to consult different kinds of sources to answer these
kinds of questions.
We can categorize the factors defining the linguistic outcomes of contact
situations in different ways. One way of organizing the different factors is to
divide them into the following three categories:
INTERNAL FACTORS
1) Linguistic
– typological distance between languages – the degree of congruence be-
tween elements
– markedness
– other constraints and factors, e.g. the existence of gaps (first and fore-
most on the semantic level, but also on the morphological and phono-
logical level); frequency (in the use of a specific linguistic item)
EXTERNAL FACTORS
2) Social, political and cultural
– the length and intensity of the contact (degree of contact, societal bilin-
gualism)
– patterns of interaction; social networks
– settlement structures; social meeting arenas
– power and prestige relations; social mobility
– demography (for instance the size of the different groups involved)
– education
– migration
3) Psychological and individual
– attitudes and identity
– motivation to use a particular linguistic variety
– the individual’s strategies in second language acquisition
– awareness of language norms (including informal norms)
– other cognitive processes and mechanisms
(some of these insights are from Killie 2007).
All of these factors are relevant and important, but we need to clarify how we
conceive the relationships between the different factors, and how they influ-
ence each other. We take as a starting point what choices individuals have in a
contact situation using a language other than their own.
Erik Simensen (1994, p. 33) claims that, in principle, there are six different
communication strategies which are possible in an oral language contact situa-
tion: each individual uses his or her own dialect or language, a regional or na-
tional standard, the variety of the interlocutor, a third language (a lingua fran-
ca), a “mixed” language, or an interpreter.
Which solution is chosen depends on different sets of conditions. Simensen

claims the most important conditions to be: 1) the communication situation it-
self, 2) personal, social and cultural preconditions of the interlocutors (for in-
stance, motivation and experience with other linguistic varieties), and 3) the re-
lationship between the mother tongues of the interlocutors, that is, the distance
between the varieties linguistically as well as geographically. Simensen claims
that the last set of conditions, the distance between the varieties or languages,
is fundamental: the more two languages or varieties have in common, the easier
it will be for the individual to understand and learn the other variety (Simensen
1994, p. 34).
Observable similarities between language varieties could be due to one or
more of the following: 1) historical (or so-called genetic) kinship, 2) structural
(or typological) similarities, and/or 3) loans (either by one language from the
other, or by both from the same language(s)).
However, one could also claim that linguistic factors are not the most im-
portant, depending on what the research question is, and depending on how we
define linguistic and communicative competence. In their famous and often-
cited book on language contact, Thomason & Kaufman state:
The starting point for our theory of linguistic interference is this: it is the sociolin-
guistic history of the speakers, and not the structure of their language, that is the pri-
mary determinant of the linguistic outcome of language contact. Purely linguistic
considerations are relevant but strictly secondary overall. (Thomason & Kaufman
1988.)
This approach has been one of the most important guidelines for my own re-
search. I have focused on language contact factors listed under category 2)
above – social, political and cultural factors.
Historical and social preconditions for language contact

between Middle Low German and Scandinavian in the
Late Middle Ages
Different places, different people, different varieties – different
results?
In my PhD thesis, I attempted to shed new light on the language contact which
occurred between Middle Low German and Swedish, Danish and Norwegian
in the late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries) by answering the central ques-
tion:
What can we find out about different sociolinguistic conditions which might have
been determining factors for language contact in the most important cities in Scan-
dinavia during the Hanseatic period, and what different contact conditions and re-
sults can be observed as consequences of the different sociolinguistic situations?
(Rambø 2009, p. 9; my translation.)
Contact between the Hanseatic League and the various countries and cities in
Scandinavia differed in several ways. I have therefore tried to answer the above
questions by looking at specific cities in Denmark, Sweden and Norway more
closely with respect to a range of extra-linguistic factors. The cities studied and
compared are Copenhagen and Ribe in Denmark, Stockholm and Kalmar in
Sweden, Bergen and Oslo/Tønsberg1 in Norway, and Visby on Gotland (the
first Scandinavian city in which the Hanseatic League achieved a central posi-
tion).
To enable us to say more about how language contact processes may have
worked in these different Scandinavian cities during the Late Middle Ages, I
have considered it necessary to take a highly intra- and interdisciplinary ap-
proach – insights are drawn from different fields within linguistics, as well as
from general history, medieval archaeology, sociology, social anthropology,
and interactional psychology. The most important theoretical frameworks used
here are historical sociolinguistics (Romaine 1982; Jahr 1999), the sociology
of language (Fishman 1968, 1976a, 1976b), modern language contact theory,
and insights from interactional sociolinguistics, including accommodation
theory (for instance, Giles & Smith 1979) and the Acts of Identity model (Le
Page & Tabouret-Keller 1985). In addition, findings from social anthropology
and sociology concerning identity and negotiating identity in a social context,
and from general history concerning political conditions, economic structures,
cultural contacts, settlement structures, demographical conditions, etc., have
been used to the extent that they can say something of importance about the lin-
guistic communities dealt with here.
In my work I describe and discuss language contact between Middle Low
German and the different Scandinavian languages during the Late Middle
Ages. It is important to state that none of these languages were standardized in
the modern sense of the term; this fact effects researchers’ assumptions and
conclusions about possibilities for language/dialect contact, language mixing,
code-switching, and bilingualism. It is also worth mentioning that Latin was an
important lingua franca in northern Europe during the Late Middle Ages, and
probably the most common one in Scandinavia (at least in certain environments
and domains) during this period, indicating that multilingualism was probably
quite common in various circles. This differs from the representations we find
1
Oslo and Tønsberg are usually considered together in literature concerning the presence and
situation of the hanseats in the eastern part of Norway in the Late Middle Ages. Mainly this has to
do with important similarities concerning different kinds of political and demographical matters at
the time in these two cities, as well as obvious geographical matters. For instance, they were both
relatively small cities at the time, the hanseats had a “faktorei” in both cities, and the settlement
conditions were the same for the German hanseats in these cities, and the time period for hanse-
atic presence in the two cities were similar. Privileges given to the German hanseats were at
several occasions directed towards the hanseats in Oslo and Tønsberg together. Historians usually
point out the differences between the western parts of Norway on one hand, represented by
Bergen, and the eastern parts of Norway, represented by the cities of Oslo and Tønsberg on the
other, when it comes to the hansa period. Both Oslo and Tønsberg were part of the greater area
referred to as the ‘Viken-area’.
in several earlier works, which tended to directly or indirectly present Scandi-

navian communities in the Middle Ages as monolingual.
Braunmüller (2000) points out that, paradoxically, almost nobody has men-
tioned the very obvious point that large parts of this population during the Late
Middle Ages must have been bi- or trilingual (in Middle Low German, Latin,
and the Scandinavian language of their city) to be able to participate in urban
daily life. This means that earlier research has, to a large extent, concentrated
on making monolingual descriptions which are abstractions of the actual lin-
guistic reality, a form of linguistic reductionism (Braunmüller 2000, p. 2). A
realistic theory of linguistic competence must take as a starting point the abili-
ties of the particular individual to communicate adequately in different situa-
tions (Braunmüller 2000, p. 2f). Therefore, if we want to say anything about the
language contact processes in the Late Middle Ages, we cannot do so without
considering the social, historical and cultural preconditions for achieving bi- or
multilingualism at the individual level.
Since language is indissolubly linked with the human mind, it is a social and
psychological phenomenon. Languages exist and change because they are used
by people. Language change comes about through actual communicative inter-
actions which take place within a specific linguistic community, in a specific
situation, involving specific people. The totality of the language use context
therefore has to be taken into account when we, as linguists, try to explore and
understand how and why language contact situations lead to language change
at different linguistic levels. We cannot assume that the contact conditions
were exactly the same throughout the whole Scandinavian area, and throughout
the entire contact period of several hundred years. Therefore, we need to try to
discover what differences and similarities there were in these various contexts
and explore how important these differences and similarities may or may not
have been for the contact situations, and in turn for the outcome of this contact.
Societal extra-linguistic factors – similarities and differences

In my PhD thesis (Rambø 2009), each of the seven Scandinavian cities men-
tioned above were studied and compared to try to account for differences and
similarities with regard to language contact and its consequences. The de-
scription for each city is divided into three subsections: language sociology
and historical preconditions, conditions for language contact, and language
use in the specific city under discussion. The first subsection describes the
political and historical basis for the position of the Hanseatic traders in the
city. This demarcates the timeframe for the Hanseatic period in the specific
city, which may be at variance with what is usually considered to be the Han-
seatic era for the country as a whole, or even for Scandinavia. This is an im-
portant point, since what we call the Hanseatic period – when contact with
the German traders was at its most intense – varies between the different
countries in Scandinavia, as well as between the different towns in each
country. Language contact is seen as part of this general cultural, economic

and political contact. I also consider demographic relations, like settlement
structures and the constitution of population groups. These kinds of structure
tell us about prestige and/or power relationships between different population
groups, as well as what the conditions were for social interaction, including
language use interaction, in different arenas.
The second subsection takes a closer look at the linguistic communities, or
societies, and specific language use situations. I make an effort to use the infor-
mation provided in the first subsection to illuminate our understanding of the
language society or societies in each city, as well as how the specific language
use situations have come about and have worked in practice.
The third subsection compares the information given in the other two in or-
der to investigate more closely what we can know or assume about the actual
language use in the specific city during the Late Middle Ages. This allowed me
to make well-founded assumptions about the totality of the sociolinguistic con-
ditions, and say more about contact between Middle Low German and Danish,
Swedish or Norwegian during the Hanseatic period. I also compared the find-
ings for each of the cities. I will illustrate this below with a few examples from
the Norwegian cities. In my thesis I also discussed the use of the term ‘semi-
communication’ (see Braunmüller 1993, 1994) and concluded that it is not suf-
ficiently enlightening. Instead, it seems reasonable to use the term ‘receptive
bilingualism’. When reporting what assumptions can be made about the possi-
bilities for communication and language use through this study of the sociolin-
guistic conditions, I therefore use the terms ‘active bilingualism’ and ‘receptive
bilingualism’.
Two Norwegian cities – an example

The Hanseatic period must be defined somewhat differently for Bergen on one
hand and Oslo and Tønsberg on the other. If we take as a point of departure the
question of when these German traders were in a dominant position (in some
way) in each city, then we can define the Hanseatic period as running from
about 1250 to 1650 in Bergen, whereas it lasted from about 1250 up until about
1500 in Oslo/Tønsberg (Nedkvitne 1994, p. 9f).
There was a higher percentage of Germans living in Bergen than in Oslo and
Tønsberg during this period – some researchers mention that they made up 15–
20% of the total population in Bergen, whereas the proportion was much lower
in Oslo and Tønsberg. In both areas the German traders had their own formal
organisation, but they were different with regard to both size and importance.
In addition, the Germans staying in Bergen and those in Oslo and Tønsberg did
not come primarily from the same German areas. The patterns of integration
also differed between the two urban areas: whereas the Germans settled in their
own colony in a specific part of Bergen, the Bryggen, the Germans living in
Oslo and Tønsberg were scattered around the area. These factors hold impor-
tance for what we can assume about the conditions for language contact situa-
tions to occur.
There were some similarities between all the cities I studied. The Ger-
mans, regardless of what city they lived in, used their own language (Low
German) in several different arenas. In all the cities they were considered
“strangers” in some sense, even in those where they were allowed to take up
Scandinavian citizenship alongside their German citizenship (for instance in
Stockholm).
The differences are nevertheless important. First of all, the stability of the
German population in each city differed. This is important, because it tells us
something about the foundations for bilingualism on the individual and societal
level. It is more likely that a person living in an area for a long period of time
would develop some degree of bilingualism than a person just “visiting” for a
shorter period of time. In Bergen there was a rather large semi-permanent
German population (traders and craftsmen), plus a large more unstable group
(“visitors”). In Bergen the Germans consisted of only single males living to-
gether in their colony; their families were left behind in Germany. The Ger-
mans brought their families with them to Oslo and Tønsberg, which makes it
probable that there were children in these cities growing up as true bilinguals
(which is often regarded as very important in contact situations; see for in-
stance Trudgill 1986). These conditions could tell us something about restric-
tions and possibilities for actual language use in contact situations.
It seems reasonable to assume that the Germans living in Oslo and Tønsberg
must have had some active competence in Norwegian to manage daily life
there because of the way the social structures were organized in the area. They
were not a large enough group to form their own separate German institutions
alongside the Norwegian ones (unlike in Bergen; see Nesse 2002), and to be
able to participate in social activities with the majority of Norwegians, they
would have to have gained some competence in Norwegian.
For the Norwegian population, on the other hand, the social conditions and
structures probably did not create a need for widespread bilingualism (neither
active, passive, or receptive) in order to communicate satisfactorily in all
necessary social arenas. They were not exposed to German to the same extent
as the population in Bergen was. In Oslo and Tønsberg, the people using
Middle Low German were probably only the Germans themselves (on a group
level), whereas in Bergen some Norwegians probably also used Middle Low
German (to some extent) in certain communication arenas, as they could gain
socially or economically from having some competence in the language. We
can assume that many (maybe even most) Germans who settled in Oslo and
Tønsberg would develop bilingual competence of some kind after a while,
while the Germans living in Bergen probably did not. It is important to empha-
size that we are talking about probabilities here, based on what different kinds
of sources and different theoretical insights give us reason to assume (for more
examples, see Rambø 2009).
What new insights has the focus on sociolinguistic conditions provided? It

seems quite clear from the source material that we cannot talk about language
contact as if it were identical in the different Scandinavian countries and cities.
I have shown that the social, historical and cultural preconditions for speakers
of different varieties to come into contact were not the same throughout Scan-
dinavia – different people met in different places, communicated differently,
and passed on different results of language contact within the various commu-
nities they were part of (see more on this in Rambø 2009).
The individual language user – reflections and con-

siderations for further research
In my PhD, I included insights from accommodation theory, the Acts of Iden-
tity model, and Goffman’s theory of the presentation of self in everyday life,
but other considerations should be included on the micro level of language con-
tact. In the following I draw on insights from Joshua Fishman’s approach to
language sociology, Einar Haugen’s theory of language ecology, and Dell
Hymes’s model of communicative competence to discuss what competence in
a language (or linguistic variety) means at the individual level, and what the in-
terplay is between the individual and group level (the societal structures) in a
contact situation.
Linguistic varieties and the individual language user

Within modern language contact research, it has recently been thoroughly and
(partly) convincingly argued that distinguishing between language contact and
dialect contact can yield fruitful insights into the consequences of different
kinds of language contact. The crucial point is that different languages are not
mutually intelligible, whereas dialects of the same language are. Given this
fact, it is claimed that the possibilities for communication and understanding
differ profoundly in these different contexts (see e.g. Trudgill 1986).
For the type of language contact in question here, it has been argued that
perhaps Middle Low German and the Scandinavian languages were structural-
ly similar enough to consider them dialects of the same language, and not dif-
ferent languages. Middle Low German and Scandinavian varieties would then
have been mutually intelligible to some extent, and this would in part explain
how the influence of Middle Low German could be so profound. But beyond
this, we need to consider how we conceive bilingualism and communicative
competence.
Trudgill has himself moderated his model (as it was first presented) by stat-
ing that there is no clear-cut division between language contact and dialect con-
tact – there are all sorts of intermediate cases, and it is therefore more fruitful
to talk about a continuum. It is also a critical point that intelligibility to a large
extent is dependent on exposure – even if the linguistic varieties involved are
fairly different structurally, the ability to understand the variety strengthens
with intense exposure at the individual level. The degree of intelligibility with-
in a speaker-based approach is not an absolute; the results and preconditions
depend on the ways in which the conversation is negotiated between the speak-
ers of different languages or varieties in a specific situation and arena (Trudgill
2000).
Language, language user and language use

When studying a language contact situation, it is necessary to stress that the re-
lationship between language, language user and language use is the key to un-
derstanding what happens linguistically. Fishman points out that the sociology
of language is concerned with examining the interaction between two aspects
of human behavior: use of language, and the social organization of behavior.
He further on states:
Briefly put, the sociology of language focuses upon the entire gamut of topics related
to the social organization of language behavior, including not only language usage
per se but also language attitudes, overt behaviors toward language and toward lan-
guage users. (Fishman 1976b, p. 217.)
Similar thoughts are found in Einar Haugen’s work within the discipline he
himself calls ‘language ecology’. Haugen points out that it is the psychological
and social aspects which define language ecology, here also language change.
The psychological and the social components are complementary – they de-
pend upon each other. The social structures of a society are composed by indi-
viduals, and language is part of the human mind. But what happens in the hu-
man mind also has to be related to the social surroundings of the individuals.
Haugen emphasizes that what regulates the ecology of a given language, by ne-
cessity, is the language users. He says:
The true environment of a language is the society that uses it as one of its codes. Lan-
guage exists only in the minds of its users, and it only functions in relating these
users to one another and to nature, i.e. their social and natural environment. Part of
its ecology is therefore psychological: its interaction with other languages in the
minds of bi- and multilingual speakers. Another part of its ecology is sociological:
its interaction with the society in which it functions as a medium of communication.
The ecology of a language is determined primarily by the people who learn it, use it,
and transmit it to others. (Haugen 1972, p. 325.)
Middle Low German’s extensive influence on the Scandinavian languages dur-

ing the Late Middle Ages has to be described and explained using a model com-
prising an understanding of both the linguistic varieties involved, as well as his-
torical, sociological and cultural relations at the time the contact took place.
These latter factors were important for defining how people actually involved
themselves in different kinds of communication situations in different arenas,
which is again of importance at the individual psychological level. Trudgill
says:
The languages that are in contact with each other socially may become changed lin-
guistically, as a result of also being in contact psychologically, in the competences
of individual speakers. (Trudgill 1986, p. 1.)
Different terms have been used to define the linguistic competence of the
speakers involved in communicative situations in Late Medieval Scandina-
vian cities where Low German was in contact with Scandinavian varieties;
terms like ‘mixed languages’ (Winge 1992; Moberg 1989), ‘semi-communi-
cation’ (e.g. Braunmüller 1993), ‘active and passive bilingualism’ (Nesse
2002), and ‘receptive bilingualism’ (Rambø 2009). It is central what terms
we end up using, since they guide the way we understand and explain what
we observe. The descriptions, or assumptions, we make on the individual and
societal level govern our understanding of the communicative situations at
crucial points.
Language contact and bilingual (multilingual) societies and

individuals
We cannot thoroughly examine a contact situation without focusing on the ac-
tual individuals involved in it. In my PhD, I placed more focus on social, his-
torical and cultural factors governing societal structures, and less on the indi-
viduals – partly because of the way my research questions were formulated,
and partly because of all the difficulties and constraints there are when we try
to find enough “evidence” at the individual level from a long-term diachronic
perspective. I will now briefly discuss some issues and difficulties that need to
be dealt with when taking the individual level thoroughly into account. I take
as a starting point the bilingual individual.
The psychological component, as Haugen defines and understands it, has
above all been linked to bi- or multilingualism in communication situations
where there is more than one linguistic variety involved. In language contact
situations – whether these are defined as language contact, or dialect contact,
or somewhere along a continuum – bilingualism or multilingualism is crucial.
However, we can talk about bilingualism in different ways.
On one hand, we can differentiate theoretically between individual and so-
cietal bilingualism (Appel & Muysken 1987, p. 1f). We could say that societal
bilingualism is found when two or more languages are used (spoken) in a given
society. Such a definition necessarily includes many different kinds of bilin-
gual societies, and we could therefore further divide societal bilingualism into
three different types (Appel & Muysken 1987, p. 2): different languages are
used by different groups of the population in a society, and each group is mono-
lingual; all the individuals in a society are bilingual; or one group in a society
is monolingual, whereas another group is bilingual.
On the other hand, most linguistic changes which are the consequence of
language contact – as discussed thoroughly by Weinreich (1953), among others
– appear above all to be the result of individual bilingualism. If the people in a
contact situation do not speak mutually intelligible varieties, one or both/all
parties involved necessarily would have to have some sort of bilingual compe-
tence in order to communicate effectively. This bilingual competence at the in-
dividual level (repertoire) in the long term leads to influence and interaction, or
what many researchers call ‘interference’ (Trudgill 1986, p. 1). Bilingual indi-
viduals could, of course, be found in any sort of linguistic society. This means
that also a linguistic society considered to be monolingual, could encompass
bilingual individuals.
Trudgill (1986) points out that it is the language competence of the individ-
ual which determines what happens linguistically in a contact situation. How-
ever, it is not always easy to describe what kind of competence this is. What
level of competence must be reached to call an individual bilingual? The ques-
tion is even more complex when dealing with contact situations far back in
time.
What is the actual difference between active bilingualism and passive, or re-
ceptive, bilingualism? If we take Hymes’ theory of communicative compe-
tence as a starting point, we must admit that linguistic competence is only one
of several components – other factors such as sociolinguistic competence, stra-
tegic competence, discourse competence, etc. are equally important. Within
modern language-contact studies, it has been considered sufficient to define the
distinction between a language and a dialect by referring to the presence or ab-
sence of structural intelligibility. But what happens when intelligibility in a
contact situation is also linked with discourse strategies, gestures, strategic
competence, etc.? And when is such competence ‘active’, and when is it ‘re-
ceptive’? It seems absolutely clear that we cannot talk about active or receptive
competence as if these were opposites – they must be considered different
stages on a continuum, which must be defined at the individual level. It seems
unreasonable to assume that a person should, for instance, be able to under-
stand certain linguistic items (have ‘passive’ competence) in a foreign linguis-
tic variety without at the same time being able to actively produce the words
herself, if necessary and/or wanted (unless there are severe problems causing
restrictions for active competence on the phonetic level). In other words, the
question is how much ‘receptive’ competence in a linguistic variety the indi-
vidual actually needs in order for making it an ‘active’ competence if needed?
We could claim that ‘receptive’ competence is of course also an ‘active’ com-
petence (psychologically) – but to a different degree.
Conclusion
If we want to understand language contact processes, whether in present-day or
historical studies, it is both interesting as well as necessary to include different
intra- as well as inter-disciplinary ideas, approaches to understanding, perspec-
tives, methods and theories. We cannot understand language contact processes
without including knowledge linked to the individual language users and the
human mind. We need to explore how to define communicative competence.
What complicates the study of language, language variation and language
change is that most of the terms we use are in themselves relational. This goes
for central terms like language and dialect, as well as for terms like culture, eth-
nicity, mother tongue, (language) society, bilingualism, etc. All these are social
constructs, which in part means that they are to some extent floating concepts;
they are dynamic and change according to time, place, situation, etc. Whereas
these ideas have been rather successfully integrated in several newer works
within the academic fields of modern language-contact research and modern
sociolinguistics or the sociology of language, this approach is still less visible
and less integrated in diachronic studies, for instance within historical linguis-
tics and historical sociolinguistics. An understanding of the phenomenon of bi-
lingualism has been essential in much of the language contact research, but
Bilingual or bidialectal phenomena have been the main focus of the interest that has
been shown. Yet bilingualism is not in itself an adequate basis of a model or theory
of the interaction of language and social life. From the standpoint of such a model or
theory, bilingualism is neither a unitary phenomenon nor autonomous. The fact that
two languages are present in a community or are part of a person’s communicative
competence, is compatible with a variety of underlying functional (social) relation-
ships. Conversely, distinct languages need not be present for the underlying relation-
ships to find expression. Bilingualism par excellence … is a salient, special case of
the general phenomenon of linguistic repertoire. No normal person, and no normal
community, is limited to a single way of speaking, to an unchanging monotony that
would preclude indication of respect, insolence, mock seriousness, humor, role dis-
tance, and intimacy by switching from one mode of speech to another. (Hymes
2003.)
Language contact phenomena and situations represent an enormously complex

subject because there are so many important factors involved, and because
these factors are so interwoven. There are even more profound and special
problems involved when the object of study lies far back in time, since we will
also be faced with problems of finding relevant, reliable and/or representative
sources – or determining exactly what they are representative of. The problems
in defining the communicative competence(s) of language users are even more
evident. Nevertheless, these research constraints do not make this kind of work
less interesting – rather, it becomes more so. By shining a light on the difficul-
ties we are faced with when carrying out diachronic language contact research,
we also illuminate potential problems in synchronic studies which are perhaps
not always that conspicuous, due to much better access to relevant sources.
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Gender reduction in Bergen Norwegian: a North-Sea perspective 57
Gender reduction in Bergen Norwegian:

a North-Sea perspective1
Peter Trudgill, University of Agder
The Norwegian of the city of Bergen holds a special place in discussions of the
influence of Low German on the Scandinavian languages. Indeed, it also holds
a special place in the study of Norwegian dialectology, being generally con-
sidered to be aberrant in a number of respects in the context of regional varie-
ties of Norwegian. One respect in which it is highly unusual has to do with the
unique position which the grammatical gender system of the Bergen dialect has
amongst Norwegian dialects. In Bergen Norwegian the distinct feminine defi-
nite and indefinite articles have disappeared, and the markers of the new com-
mon gender are all original masculines, e.g. bok-en cf. bok-a ‘the book’, en bok
cf. ei bok ‘a book’.
This reduction of three genders to two is a clear example of simplification;
and a number of writers have ascribed this to language contact. Ernst Håkon
Jahr has developed a contact-based explanation for this loss of the feminine in
Bergen (Jahr 1995, 1998, 2001), in which he argues that this development in
the town was the result of the “heavy influence of language contact between
Norwegian and Low German” (2001, p. 100) during the Hansa period. Nesse
(2002) makes the same kind of point in more detail; and my own writings are
amongst a number of others supporting this view. As Jahr says:
Siden voksne som lærer nye språk, kjennetegnes ved å være “imperfect adult learn-
ers” i forhold til hva barn er, vil vi vente å finne flere og tydligere språkkontaktre-
sultater i Bergen enn i Oslo og Tønsberg.2
Jahr’s explanation, that is, is couched in terms of the simplification which is

well known to be associated with the imperfect language learning abilities of
adults in contact situations (Trudgill 2011).
Other writers have discussed whether this should be considered to be dialect
contact rather than language contact (Trudgill 2000), supposing that Low Ger-
man might have been rather mutually intelligible with Norwegian at the time
1
I am very grateful for their help with this paper to Torben Arboe, Gunther De Vogelaer, Martin
Durrell, Jarich Hoekstra, Ernst Håkon Jahr, Agnete Nesse, Hans Frede Nielsen, Inge Lise Peder-
sen, Karen Margrethe Pedersen, Gro-Renée Rambø, Gertrud Reershemius, Peter Siemund, Philip
Stickler, Wim Vandenbussche, Alastair Walker, and Roland Willemyns.
2
‘Compared to children, adults learning new languages are characterised as being “imperfect
adult learners”, and we would therefore expect to find more – and more obvious – consequences
of language contact in Bergen than in Oslo or Tønsberg.’
58 Peter Trudgill
in question, and noting that the gender reduction was partial, from three to two,
rather than the total loss of gender altogether.
And yet other writers have queried the role of any type of contact, Perridon
(2003) for example suggesting that we need no other explanation for what hap-
pened than simple phonological change (see also Heide 2003).
In this paper, however, I show that the Bergen Norwegian gender system is
not at all unusual when viewed in a wider geographical context. And, given that
this is the case, I look at the possibility that there might be another, comple-
mentary explanatory factor that has been at work in producing this “aberrant”
Bergen gender system. After all, it is often a good idea to look at the possibility
of multi-causality in linguistic change: there are so many developments which
could have taken place that when some particular change has actually taken
place this suggests there is likely to have been more than one favourable, pre-
disposing factor at work.
The geography
I begin by noting the geographical location of the city of Bergen on the eastern
shores of the northern North Sea. Across this sea from Bergen, on the western
shores, lies another area where the original three grammatical genders of Ger-
manic have also not been retained, namely Britain. Bergen is about 300 nauti-
cal miles from the Scottish coast at Aberdeen, and we know that contact around
and across the North Sea has been of considerable historical and cultural im-
portance over the centuries. Can there be a connection between the loss of gen-
der in the two places?
One’s first answer has to be that it is not immediately obvious that this is
anything other than pure coincidence. But notice, then, that Bergen Norwegian
was not the only continental Germanic variety to experience a reduction of gen-
ders from three to two. Further south, again on the east coast of the North Sea,
and at more or less exactly the same time as in Bergen (see below), the metro-
politan Dutch varieties of the northern Netherlandic-speaking area also merged
the feminine with the masculine (Geerts 1966). It is perhaps not quite so easy
to shrug this off as simply being a coincidence.
The claim that it is simply a coincidence becomes perhaps even more diffi-
cult to maintain when we observe the following. The dialects of the Flemish
south of the Low Franconian Netherlandic-speaking area, as well as neighbour-
ing areas, did not undergo this change, and retained the three original genders
(De Vogelaer 2009), as they still do to this day. The boundary between the in-
novating northern two-gender dialects and the southern three-gender Dutch
dialects is conventionally drawn by Dutch dialectologists as running from west
to east across the Netherlands, in a rather straight line from the Rhine delta on
the North Sea coast. At the eastern end of this line, it takes a brief turn to the
north and then another back east, just before it meets the Netherlands-Germany
border to the east of Hardenberg.
Of course we conventionally divide the dialects of the West Germanic dia-

lect continuum into “German” and “Dutch”, but this is a politico-sociolinguis-
tic matter since there is no linguistic reason for the division of the continuum
into two3 to be made at the border between Germany and The Netherlands. So
surely this west-east isogloss will not just stop at the national border.
My investigations show that of course it does not: the west-east two-gender
/three-gender isogloss does indeed extend from the Netherlands across into
Germany, into the County of Bentheim in Lower Saxony. So the question then
arises as to how much further it extends into the Low German-speaking area of
this part of western Germany. My major source in tackling this question has
been Wahrig-Burfeind (1989). Her work, and her maps, give a strong indica-
tion that all of the Low German (Plattdeutsch/Niederdeutsch) dialects spoken
in western Lower Saxony have only the two genders. In the Low German
spoken in Emsland, Lower Saxony, the “Synkretismus von Maskulinum und
Femininum dominiert” (1989, p. 57). And further to the north, the loss of the
feminine has also been totally carried through in East Frisia: Wahrig-Burfeind
(1989, pp. 82–83) discusses the East Frisian Low German [EFLG] merger us-
ing data from Wiesenhann (1977); but the fact of this merger is also confirmed
in the book-length study of East Frisian Low German by Matras & Reers-
hemius (2003, p. 18), who write:
EFLG, like other Low German varieties, has a two-gender system: common (or
non-neuter) and neuter. As in Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, common
nouns tend to continue historical masculines and feminines, while neuter nouns gen-
erally continue historical neuters.
Wahrig-Burfeind shows, too, that the Low German of the Oldenburg area also
lacks a distinct feminine (1989, p. 57) – which takes us geographically as far
east, more or less, as the banks of the River Weser. I am therefore also assum-
ing, though I have not actually had this confirmed, that all the intervening areas
of Lower Saxony between East Frisia/Emsland and Oldenburg, including at
least Cloppenburg, Ammerland and Wesermarsch, also have the merger; it
would be rather remarkable if they did not. Goltz & Walker (1990) divide the
Low Saxon dialects of Low German in Germany into six major sub-divisions;
according to my assumption, three of them, Ostfriesisch, Oldenburgisch and
Emsländisch, have the merger. This assumption is illustrated in Map 1. All
three of Ostfriesisch, Oldenburgisch and Emsländisch are spoken on former
Frisian-speaking territory.
In view of this configuration of the two-gender dialects, it is no surprise to
find that, back west on the other side of the border, the Low Saxon-speaking
areas of the Netherlands around Groningen and in Overijssel also have the syn-
cretism. To complete the geographical jigsaw, it is also rather predictable that
we should find that West Frisian, the language spoken between the northern
Low Franconian Dutch-speaking area and Groningen Low Saxon, is no differ-
3
Or three, if we include Luxemburgisch.
60 Peter Trudgill
ent. The West Frisian language follows northern Dutch and East Frisian Low
German in having exactly the same masculine–feminine syncretism. The
two-gender system of Modern West Frisian is due, that is, to the loss of the
feminine, just as in Dutch and in Bergen Norwegian (Tiersma 1985, p. 47).
So it is the whole of the north of the Netherlands, regardless of which of the
three languages is spoken there, that has been affected by this Bergen-style
simplification; together with a large neighbouring area of northwestern Germa-
ny up to the River Weser. These two-gender West Germanic varieties lie in a
single contiguous geographical area which comprises the northern dialects of
Dutch, nearly all the dialects of West Frisian, and the northwestern dialects of
Low German. The fact that a long contiguous stretch of the eastern coastline of
the North Sea, and adjoining inland areas, from the Rhine delta in the southern
Netherlands to the mouth of the Weser in northern Germany, is occupied by va-
rieties of three different languages which have all lost the masculine–feminine
distinction, while southern Dutch and inland Low German have not, looks to
be a geographical pattern of some significance. But what is the significance?
Or is this still a coincidence?
Staying on the eastern shores of the North Sea, we can notice something else
which perhaps causes us to think a little more. It is true that if we travel from
the mouth of the River Weser eastwards along the German coast, we come first
into more conservative territory: the coastal dialects of Low Saxon Low Ger-
man spoken from Bremerhaven and up into western Holstein do still retain the
three genders.
But it is remarkable that one does not have to travel much further along the
coast, as the shoreline swings to a northerly direction, before one returns to
two-gender territory. This territory stretches from the mouth of the River Eider
onwards. According to Jørgensen (1954), as reported in Wahrig-Burfeind
(1989, p. 50), the three-gender/two-gender line runs east to west from south of
the Eckenförde Bay – so just to the north of Kiel – and then via Haby and along
the River Eider as far as mouth of the river on the North Sea at Tönning. Wah-
rig-Burfeind (1989, pp. 75–76), using data from Bock (1933), shows that north
of this line the masculine/feminine merger has been totally carried through in
the Low Saxon of Schleswig. Schleswig thus represents the fourth of Goltz and
Walker’s six Low Saxon divisions to have the merger, leaving only Hol-
steinisch and Nord-Hannoverisch with three genders.
In the island dialects of North Frisian, the feminine has also been lost,
though on the islands of Föhr and Amrum it has been lost through merger not
with the masculine but with the neuter (Hoekstra 1996). If we continue north-
wards along the coast from North Friesland into Denmark, we come next to the
Danish dialects of the Jutland peninsula which, with the exception of the far
north and east, have also undergone gender reduction (Arboe 2008).
Do we, then, still want to maintain that this is all a coincidence? The spatial
pattern of feminine loss in modern Germanic does not look to be random. There
is a large area of Europe stretching from the Rhine delta along the North Sea
coast and up to and including most of Jutland, with a small break only between
Lower Saxony and Schleswig, where the local dialects of each Germanic lan-
guage all have the two-gender innovation. Indeed, if we consider Bergen from
a more international perspective, it is a remarkable fact that from around 1600
or so (see below) it has been part of a larger Germanic-speaking area of coastal
western Europe around the North Sea where the original Germanic three-gen-
der system has not been retained. As is illustrated in Map 1, gender-loss of vari-
ous kinds has occurred in seven different North Sea Germanic languages in a
unified geographical area: Bergen Norwegian, English, and varieties of Dutch,
West Frisian, Low German, North Frisian, and Danish. Again, perhaps signifi-
cantly, this development did not take place in any areas away from the North
Sea (except for Stockholm and Copenhagen – see below). What exactly are we
to make of this?
Map 1: The geographical gender-reduction zone c. 1700. To the west and north of the line, Ger-
manic dialects of English, Dutch, West Frisian, Low German, North Frisian, Danish, and Bergen
Norwegian have all lost the original three-gender system.
62 Peter Trudgill
The linguistics
Although we are presented with this large contiguous area where the three Ger-
manic genders have been reduced, we have to concede that the actual linguistic
outcomes do vary considerably from dialect to dialect, to the extent that it could
be argued there is actually no need to consider whether or not this is a coinci-
dence.
However, according to Wahrig-Burfeind (1989), there is a regular linguistic
change-path which Germanic gender loss may pass along. Thus the outcomes,
albeit rather different, simply represent different chronological stages, and/or
different branches, of the same gender-loss process.
The path starts from the baseline of the original Germanic three-gender
situation, in which pronouns corresponding to ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘it’ are employed
purely on the basis of the grammatical gender of the nominal referent, as still
happens in conservative Germanic varieties such as High German and Nor-
wegian. In the latter, we still find forms such as:
vegg-en … han ‘wall-the … he’

bok-a ... ho ‘book-the … she’
ku-a … ho ‘cow-the … she’
jent-a … ho ‘girl-the … she’
The first stage of feminine loss along the path occurred when, as in 16th-century
Bergen Norwegian, feminine nominals were no longer formally distinct from
the masculine, as a result e.g. of the loss of the distinction between masculine
and feminine articles, but ‘she’ was still used to pronominalise grammatical as
well as natural feminines. Using the equivalent modern forms, this would be:

bok-en ... hon ‘book-the … she’
ku-en … hon ‘cow-the … she’
jent-en … hon ‘book-the … she’
In the next chronological stage, ‘he’ takes over in the case of former non-ani-
mate feminines; this is the crucial stage for grammatical gender merger. This is
what happened during the 1600s in Bergen; and it is also what has occurred in
northern Dutch. So modern Standard Dutch is like Bergen Norwegian in that it
has the definite article forms de (common gender – original masculine and fem-
inine), while the southern dialects have den (masc.) and de (fem.), with corre-
sponding differences in adjectival agreement (Taeldeman 2005, p. 62):
‘the thin farmer’ ‘the thin farmer’s wife’

Standard N. Dutch: de dunne boer de dunne boerin
Flemish: den dunnen boer de dunne boerin
Importantly, the effects of this merger can be seen in grammatical as well as

natural gender:
‘The table … it’

Standard N. Dutch: De tafel … hij (= ‘he’)
Flemish: De tafel … ze (= ‘she’)
The noun tafel was originally feminine in all varieties of Dutch, and is therefore
pronominalised by ‘she’ in varieties which preserve the feminine. But in Stand-
ard Dutch, where the feminine has been lost, all common gender nouns, regard-
less of historical gender status, are now pronominalised by ‘he’, except for
animate feminines such as vrouw ‘woman’ (De Vogelaer & De Sutter 2011).
So this gives us a system as follows, where boom ‘tree’ is an original mascu-
line:
de boom… hij ‘the tree … he’

de tafel … hij ‘the table … he’ (originally fem.)
de koe … zij ‘the cow … she’
de meisje … zij ‘the girl … she’
Remarkably, however, Bergen has gone one stage further than this. In basilec-
tal Bergen, not only are originally feminine nouns pronominalised with the
masculine pronoun han ‘he’, but so are non-human female animates: one says
ku-en … han ‘cow-the … he’. Thus in the modern basilectal Bergen dialect we
have (Nesse 2005):

bok-en ... han ‘book-the … he’ (originally fem.)
kuen … han ‘cow-the … he’ (naturally fem.)
jent-en … hon ‘girl-the … she’
Hon ‘she’ in Bergen is entirely restricted to women and girls.4

There is another Germanic development which is illustrated in the modern
Bergen dialect. Although han ‘he’ is still the pronoun used for all common gen-
der inanimate nouns (and indeed as we have just seen for all animates except
humans), it is subject to a grammatical constraint such that den, originally
‘that’, has to be used instead when the pronoun is fronted or stressed (Nesse
2005). This is also what has happened in northern Dutch (Shetter 1994, p. 68):
although hij is used for all common gender inanimates, die, also originally
‘that’, has to be used with fronting or stress.
Here we can see the beginnings of another stage of development, as repre-
sented in the current Standard Danish and Standard Swedish (Skrzypek 2010)
4
This gives the Bergen dialect a “feminine personal” gender equivalent to the Polish “masculine
personal” or “virile” gender, a gender class which is confined to male human beings (and in the
plural only; Sadowska 2011).
64 Peter Trudgill
systems. In these two-gender Scandinavian varieties, feminine has merged

with masculine; but there is no pronominalisation of the type boken … han.
Rather, these varieties have developed a newer system in which han and hun/
hon are both reserved for animates, while inanimate common gender nouns (in-
cluding original feminines) are pronominalised with the new pronoun den ‘it’,
derived historically from the masculine distal demonstrative den ‘that’. In these
systems, han ‘he’ has now dropped out of use altogether except for male ani-
mates, while den ‘that’ has taken over and is used for all originally masculine
and feminine inanimates in all contexts, not just when fronted or stressed. This
change is said to have been completed in Standard Swedish during the 1700s
(Davidson 1990). In modern Danish, these forms are:
vegg-en … den ‘wall-the … it’

bog-en ... den ‘book-the … it’
koen … den/hun ‘cow-the … it/she’
pigen … hun ‘girl-the … she’
The situation in East Frisian Low German is similar. East Frisian Low German,
as we saw earlier, has a two-gender system: common (or non-neuter) and neu-
ter. As in Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, common nouns derive from
historical masculines and feminines. Importantly also, the linguistic details do
indicate a truly total gender merger, à la Bergen. According to Matras & Reers-
hemius (2003), in East Frisian Low German the pronoun zäi ‘she’ is reserved
for female animates only, as in Dutch. Wiesenhann (1977), as reported in Wah-
rig-Burfeind (1989), agrees that East Frisian Low German no longer uses the
feminine pronoun for non-animate referents. But as in Standard Danish and
Swedish – and unlike in Bergen and Dutch – inanimate common gender nouns
in East Frisian Low German are pronominalised by an originally demonstrative
pronoun däi. However, däi can also be used for animates in certain discourse
contexts (see Matras & Reershemius 2003, p. 23 for details), which is not dis-
similar to the usage in stressed position of den in Bergen and die in Dutch.
The Low German of Schleswig also has a pronoun system which operates
with ‘he’ and ‘she’ for animates but has a different common gender pronoun
for non-animates (Bock 1933).
A further step along this path may ensue, which can lead to the loss of gram-
matical gender altogether. This involves the loss of a distinct neuter gram-
matical gender. According to De Vogelaer & De Sutter (2011), such a process
is currently taking place in modern Dutch in that non-animate masculines and
feminines are increasingly being treated as neuters, while animates are not,
something which Curzan (2003) says also happened in Old English/Middle
English, where grammatical gender eventually disappeared altogether, to be re-
placed by a purely natural gender system.
The Danish dialects of West Jutland have progressed even further along this
gender-loss path. Above, I cited Jutland as an area which was almost entirely
two-gender territory. However, there is a significant difference between the

dialects of western Jutland and those of the east. West Jutland has developed
an innovative system where gender has been lost and replaced, as in English,
by a system which distinguishes between male animates, female animates, and
inanimates. However, inanimate nominals are further divided in West Jutland
into the two semantically/grammatically-determined categories of count vs.
mass noun (Arboe 2008). The pronominal forms den and det, as in Standard
Danish, have taken over from ‘he’ and ‘she’ for inanimates. But the original
merged common masculine-plus-feminine gender marked by den has come to
be used as the nominal class for all inanimate count nouns, while mass nouns
behave like original neuters, taking det. Haugen (1976, p. 61) cites the follow-
ing examples:
Æ ægetræ i vor have, den er stor ‘The oak-tree in our garden, it’s big’
BUT
Ægetræ, det er best til møbler ‘Oak (wood), it’s (the) best for furni-
ture’
It can be seen that original common gender den is used to pronominalise the
inanimate count noun, regardless of historical gender, while det is used for the
mass noun.
Some of the neighbouring North Frisian dialects (and certain Low German
dialects in the same area) have a similar system. Löfstedt (1968, p. 12) tells us
that in modern North Frisian, certain original inanimate masculines and femi-
nines have become neuter, while others have become neuter only when used as
mass nouns and retain their original gender when used as count nouns. Alastair
Walker (p.c.) kindly supplies an example: di kafee (‘the coffee’, masculine) re-
fers to a particular cup of coffee, whereas dåt kafee (neuter) is coffee as a sub-
stance.
Diffusion and independent development

There is, then, some diversity in the linguistic outcomes of gender simplifi-
cation in the different Germanic languages around the North Sea. But it is poss-
ible to see these outcomes as simply representing the same outcome at different
stages of development, making the “coincidence” hypothesis less likely.
Nevertheless, there is a puzzle here that arises rather frequently in the his-
torical human sciences. If an innovation event takes place in one location at a
certain time, and then in another location at a later time, the question is: has the
innovation diffused from the first location to the second, or is it just an inde-
pendent development?
66 Peter Trudgill
Separate explanations for each area

It is perfectly possible to claim that the picture presented in 1 is the result of the
coincidence of a number of independent developments, since for each particu-
lar dialect explanations can be advanced which work rather well in that indi-
vidual case. Gender-loss in English is often ascribed, for instance, to contact
with Old Norse and/or Late British (see Trudgill 2010).
Gender reduction in Dutch can be ascribed to rapid urbanisation and growth
during the Golden Age, particularly with the movement of large numbers of
refugees fleeing from Spanish persecution in the south to the north of the
Dutch-speaking area. Similar urbanisation explanations have been advanced
for Stockholm and Copenhagen, where the feminine gender was also lost (and
so also in Standard Swedish and Danish). At the end of the 15th century the
population in Stockholm was about 6,000, but this grew to around 60,000 by
1700 as the Swedish empire expanded. Similarly, at around this same time
Copenhagen was experiencing a five-fold increase in the number of its in-
habitants. In each of these three cases, the mechanism would have been the
simplification that typically accompanies dialect mixture (Trudgill 1986).
According to another theory, gender simplification in Dutch and West Fri-
sian may also, or instead, be due to Dutch/Frisian gender mismatches: Kusmen-
ko (1996, 2000) suggests that simplification may be due to large-scale confu-
sion on the part of speakers about masculine/feminine/neuter grammatical gen-
der membership (which is, after all, arbitrary), with the confusion resulting
from contact between, and bilingualism in, Dutch and West Frisian – it is cer-
tainly the case that “there are a good many Frisian nouns whose gender differs
from that of their Dutch cognates” (Visser 2011, p. 32). Kusmenko also makes
a similar point about simplification in Jutish Danish, North Frisian and
Schleswig Low German, where nouns also belonged to different genders in the
different languages.5
Language shift may also have been a factor in some areas: during the rapid
language shift which occurred as speakers of South Jutish abandoned their
North Germanic mother tongue and shifted to Low German in the 19th century
as a result of political developments and border changes, the two-gender sys-
tem was simply transferred intact from South Jutish to Low German – although
this still begs the question as to why South Jutish had only two genders. And
the western Low Saxon dialects of Low German – the Groningen and Overijs-
sel variants in the Netherlands; and Ostfriesisch, Oldenburgisch and Emslän-
disch in Germnay – are also spoken in an area which was Frisian speaking (in
East Frisia until the 1400s, and as a minority language until the 1500s; Matras
and Reershemius 2003). So these varieties of Low German could also be re-
garded as substrate-influenced dialects resulting from contact-induced lan-
5
Haugen (1976) makes a similar point about Stockholm and Copenhagen, suggesting that the en-
try of new loanwords from Low German into the dialects of the big cities might have caused prob-
lems of gender assignment which contributed to the merger of masculine and feminine.
guage shift. This could be important because, as Wahrig-Burfeind says, there

are indications from rather sparse records that some varieties of East Frisian
also had the masculine–feminine syncretism. It would therefore be tempting to
suppose that gender reduction in northern Dutch and northwestern Low Ger-
man might be the result of substratal Frisian influence, but in fact written Old
Frisian had the original three Germanic genders until at least the 1400s (Brem-
mer 2009).
There is also, finally, and as we saw above, the well-known argument that
gender reduction in Bergen (as well as in Copenhagen and Stockholm) was due
to language/dialect contact involving Norwegian (Danish, Swedish) and Low
German, with resultant imperfect adult language learning.
Drift
In diachronic linguistics, however, there is also a further complication with in-
dependent developments. The problem concerns how truly “independent” such
developments might be. This is because of what is often called, following Sa-
pir, drift (see also Lakoff 1972). Sapir writes (1921, p. 150) that “language
moves down time in a current of its own making. It has a drift.” Importantly,
he discusses inherent or inherited tendencies in languages and language fami-
lies:
The momentum of … drift is often such that languages long disconnected will pass
through the same or strikingly similar phases … The English type of plural repre-
sented by foot: feet, mouse: mice is strictly parallel to the German Fuss: Füsse,
Maus: Mäuse. Documentary evidence shows conclusively that there could have
been no plurals of this type in Primitive Germanic … There was evidently some gen-
eral tendency or group of tendencies in early Germanic, long before English and
German had developed as such, that eventually drove both of these dialects along
closely parallel paths (p. 172).
Sapir’s argument is essentially that language varieties may resemble one an-
other because, having derived from some common source, they continue to
evolve linguistically in similar directions by undergoing similar linguistic
changes.
In many cases of drift it is possible to argue that varieties which are derived
from a common source may have inherited shared tendencies or propensities
which can subsequently lead to the development of similar but new changes
and hence similar or identical but new characteristics, even after separation, as
with Sapir’s umlaut plurals example. In these cases, we have to say that drift
involves propensities to linguistic changes resulting from structural properties
which varieties inherit. The inheritance is of structural conditions which at a
later date may, but need not, lead to the development of new but identical lin-
guistic changes in different varieties with a common ancestry. The structural
preconditions in our case here would be a factor or factors which favour the loss
of the morphological distinctiveness of Germanic masculines and feminines.
68 Peter Trudgill
Diffusion
Such favourable predisposing factors might well not be impossible to find. But
then we would be presented with the problem of why they were operative only
in the areas concerned: there is no escaping the picture portrayed in Map 1. The
geography of Germanic gender reduction that has occurred around the North
Sea makes it look very much as if it is the result of the geographical diffusion
of an innovation out of one or a number of centres. This follows the familiar
pattern of spatial diffusion known to dialectologists and geolinguists, having at
least one outlying exclave to which the innovation has jumped, namely Bergen
(Trudgill 1973; Chambers & Trudgill 1998). We also recall that Bergen, like
the other possible exclaves, Copenhagen and Stockholm, has had a long history
of being a highly important maritime trading port.
Wahrig-Burfeind (1989) points to the two geographical areas which have
total gender loss as being kernel areas which seem to her to have led the way
in this process: English, where grammatical gender has disappeared altogether
and been replaced by a semantic natural gender system; and West Jutish, where
the same thing has happened but where an additional semantic distinction has
also been introduced.
But was it any more than these areas just “leading the way”? If we are to be
able to decide whether the geographical distribution of gender loss in Germanic
dialects is something more than a coincidence, we need also to have some over-
sight into the chronology of gender loss in the contiguous West Germanic area,
including the developments in English and the three major Scandinavian cities.
It is clear, of course, that gender loss started in English before it began any-
where else – there is plenty of information about the timing of the loss of gen-
der which shows that it began earlier than on the other side of the North Sea.
According to Jones (1988), it was an ongoing process for more than 300 years
which began to be evident in texts from the 900s in the north of the Old Eng-
lish-speaking area. The loss then gradually spread south, and appears to have
been complete by 1300 everywhere except in Kent in the far southeast of Eng-
land, where it lingered on somewhat longer. This loss, as noted above, is often
ascribed to language contact with Brittonic Celtic and/or Old Norse.
The next development in terms of chronology would appear to be the one in
West Jutland. Skautrup (1944, p. 270) says, in connection with the develop-
ment of this “whole new type of gender”,6 that the writer of a section of the
Jyske Lov (Jutland Law) written about 1325 “certainly” had this system be-
cause “he has difficult in distinguishing neuter words from common-gender
words”.7
As is well known, post hoc is not necessarily propter hoc. But importantly
for our discussion of the possibility of geographical diffusion as an explanatory
factor, Perridon (1997, p. 360) explores the interesting angle that these two
6
“helt ny genustype”.
7
“han har vanskelighed ved at skelne neutrumsord fra fælleskønsord”.
gender-simplification events, in Britain and in West Jutland, might be linked,

in that the former may in some sense have exported it to the latter. Russ (1982)
has made the same suggestion – the chronology makes it clear that, if there is
a link, it would have to be that the change occurred in England or southern
Scotland first and then spread across the North Sea to West Jutland. Perridon
writes that, while it is well known that Old Norse had a major impact on Eng-
lish, it has not been usual to suggest that “the dialect contact in the Danelaw
might have had some consequences for the invaders as well”. But there are a
number of similarities between West Jutlandic and English which might have
this origin, and he specifically mentions the fact that they have both lost gram-
matical gender. He believes that it is possible that this change, amongst others,
was “the result of extensive dialect contact in the Danelaw”.
What then remains to be explained is why West Jutlandic was more influ-
enced by English – or, more likely, by anglicised Old Norse – than other forms
of Danish. Perridon does not mention the geographical proximity which is il-
lustrated in Map 1: it is 334 nautical miles from Newcastle, England, to Es-
bjerg, Jutland. But he says that any “explanation has to start with the fact that
West Jutland mainly consists of barren moorlands, which in the past could
hardly sustain its population” (Perridon 1997, p. 261). This led to a greater pro-
portion of people from this area emigrating to Britain than from elsewhere, and
“it is not unreasonable that those who returned to West Jutland after having ac-
cumulated some wealth in England” could have been, as successful re-mi-
grants, rather influential.
Nielsen (2007, p. 102) objects to Perridon’s thesis on the grounds that the
linguistic outcomes were not the same in England and West Jutland. As I have
noted above, however, they are not so very different because, in both cases,
grammatical gender has been entirely lost and replaced by a noun-class system
based on semantics. The difference simply lies in the fact that, like in English,
the West Jutland classes are male, female and neuter – but the neuter class is
additionally subdivided into mass and count categories. This is especially so
since a not totally dissimilar development has actually also occurred in certain
English dialects (Siemund 2008). Traditional dialects in the English southwest
have a pronominal category difference between count and mass nouns, such
that inanimate count nouns are pronominalised with he but mass nouns with it:
Pass the loaf – he’s over there.

vs.
I likes this bread – it be very tasty.
Nielsen also objects that it could just as well be the case that “the linguistic
parallels between English and the Jutland dialect may have arisen independent-
ly”, “not least because the two idioms have a shared Germanic heritage which,
to some extent, enables them to move in the same direction without being in
direct contact” (2007, p. 102) – a clear reference to drift, as discussed above.
70 Peter Trudgill
But, again, how likely is it that we can explain the remarkably coherent geo-
graphical configuration of this phenomenon simply through drift? That drift
was operative in all and only this contiguous area would in itself also seem to
be too much of a coincidence.
On the other hand, a spread from England to West Jutland, if this is what
happened, and from there east and south to most of the rest of Jutland and down
into Schleswig, would account for all the Danish, Low German and North Fri-
sian gender loss areas indicated on the map.
Then the fact that the two different innovating continental masculine–femi-
nine syncretism areas – Schleswig Low German/Jutland Danish/North Frisian;
and Low Saxon Low German/West Frisian/Dutch – are separated from one an-
other by the small conservative three-gender Weser-Eider zone involving the
Low German dialects of the Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven areas and Holstein
opens up the possibility that the northern limit of this intermediate zone might
represent the current southern limit of the spatial diffusion of gender loss out
of West Jutland – and that perhaps conceivably as a result of earlier diffusion
from Britain. Then the southern edge of the intermediate zone might equally
well represent the northern limit of diffusion out of some focal point in the Hol-
land/Friesland area, which is perhaps most likely to be the urban area of the
northern Netherlands.
As far as this Dutch/West Frisian/Lower Saxony area is concerned, more-
over, there is an interesting convergence of chronology with Bergen and the
other major Scandinavian cities. In all these cases the loss seems to have oc-
curred in the period 1450–1650. Pedersen (1999) writes that in Copenhagen the
masculine–feminine distinction was totally lost during the period 1450–1600.
For Bergen, the timing appears to have been much the same. Nesse (2002)
shows that, although there is an awareness of the distinctness of the two gen-
ders in the writings of Mester Absalon8 (1528–1575) in that he shows etymo-
logically-correct usage of the pronouns hon and han for inanimates, he has al-
ready merged all other originally distinct forms. It was somewhat later that hon
‘she’ stopped being used to pronominalise original inanimate feminines and
was replaced by han ‘he’. The simplification also began in Stockholm at
around the same time.
In the northern Netherlands the merger can also be seen to have been under
way in the 1500s and to have become consolidated in the early 1600s (Geerts
1966). While the date for the first available texts showing the merger in West
Frisian is not until the 1600s (Hoekstra 2001), this is almost certainly because
there are no extant texts from the late 1500s.
I have not been able to find any information about gender loss in the north-
western dialects of Low German mentioned above, but EFLG is spoken in an
area which was Frisian speaking until the 1400s, when the Hanseatic League
became dominant, and Frisian remained as a minority language there until the
8
Absalon Pederssøn Beyer, “Mester [Master] Absalon”, was a Bergen priest, teacher, and writer
whose diaries from 1552–1572 provide invaluable historical data (Skard 1972, p. 32f).
1500s (Matras & Reershemius 2003). Many of the other relevant areas were
also originally Frisian speaking – East Frisian was formerly spoken as far east
as the river Elbe.
Conclusion
The fact that all the relevant gender-loss varieties are located in more or less
coastal areas suggests that what may be relevant here in differentiating be-
tween, say, coastal Dutch/Frisian/Low German which have the merger, and in-
land Low German/High German areas which do not, is the factor of differential
accessibility to the geographical diffusion of linguistic innovations (Trudgill
1973). Wahrig-Burfeind talks of “das Phänomen der arealen Gerichtetheit des
Genussynkretismus” (1989, p. 295) – there is a spatial directionality to the
spread of the gender change. The implication is that the loss of gender is an in-
novation which has spread from one area to another even across language
boundaries.
It is important here to recognise that spatial diffusion takes two rather dif-
ferent forms. Long-term contact between geographically neighbouring com-
munities can lead, through face-to-face interaction and accommodation
(Trudgill 1986), to the diffusion of linguistic innovations gradually outwards
from areas where they have already become established until they cover a
wider and wider area. But at the same time, long-distance contact between ur-
ban centres also occurs as a result of communication and trading patterns, with
movements of speakers from one place to another leading to the jumping of in-
novations from one urban area to another and the formation of exclaves such
as Bergen (Chambers & Trudgill 1998).
In one example of long-distance contact, we know that the Hanseatic trade
brought large numbers of Low German speakers to Bergen over a long period
of time. It is also known (Rambø 2008) that traders from Lübeck played an es-
pecially important role. Lübeck itself is situated in the Holstein three-gender
area, but the two-gender Schleswig and Jutish-speaking areas were not far
away – the distance from Lübeck to the Eckenförde-Tönning line is only about
50 miles/80 kilometres – and so it is not difficult to imagine that ships travel-
ling out from Lübeck might well have been carrying a number of two-gender
speakers.
We also know that there were very many Danes in Bergen – Nesse (2002)
cites figures showing that in the 200 years from 1550, more than a quarter of
the foreigners resident in Bergen were from Denmark – and especially in the
earlier years the West Jutland town of Ribe played an important part in North
Sea trading activity.
Rambø (2008, p. 329) also has it that, while the Germans were the largest
group of foreigners in Bergen, there were other sizeable groups of foreigners,
notably English, Scots and Dutch; and the considerable and long-term presence
72 Peter Trudgill
of a Dutch population in Bergen up until the late 1500s is made clear in

Wubs-Mrozewicz (2008). She discusses the role in Bergen of the Dutch “Hol-
landers”, mostly from Amsterdam; and of “Overijsselers”, mostly from
Kampen, Zwolle and Deventer (on former Frisan territory). Notice that the for-
mer group spoke northern Low Franconian and the latter group spoke Low
Saxon – both groups thus bringing a two-gender system to Bergen with them.
The “Dutch” presence also probably included actual Frisian speakers. The role
of Groningen in Bergen also merits some careful consideration. As a semi-in-
dependent entity, it was the only city from what is now the Netherlands to be a
member of the Hanseatic League; and it is situated in an originally Frisian-
speaking and subsequently Low Saxon-speaking two-gender area.
It would seem to be quite possible, in any case, that Bergen, as a highly im-
portant maritime trading city, acquired a two-gender system not only because
simplification was brought about by imperfect adult second language and/or
second dialect learning; and not only because gender mismatches and multilin-
gualism brought about confusion about nominal gender membership, but also
because of the geographical diffusion from continental North Sea Europe of
gender loss as an innovation. This diffusion resulted from contact, in Bergen
itself, between Bergen Norwegian speakers, on the one hand, and speakers of
other Germanic varieties which already had two-gender systems, on the other.
During the crucial decades when gender loss happened, there may well have
been, walking around the streets of Bergen, enough northern Dutch, Frisian,
Low Saxon and Jutish speakers – men who had actually brought their own
two-gender systems with them – to enable us to consider that the geographical
diffusion factor should take its place alongside the other better-known expla-
nations for why Bergen only has two grammatical genders.
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Norwegian and German in Bergen 75
Norwegian and German in Bergen

Agnete Nesse, University of Bergen
Bergen was a bilingual city for more than four hundred years due to the large
number of Germans who lived there from the 13th century onwards. This bi-
lingualism can be explored from many different angles. My aim in this article
is to illustrate some of these possible approaches and the results of different
studies. The research fields involved include dialectology, textual work, social
history and language contact studies, all within a sociolinguistic frame.
Dialectology
When studying the local vernacular of Bergen, one point always springs to
mind, namely that in a Norwegian context, this dialect is an exception. Its com-
bination of dialect features that are regarded as typically West Norwegian
(WN) with others that are regarded as typically East Norwegian (EN) is inter-
esting; even more interesting are the different simplifications found only in this
dialect. For the sociolinguistically very salient words ‘I’ and ‘not’, Bergen has
the WN forms /e:g/ and /içe/, whereas EN has /je/ or /jei/ and /ike/ or /ite/; the
written standard used in Bergen (Bokmål) has <jeg> and <ikke>. The tendency
to have a short vowel and long consonant in syllables that were short in Old
Norwegian is regarded as an EN and northern feature: Bergen has /spik:eçøt:/
whereas WN /has spe:keçø:t/ (‘dried and salted mutton’). The fact that the short
vowel is higher in Bergen (/i/ vs /e/) is also seen in the now obsolete dialect
form /vik:e/ for WN /ve:ka/ (‘week’). In this case, the Bergen dialect now uses
the EN form /u:ke/.
The loss of the feminine gender in the Bergen vernacular represents a sim-
plification. For example, ‘cow’ (fem. in all other varieties of Norwegian) and
‘ox’ (masc.) are treated the same grammatically: en ku – kuen ‘a cow – the cow’
and en okse – oksen ‘an ox – the ox’. Another simplification is the use of the
singular adjectival form for plural predicate adjectives: whereas other Norwe-
gian dialects use plural -e, as in di e store ‘they are big’, the Bergen vernacular
has the singular form, di e stor.
In Nesse (2002), five Bergen dialect features were chosen for closer scruti-
ny. The questions asked were: how can these features be traced in the written
sources over time, and could language contact with Low German account for
the development of these features?
76 Agnete Nesse
Loss of the feminine gender

Both Standard Danish and Standard Swedish merge the masculine and femi-
nine gender, and since Norwegian Bokmål is based partly on Standard Danish
and partly on (east) Norwegian dialects, the use of only two genders is also fre-
quent in written Norwegian. Therefore this Bergen dialect feature is often re-
garded as standard, and its sociolinguistic associations are very different from
other dialect features. There is an important difference between the Danish/
Bokmål and Bergen mergers, however, if, like Corbett (1991), we choose to
look not only at phrase-internal but also phrase-external matters concerning
gender.
In both Danish and Bokmål, the merger has resulted in a common gender,
and inanimate1 nouns are referred to by the common pronoun den, as opposed
to the normal Norwegian dialect system where feminine nouns take ho (‘she’)
and masculine nouns han (‘he’). In Bergen, however, all inanimate nouns that
are non-neuter are referred to by han. Only when the pronoun is stressed is den
obligatory. Therefore, the best way to analyse the merger between masculine
and feminine gender in the different varieties is to say that the Bergen system
has neuter and masculine gender, whereas the Danish/Bokmål system has neu-
ter and common gender (Nesse 2005 gives a broader view of the different Nor-
wegian gender systems). The differences between Bergen and Danish have to
do with the dialect situation at the time of the merger. In Zealand, den was al-
ready replacing ho/han as the pronoun of reference (Pedersen 1999), while in
West Norwegian the system using ho and han was still common when the
merger took place. In other WN dialects, that still has three grammatical gen-
ders, ho and han are still used, even though den has become more frequent dur-
ing the 20th century.
The loss of the feminine gender in Scandinavian varieties involves several
factors. One is that masculine is the default gender, another is that neuter is the
most marked gender, so it is less likely that the neuter would be merged with
the masculine. Today, it is held that the best explanation for the loss of the
feminine gender is that even if language-internal factors explain the form the
merger took, the fact that a merger took place in certain Scandinavian varieties
is due to language contact with Low German from the Late Middle Ages on-
wards (Pedersen 1999; Jahr 1999; Nesse 2002, 2005, Enger 2011).
Language contact situations where one or more of the varieties involved has
grammatical gender will in most cases lead to changes in the gender systems –
or at least in the realisation of the gender system (Weinreich 1953; Unterbeck
et al. 2000). The reason behind this is obvious: gender is to a large extent re-
dundant, and in most cases communication will not be hampered if a speaker
uses the wrong gender for a noun. In an adult language learning situation,
energy will be spent on other, less redundant language features.
The different situations where a Scandinavian variety has been in contact
1
Most animals also belong to the inanimate group in these varieties.
with another language or languages – with the immigrant languages in the

USA, the Finno-Ugric languages in Norway, Sweden and Finland, or with Ger-
man – have all led to alterations in the gender system (Haugen 1953; Jahr 1984;
Bull et al. 1986; Sandström 2000). The actual outcome depends on the varieties
in contact, but the fact that these changes happen is a result of contact as such.
The Low German that was used in Bergen from the 14th until the 18th century
had three grammatical genders, but the realisations were not as distinct from
one another as was the case with Middle Low German in the 13th century. For
example, the masculine definite article der and the feminine definite article die
had merged to de, and the masculine and neuter case endings were practically
identical, which was also the situation in the Middle Low German described by
Lasch (1914).
In non-nominative cases, -en was a frequent ending in Low German, and the
fact that -en was also frequent in Norwegian and used for definite singular mas-
culines may also have contributed to the loss of the feminine gender in the
Bergen vernacular. In the contact situation in Bergen, where mutual accommo-
dation was a dominant feature, any surface structure that was the same in the
two varieties in contact was favoured (see also the periphrastic genitive).
Past tense of weak verbs in -et

Weak verbs of the first declension, like kaste (‘throw’) and hoppe (‘jump’),
take -et in the past tense in the Bergen vernacular, both in the preterite and in
participle: kastet and hoppet. This dialect feature is sociolinguistically marked,
like the merger between feminine and masculine gender. Most Norwegian dia-
lects have the ending -a in the past for first declension verbs, but -et is the most
common ending in Bokmål (-a is possible but not frequently used), and thus -et
is regarded as ‘standard’ and not ‘dialect’. As Jahr (1999, p. 127) has shown,
the fact that Bokmål and the Bergen dialect have identical endings for this class
of verbs is the result of two separate processes that accidentally led to the same
result: in Bergen because of contact between Norwegian and Low German, and
in Bokmål because of contact between Norwegian and Danish.
There is no variety of Norwegian in which the preterite and past participle
endings for this verb group are different, in contrast to in Danish, where the
preterite is -ede and the past participle is -et. During the period when Danish
was used in writing in Norway, failing to master this distinction was one of the
most frequent mistakes made by Norwegian writers. Low German had a system
identical to the Danish one, with different endings for the preterite and past par-
ticiple. There are exceptions to this, since dialects of Low German both on the
Danish and the German side of the border have apocope, and in some of these
varieties -ede is reduced to -ed or -et as a result of “Auslautverhärtung” (Braun-
müller 2003, p. 211). In the latter case, the Low German system was identical
to the one emerging in Bergen.
The important factor is that while Norwegian has had a system where the
78 Agnete Nesse
two forms are identical, most Danish and Low German dialects have had a sys-
tem with two different endings. It can be questioned, however, whether the
Norwegian system with one ending had come into use during the Hansa contact
period in Bergen; earlier, Norwegian had a system similar to that in Germany
and Denmark, with -aði and -it as frequent realisations of the preterite and the
past participle, respectively. The fact still remains that the only two varieties of
Norwegian where the endings -et evolved are the only ones that are the result
of contact between Norwegian and Danish/Low German.
In the matter of verbs, it might be expected that language contact in Bergen
would lead to an increase in regular verbs at the expense of irregular verbs. As
will be shown in the section on the social conditions in Bergen, this contact was
not very intense, even though it lasted for a long time. A more intense contact
situation might have led to more changes to the verb system. One feature can
be mentioned, even though it only concerns very few verbs.These are verbs that
have two syntactic forms: one that takes a direct object and one that does not.
Other Norwegian varieties distinguish between sitte (without an object) and
sette (with an object), and between ligge (without an object) and legge (with an
object): Jeg sitter (‘I sit’) / Jeg setter meg ned (‘I sit down’, literally ‘I sit my-
self down’). In the Bergen vernacular, the system is simplified: sitte and ligge
are used in both functions – eg sittar meg ner (‘I sit down’), eg liggar ongene
klokken syv (‘I put the children to bed at seven’). Whether this simplification in
the system of the vernacular is due to contact with Low German or whether it
is due to dialect contact between different Norwegian varieties in the city has
not yet been examined, but both explanations are theoretically possible.
Periphrastic genitive
The periphrastic genitive, which uses the reflexive pronouns sin (masc.), sitt
(neutr.) and sine (plural), is, as far as I know, the only feature from the Bergen
vernacular that has spread to most of Norway. In contrast to the features dis-
cussed above, it has not been considered proper in writing, but today we see an
increased use of it in Nynorsk as well as in Bokmål, probably due to the fact
that during the 20th century this feature spread to the prestigious East Norwe-
gian dialects. Before that, this genitive was mostly used in West and North Nor-
wegian, areas where Bergen – and the Bergen dialect – had an influence. Its
origin in Bergen has not been disputed, nor has the fact that the construction
was influenced by Low German. But what recent research has discovered is
that the Norwegian periphrastic genitive is not a loan translation, but rather can
be seen as a regrammaticalisation based on homophony, and that during the
first centuries of its existence in the Bergen dialect, this variant had to compete
with a loan translation which is now obsolete in Norwegian.
The German periphrastic genitive construction often includes a dative, but
this will not be discussed here, since it is of less importance to the Norwegian
development, and since the written sources from Bergen show that this was not
obligatory in Bergen German. What is important is the fact that the Low Ger-
man variant uses the personal pronouns sin (masc.), ehr (fem.) and ehr (plural).
It is also important that the choice of pronoun is dependent on the possessor,
and the pronoun ending is dependent on the possessed noun: Jochum is Clamer
sin borge (‘Jochum is Clamer’s witness). Here, the masculine sin is used be-
cause Jocum is a man.
When this construction was translated into Norwegian, the result was ex-
pressions like de theydske derris fremganng2 (‘the Germans’ prosperity’),
where the personal pronoun deres (plural) agrees with the plural possessor.
This construction was also used in Danish, and we can regard its occurrence in
Norwegian texts as an influence from the Danish written language.
The construction that survived in spoken Norwegian however, is less often
found in the written sources. An early example is from a diary from 1562:
Jacob Christiernson sine vidnesbyrd (‘Jacob Christiernson’s confessions)
(Iversen 1963, p. 16). Here we see that instead of the personal pronoun hans,
the author used the reflexive pronoun sin. In the Norwegian construction, the
choice of pronoun is dependent on the possessed noun, yielding sentences like
1–3.
1) Jacob Christiernson (masc.) sin (masc.) bror (masc.) (‘J. C.’s brother’)
2) Jacob Christiernson (masc.) sitt (neutr.) hus (neutr.) (‘J. C.’s house’)
3) Jacob Christiernson (masc.) sine (plural) brødre (plural) (‘J. C.’s broth-
ers’).
When trying to explain why this construction survived instead of the “correct”
translated construction, we must look at the sociolinguistic conditions in
Bergen at the time when both constructions were in use. The vast majority of
those speaking German in Bergen were men, and when they talked about who
owned what and who backed whom, they were talking about men (Nesse 1998,
2002). The Low German construction was therefore usually used in its mascu-
line form, involving the personal pronoun sin. This pronoun was homophonous
with the Norwegian reflexive (masc.) pronoun sin. It is therefore likely that the
people of Bergen, who heard Low German more often than they read Danish
(since very few of them could read), adapted the word sin to form a new geni-
tive pattern. This construction provides good evidence of how a “change from
below” (Elspass et al. 2007) can succeed at the expense of a “change from
above” (the loan translation).
Declension of names
In Norwegian dialects in most parts of the country, there is a way of signalling
whether a person is known or unknown to the interlocutors. The most common
2
From Bergen Fundas (unknown author), written during the second half of the 16th century in
Bergen (Sørlie 1957, p. 47).
80 Agnete Nesse
way is to do this by placing a personal pronoun in front of the name. In example

4, at least one of the interlocutors is not familiar with who Grete is, whereas in
example 5, Grete is known to all:
4) en som heter Grete blir med (‘one called Grete comes along’).
5) a Grete blir med (East Norwegian) / ho Grete blir med (North Norwe-
gian) (‘she Grete comes along’).
The form a which is used in EN stems from an older accusative form hana
(‘her’), while the North Norwegian ho (‘she’) stems from an older nominative
form hon which is now used in all syntactic functions.
In Bergen, however, the second sentence would be realised as 6:
6) Greten blir med.
The name Grete (fem.) is declined here in the same way as all masculine
nouns and takes the ending -(e)n in the definite singular: bil – bilen (‘car’ –
‘the car’), flaske – flasken (‘bottle’ – ‘the bottle’). Both female and male first
names can be declined in this way, but when it comes to surnames, usually
only men are referred to with their surname in its definite form. Thus for sib-
lings called Grete Friele and Hans Friele, both Greten and Hansen would be
used, but only Hans would be called Frielen.3 This may have changed, how-
ever, with women being more likely to keep the same surname throughout
their lives. On the other hand, surnames are used less than was common some
generations ago. An investigation into the sociolinguistic distribution of the
current use of declined names in Bergen is called for, concerning both who
is more likely to use this feature and who is more likely to be referred to in
this way.
Names are also usually declined in German, as in most Norwegian dialects,
by placing a pronoun in front of the name: die Grete, der Hans. So the excep-
tional way of declining names in Bergen is not due to direct influence from
Low German and must be explained differently.
The Low German diminutive suffix -ken has been investigated as an expla-
nation, and if it had not been for the sociolinguistic circumstances in bilingual
Bergen, this might have proved fruitful. But since German-speaking families
were not common in Bergen (Nesse 2007), there were neither children nor
wives to address with the diminutive. One could say that the idea that the di-
minutive form of first names was used among the Hanseatic merchants at
Bryggen is as strange as the thought that these forms were common at a military
camp.
Therefore, it seems more likely that the way names are declined in the
Bergen vernacular must be seen as an example of linguistic simplification. In-
stead of dividing singular nouns into two groups as is done in other Norwegian
3
Pronounced /fʁi:ḷ/ as opposed to indefinite /fʁi:lə/.
dialects, distinguishing between bil – bilen and Grete – ho Grete, the system in
Bergen contains only one noun group: bil – bilen and Grete – Greten. This re-
sult is very typical of language contact situations.
However, this is not a language feature that is often found in the written
sources, so it is not easy to discover when forms like Greten and Hansen were
first used in Bergen. There are, however, many examples of occupational titles
used instead of a person’s name, and these nouns are of course used in the
definite as well as in the indefinite form. There is a possibility that the habit of
calling a man Glassmakeren (‘the glass maker’) and Snekkeren (‘the carpen-
ter’) instead of or in addition to their actual names eased the transfer to forms
like Hansen, and later also Greten.
The infinitive marker te

The dialect features discussed above are all still in everyday use in the Bergen
dialect, even though, as mentioned above, not all Bergen speakers will use the
definite form of names. The last feature discussed in this section, however, is
on the verge of becoming obsolete, but its use in earlier stages of the dialect is
known from the very thorough description of the dialect of Bergen from 1911–
1912 (Larsen & Stoltz).
In several Germanic languages, the infinitive marker is homophonous with
a preposition: English has to, German has zu and the Low German used in
Bergen had to. In the Scandinavian languages, the system was different: the
preposition til (often pronounced /te/) is distinct from the infinitive marker
at/å.
In Bergen, however, a system used to exist that was identical to that in the
West Germanic languages, with te used both as the infinitive marker and a
preposition. This can be analysed in a similar way to the past tense verb system
above: the system in the dialect comes from one of the varieties in contact,
while the form used comes from the other. In this case, the system of having a
homophonous infinitive marker and preposition came from Low German,
whereas the realisation – te – comes from Norwegian.
The sociolinguistic conditions

The written sources that were used to find examples of the different dialect fea-
tures through time have also been studied for their content in order to see what
they can tell us about the society and the linguistic situation in Bergen. The ex-
ternal factors that serve as a frame for the linguistic situation can be very briefly
summed up as follows (Nesse 2000a, 2002, 2003): From the 13th century on-
wards, Bergen became increasingly important to German merchants, and by
1360 a German settlement was established by the Hanseatic League in the area
82 Agnete Nesse
called Bryggen in the centre of Bergen. The Norwegian king granted the mer-
chants privileges, but their way of organising their lives in the city was to a
large degree monitored not by Norwegian but by Hanseatic authorities. The
policy was that of non-integration: Hanseatic merchants were not citizens of
Bergen and could not take part in the administration of the city, nor would the
local court handle Hanseatic matters. Only if there was a conflict between a
Norwegian and a German merchant would the local court be involved; other-
wise, the Hanseatic court at Bryggen dealt with internal conflicts, and also
some trade-related conflicts involving Germans and Norwegians (Ersland
2011, pp. 47–56). From 1408 until 1766, there were one to three German
churches in Bergen, paid for by the German merchants, and sermons were de-
livered in German. Last but not least: the Hanseatic merchants in Bergen were
required to be bachelors. Only after returning to Germany were they allowed to
marry, so Bryggen in Bergen was a society of single men, the youngest of them
only 14 years old.
The Hanseatic settlement declined from the 17th century onwards, and by
about 1750 it was no longer a reality. But the sociolinguistic patterns that de-
veloped during the height of the Hanseatic League lasted as long as there were
German immigrants in Bergen. Only after 1800 did their numbers fall rapidly,
with German apprentices being outnumbered by Norwegian at Bryggen. The
increase in the Norwegian population after 1800 meant that immigration no
longer was necessary, and for both Norwegian and German fortune seekers,
new possibilities opened up in the USA.
Due to the relative isolation of the Hanseatic merchants, primarily imposed
by the Hanseatic League but also confirmed through the privileges granted by
the Norwegian king, language contact in Bergen was never very intense. The
effect that Low German had on the local vernacular must be due to the fact that
contact lasted so long, and because there was contact between the groups in in-
formal spheres.
It seems clear that there was no need for the Germans to learn to speak or
write Norwegian – all their matters were conducted in German. It also seems
clear that the Norwegians did not have to speak German, since they never
were forced to have anything to do with the Germans. Still, we know that
need is not the sole reason for people adopting the language of another group.
Power and prestige are key concepts here; if one group is far more powerful
and/or prestigious than the other, the weaker group may have an interest in
learning to use the stronger groups’ language in order to achieve the same
power and prestige.
In Bergen, for the most of the Hanseatic period the Germans had the strong-
est economy. On the other hand, they had no political power apart from what
automatically comes with money. More importantly, they had no access to
marrying into the local elite, which at times was very strong both economically
and culturally, and was limited to a certain number of families. The few Han-
seatic merchants who broke the rules of the Hanseatic League and got involved
in the local society were quick to start to use Norwegian in some domains, even
if they continued using German as their working language.
I have called this situation one of power balance in order to explain why we
do not find sources written in the “other” language: those Norwegians who
could write used Norwegian (later Danish), and the Germans, by far the most
literate group, wrote in Low German (later in High German). But there is evi-
dence that the members of both groups could read the other language. Corre-
spondence between the Germans and Norwegians was bilingual, in that each
wrote his own language. It is also striking to see that in “neighbours’ books”
from Bryggen (presented below), the different authors wrote in the language
they felt most comfortable with, obviously in the knowledge that choice of lan-
guage did not matter, since both languages were understood by all and regarded
as equal within this specific context.
The sociolinguistic system in Bergen thus involved receptive bilingualism,
where both Norwegian and German were understood by all people in the city.
One might wonder if a mixed code developed; the answer to this is more a mat-
ter of definition than of linguistic facts. There were great numbers of loan-
words in each direction (Nesse 2011; Brattegard 1934), and there were lexical
items that must be regarded as hybrids. In translations at the time, we see that
the similarity of the two languages is made use of extensively in order to render
the translation as accurately as possible. I have not wished to call the language
‘mixed’, however, first of all because there are no instances where there is any
doubt whether the author is writing Norwegian/Danish or a variety of German.
Second, I have found no instances of code switching in the stricter sense of the
word; that is, there are no instances where we see a change of language during
a text or during a sentence. Within Meyer Scottons’ (2006) framework, how-
ever, where the term ‘code switching’ is also used when a loan word is “em-
bedded” in the dominant language, it would be possible to argue that code
switching is found in the written material from Bergen.
If we look at the relationship between Norwegian and Danish on the one
hand and between Low and High German on the other, the situation is very dif-
ferent. The Danish written in Norway was always to some extent marked by the
Norwegian dialect of the writer, and Low German interference is common in
the sources written in High German. So one could certainly find examples of
mixed code from Bergen, which is not peculiar. Whereas our sources tell us
that the inhabitants of Bergen indeed viewed Norwegian and German as two
separate languages, and that which language you used determined which group
you belonged to and thus which privileges you held, the differences between
varieties of Norwegian and Danish, and between Low and High German, were
not considered important. The term ‘Danish’ was used for both Norwegian and
Danish, and the different German varieties were simply called ‘German’ (see
Nesse 2002, pp. 96–104 for examples of what the different varieties were
called).
84 Agnete Nesse
The textual approach

Introduction
The texts in Norwegian, Danish, Low German and High German from the pe-
riod 1350–1936 that I have been working with are not only valuable sources for
linguistic examples and an understanding of the society where these languages
were used. They are also historical documents that give insights into text types,
literacy and writing skills for the period in question. Most of these texts are un-
published. In addition, most of them only exist in one copy, either as an original
or a copy. Most of the texts are dated, and the author is known. The authors are,
with extremely few exceptions, men, and most of them are merchants, though
texts by priests and other scholars also do occur.
Today these manuscripts are situated in four different archives: the city ar-
chive of Lübeck, the Royal Danish Library, the library of the University of
Bergen, and the city archive of Bergen. Those that have been published were
for the most part published between 1850 and 1900 by Norwegian historians.
This means that attention must be paid not only to the texts themselves, but also
to the way they were edited and published.
Translations
Unsurprisingly, since Bergen was a bilingual city, not many translations be-
tween Norwegian/Danish and German were carried out. There were, of course,
numerous translations from German into Danish made in Denmark, and these
were also disseminated in Norway, but it is not known whether these transla-
tions were used in Bergen, and they will therefore not be discussed here. I will
concentrate on the two major works of translation that were carried out in
Bergen. Why were these translations made, and what can they tell us about the
languages in contact?
The first is a group of real estate documents that were translated from Nor-
wegian into Low German in the 1550s (Nesse 2008, 2009, 2010). The original
papers have been lost, so what we have are copies of the Norwegian docu-
ments, written by the same hand as the translations. From the handwriting it is
possible to suggest that the writer (and translator?) was the secretary of the
Hanseatic settlement in Bergen (Bruns 1939, pp. 54–55 gives handwriting
samples for all the secretaries). At the time, there was a threat of increased pay-
ments for property that the Germans rented in Bergen. There may thus be two
reasons why the translations were needed under these circumstances. One is
that some of the original documents were written in an older form of Norwe-
gian, and we have evidence from other sources that this was difficult for the
Germans to read. More important was the fact that the increased payment might
have led to a major conflict, and the Hanseatic authorities in Lübeck, who did
not necessarily read Norwegian, might have become involved. Thus there were
juridical reasons to have these translations.
We suppose, then, that the translator was German. One interesting fact is
that the Norwegian documents have many more abbreviations than the Ger-
man. The translator may have felt uncertain about Norwegian grammar, espe-
cially if it was an older stage of the language than the one he knew from the
streets of Bergen and contemporary writing, and this may be why he chose to
leave out parts of the Norwegian words. Even more extraordinary is the like-
ness in syntax between the two versions. In two of the documents, the word or-
der has not been changed at all! This was possible since both languages had
more flexible syntax than their modern versions have, especially when it comes
to the position of the auxiliary. Still, it is very clear that the translations were
kept as close to the original as possible to avoid any dispute due to deviant for-
mulations.
In contrast to this is the other major translation, which was of Bergen Fun-
das, the first historical record of Bergen. It was written in Dano-Norwegian
in the 1550s in Bergen, and the first translations were made before 1600.
Bergen Fundas exists in 22 different manuscripts, half in Dano-Norwegian
and half in German. There are two Dano-Norwegian editions (Nicolaysen
1858 and Sørlie 1958) and one edition of the German translation (appendix
to Nesse 2002). The aim of the German translation was not to ensure legal
accuracy, and the differences between the language of the Dano-Norwegian
and German versions are much greater than in the translated real estate
documents discussed above. All but one of the German manuscripts are now
in Denmark, and that may not be a coincidence: the translations may have
been made not for the Hanseatic merchants in Bergen but for the German-
speaking elite of Denmark.
All the Dano-Norwegian manuscripts of Bergen Fundas end with the dis-
pute between the Hanseatic merchants and Christoffer Valckendorff, the
King’s representative in Bergen between 1556–1560. The German manu-
scripts, however, continued to be updated after this; the last copy must have
been made as late as 1670, because the history continues up to that date. It was
quite common for scribes to feel free to add important facts up until their own
time, but it is not easy to explain why only the German scribes did this. As we
shall see below, this has led to quite curious editing of Bergen Fundas.
Texts in German
My studies of Norwegian and German in Bergen have all been carried out with-
in the frame of Norwegian language history. That is to say, the German lan-
guage as such was not investigated apart from what it could say about the lan-
guage contact situation (loanwords, translations, some grammatical construc-
tions). The two German texts presented here, are very different from one an-
other, and the way they have been edited and published show us how
differently they have been regarded as historical documents.
86 Agnete Nesse
A dialogue from the 15th century

A dialogue often referred to as “de dudesche unde de norman” is structured as
a conversation between a German merchant and a Norwegian in Bergen. The
text is based on a charter issued by King Kristoffer in 1444 (Taranger 1912,
p. 251), but where the charter simply states what the Germans may and may not
do, the dialogue is constructed so that the Norwegian makes accusations
against the merchant, and the merchant defends himself. The background for
the charter lies in several letters of complaint by both German merchants and
Norwegians regarding their co-existence in Bergen.
The dialogue is believed to have been written in Lübeck between 1512 and
1538 (Bruns 1901, p. 142). It stands in a long tradition of using dialogues as
didactic and exemplar texts. But in spite of what has been claimed, for example
by Nielsen (1877, p. 34), this text is more balanced than other such texts: it is
not evident whether it is the merchant or the Norwegian who deserves the sym-
pathy of the reader. Linguistically, it is interesting to see which Norwegian loan
words are used. There are quite a few of them, and all are of legal importance
in this specific context, like oltap (‘beer tap’). There was, of course, a German
word corresponding to this,4 but since the selling of beer was regulated in
Bergen and there was a dispute surrounding it, the Norwegian technical term
was chosen.
This text exists in only one manuscript, but it was published three times be-
tween 1877 and 1912. The editions are quite similar to one another, and for the
most part are accurate. A thorough comparison between the charter and the
dialogue could probably shed new light not only on the conflicts in Bergen at
the time, but also on the accommodation between Norwegian and Low Ger-
man. A Norwegian translation has been carried out, but is not yet published. In
time it will provide interesting information, especially to historians.
Politics, religion and astronomy

The other German text worth mentioning here is about one hundred years
younger than the dialogue, written at the end of the 16th century in Bergen. It
exists in several manuscripts, but has not yet been published in full. An abbre-
viated version translated into Danish was published by Nicolaysen (1868), but
it fails to give a full picture of this very remarkable text. It is called Die norsche
saw (‘the Norwegian sow’), even though the pig is not central in the book. But
the sow serves to depict the decadence that, according to the unknown author,
was typical of Bergen at the time. In addition, a Norwegian poem from 1583
about a monster pig born in Akershus near Oslo is quoted in the text.
Politically, the text is interesting in its harsh criticism of the exploitation of
Norwegian fishermen and farmers. Because of this treatment, it is claimed,
4
In fact, King Kristoffer’s charter uses the term bior tapp. This means that the author of the dia-
logue either had more sources than this charter for the dialogue, or that he knew the Bergen Ger-
man variety well and knew that oltap was the word commonly used in the city.
they will never become free to use their potential, and the country will remain
poor. As well as Norwegian and Danish officials, the German merchants are
criticised. There is not much religious tolerance evident in the text; it expresses
an intense hatred towards non-Lutherans, especially Catholics and anabaptists.
The decadence of Bergen society is criticised, and the immoral behaviour of
several “good” citizens is mentioned, but their names are written in code. As
was quite common at the time, astronomy was closely tied to religious beliefs.
Sky formations and the like were interpreted as God’s signs to men, and many
pages of the text are filled with such speculations.
Dialogue is also used in this text to make certain issues clearer. But the di-
dactical form that dominates the text is one often used in religious texts, namely
a parable followed by an explanation. A more suitable title for the text would
be “the Norwegian hen-basket”, since the Norwegians are compared to hens
trapped in a basket instead of being free-range. The author used different
breeds of chicken to illustrate the different social classes of the society.
Linguistically, the text is interesting mainly because of the type of German
it employs, which can be described as High German with many Low German
elements in it. For a study of the history of Norwegian, the most interesting as-
pect is the poem about the monster pig, which is quoted in Norwegian and not
translated into German. Thus the author must have written the book for bilin-
gual readers. This poem is, as far as I know, the only example we have of writ-
ten Norwegian with heavy German interference. The writer must have known
the poem orally and wrote it down using his – German – spelling rules, varied
as they were. Furthermore, the different scribes who copied the text chose dif-
ferent solutions when spelling the Norwegian words of the poem, giving us an
idea of how they perceived spoken Norwegian (Nesse 2009, pp. 124–126).
Finally, one can ask why a text that is so critical of the Hanseatic League
came to be written by a German in Bergen. Wouldn’t the Germans stick to-
gether? Probably not. Only those belonging to the Hanseatic League had the
special privileges – and limitations – of Bryggen society bestowed on them.
Germans who were not part of this were treated as other foreigners were, Eng-
lishmen, the Dutch, etc. Furthermore, Hanseatic merchants who chose to leave
the League were punished severely, and this of course might create bad feelings
towards Hanseatic society. This means that in this mixed city, it was possible
to be a Norwegian patriot in the German language.
Texts in Norwegian
Most of the texts that form the basis for the different studies of Norwegian and
German in Bergen are written in Norwegian or Danish, or any conceivable
mixture of the two varieties. From the oldest period we have mostly charters,
while later on we find letters, laws, books, book keeping accounts and other
kinds of texts. There are four texts that should be mentioned here, since they
have been used more extensively than the others.
88 Agnete Nesse
History
Bergen Fundas, mentioned above, is the first history of a city that was written
in Norway. It has been seen as a product of the so-called Bergen humanists,
who were a group gathered around the king’s representative at the castle of
Bergen. But it might also be seen as evidence that a self-conscious bourgeoisie
was evolving in Bergen, a group of people who had their identity tied to their
trade and to their city, as much as to their king and their church.
It is written in the Dano-Norwegian so typical of the 16th century, a variety
that is as Norwegian as it is Danish, and marked by an extensive variation in
spelling. The history of Bergen is described from the time when the area that
later became the city was pasture land, and starts with a magic tale: One day
the shepherds heard strange sounds, as if many people were speaking, and
when they told their master of this, he prophesised that a rich and mighty city
would arise on the pasture land. It is not mentioned that this was a message
from God, but there is a clear resemblance to texts like die norsche saw and Ab-
salon’s diary.
Absalon’s diary
The diary of the priest and teacher Absalon Pederssøn is one of the best-known
Norwegian texts from the 16th century. The language resembles that of Bergen
Fundas, but large parts of the diary are written in Latin, whereas Bergen Fun-
das does not contain Latin. The use of Latin in Bergen during the Hanseatic era
has not been investigated, apart from some observations of code shifting in let-
ters written by Absalon’s mentor, the bishop Geble Pederssøn (Nesse 2009).
Analysing the entries in order to find out why Absalon chose which language
would probably yield insights about how Latin was perceived. It would be in-
teresting to see how the bilingual priest used the two languages, if his bilingual-
ism was complementary in that some of the expressions related to religion only
existed for him in Latin.
Since the diary to some degree is concentrated around Absalon’s life, it is a
very valuable source of knowledge about social patterns in informal life in
Bergen. He lists the different people who were invited to baptisms and wed-
dings, and he is the most cited source when it comes to contact between the
Hanseatic merchants and the Norwegians, at least for the upper social layers of
both groups.
Court protocols from the 1590s and the 1660s

The two oldest court protocols from Norwegian Bergen were written in the
1590s and 1660s. When reading them, the separation between Norwegian and
German society in Bergen really springs to mind. The pages are as good as
empty of German merchants; if one read only these books, one would think this
was a pure Norwegian city. The reverse case holds for the court protocols from
Bryggen, which will not be mentioned here.
The content of the two Norwegian protocols is similar, apart from the great
number of witch trials in the older protocol, which is absent from the younger
one. Linguistically, we can see how much the written language changed from
the 16th to the 17th century. In the latter, there is still much variation, but it is
within a narrower range, is less influenced by Norwegian dialect, and is more
in line with written Danish; it is still not codified as a fixed norm, but it is on
its way.
In these protocols, all kinds of people appear, with their names, occupations
and their disputes listed. Women are present to a much larger degree than in
other sources; they dominate the witch trials, both as the accused and as wit-
nesses, but also in other cases they stand up as witnesses, bypassers or accusers.
And since it was important to state exactly what people said in court, the pro-
tocols have many quotations that, even though they are not written in anything
like pure dialect, at least when it comes to vocabulary and partly when it comes
to syntax, give an idea of what the spoken language of the people was like.
Texts in both languages

When studying language contact, texts that display examples of the different
varieties in context are of great importance for understanding the kind of bi- or
multilingualism in the community in question. From Bryggen in Bergen we
have a large corpus of “neighbours’ books” (Nesse 2012a), consisting of about
20 books from 10 different housing complexes. In these books, everything re-
lated to life in the housing complex was recorded – from the very practical di-
vision of payment for the upkeep of the buildings, fire protection and taxes, to
rules for behaviour (when and where smoking was allowed, church duties), and
last but not least records of employment. The oldest of these books starts in
1529, and the last ends in 1936. During this period, the language of the books
changes first from Low German to High German, then from High German to
Danish, and finally from Danish to Norwegian. All the writers are merchants
with varying levels of education, and the writing skills range from very basic
to rather elaborate.
The three language shifts that these books display show us that the gradual
shift from one variety to another took place in different ways. The first shift,
from Low to High German, occurred during the 17th century, and can be de-
scribed as a gradual process where more and more High German elements were
introduced, until around 1700 we find that there are few Low German elements
left in the written language. The secretaries of the Hanseatic settlement in
Bergen, most of whom held a law degree from a German university, wrote
High German in all external correspondence from 1580 onward. However, in
texts meant for internal use the same secretaries wrote Low German long after
that and they distinguished between the two written varieties. The common
merchants did not seem to have this awareness. Instead, they mixed the two:
Low German lexical items like ik and dat are replaced by High German forms
90 Agnete Nesse
ich and dass, but the grammar remains Low German. For example, the Low
German merger of der (masc. nom.) and die (fem. nom.) to de results in the
writing der (nom.) in front of feminine nouns.
The change from High German to Danish took place around 1800. The first
Danish entries in the neighbours’ books dates from the 1770s, and the last Ger-
man entry is from 1820. This language shift does not involve a mixing of the
two varieties; rather, it came about because an increasing number of merchants
– after 1750 they were no longer subjects of the Hanseatic League but of
Bergen – had Norwegian as their first language and Danish as their written
code. The immigrants from Germany, however, continued to write in German
– at least in some domains – because of the tradition at Bryggen. They were not
themselves responsible for Bergen bilingualism, but they came to a city where
this bilingualism was well established and profited from it. This established
pattern may, of course, have been one of the reasons immigration lasted so long
after the Hanseatic League faded away, since it made the move easier for both
young apprentices and adult merchants.
But even though the German immigrants of the 18th and 19th centuries wrote
in German in the neighbours’ books and in their private diaries, they must have
learned Norwegian/Danish in order to join the various social and formal or-
ganisations of the city. In these settings, all writing was in Danish only. An ex-
ample is provided in the minutes from the shooting association of Bergen,
which had many German merchants as members, where everything was written
in Danish.
The final change from Danish to Norwegian occurred around 1900. Like the
switch from Low to High German, it happened through mixing, but with one
large difference: while those who altered their written code from Low to High
German still spoke Low German and thus started writing in a variety different
from their spoken dialect, those who switched their written code from Danish
to Norwegian all spoke Norwegian and thus began writing in a variety more
similar to the one they spoke.
The neighbours’ books can be regarded as semi-private writing; they were
not written for publication or archives, but rather were intended to be read by a
group of ordinary people who shared responsibility for a group of buildings.
Whether these people were subjects of the Hanseatic League or the Danish,
Swedish or Norwegian king did not really make a difference to the way this ma-
terial was written. The texts remained remarkably stable through the centuries,
which makes them excellent sources for diachronic research, whether on lin-
guistics or history. The reason why the books ceased to be produced in the
1930s is partly due to the invention of the typewriter, but most of all because
of a change in the way the ownership of such buildings was organised. If only
one man owned the whole housing complex, the need for a book that each
owner wrote in and signed no longer existed.
Editorial practices
The texts that form the basis for all the different studies, apart from one, were
not printed in their time. Those that have been edited and published were
worked on several centuries after they were written. The others remain as
hand-written manuscripts. This has significance, of course, for the choice of
methodology, and most likely for the outcome of the studies. Working with
hand-written material is time-consuming, but on the other hand, what you read
is what was written, and not the interpretation of an editor.
Both during attempts to edit hand-written material (Nesse 2002, 2008,
2009) and while working with editions produced by others, the question of how
editing should be done has arisen. There is a large literature on this (Nesse
2012b), and different scholars have different views. Linguists have different
needs from those of historians, even though historians may also end up reading
a document in the wrong way if a comma is put in the wrong place. Ersland
(2011, p. 18) shows, for example, that an editor’s insertion of a comma has led
to a false understanding of where the market place in Bergen was situated in
the 1500s.
When the language of the original text, as in the case of Low German, is not
known to the potential readers – Norwegian historians and linguists – the chal-
lenge is of a different type than questions concerning punctuation and capital
letters. The issue of translation comes up, and whether the translation should be
published on its own or along with the original version. A change in research
questions leads to different requirements from the editing process. Solutions
that seemed correct 150 years ago can now create more misunderstandings than
the editor could imagine. The editions of Bergen Fundas by Nicolaysen (1858,
1868) can serve as a brief example.
The Norwegian version of Bergen Fundas was published in 1858. As men-
tioned above, all the Norwegian manuscripts end in the 1550s, and so does the
edited version. The German translation was not considered important enough
to publish at the time, apart from the expansions from 1550–1670. These exist-
ed only in the German versions, and since they contained information about
Bergen society that could be found only in these German texts, they needed to
be published. But how? The solution was to translate them into Danish and give
them a separate name: Mikjel Hofnagels optegnelser (‘the records of Mikjel
Hofnagel’). Modern readers who do not pay special attention to the footnotes
will believe that this was a text written in Danish by a man called Mikjel
Hofnagel, and indeed, many writing about the history of Bergen have done so,
and quoted the imaginary Hofnagel in pure Danish. This is unfortunate, but the
choice made in 1868 can be understood in light of the importance of keeping
the original Bergen Fundas “clean” – only the core text deserved to go by that
name. Still, the editions from the 1800s are valuable to us in many ways, even
if they need to be used with care.
92 Agnete Nesse
Concluding remarks
Applying theoretical and methodological tools from different disciplines has
been fruitful in investigating the bilingual language history of Bergen. At the
same time, it will be evident that the wide scope that has given a very good
overall view of the linguistic situation is not the only possible approach. To
choose one specific corpus and have it digitalised in order to carry out quanti-
tative analyses is a possibility that clearly would make important data access-
ible to further interpretation. I have done this only to a very limited degree
(Nesse 2002, pp. 206–210), and more of this kind of work would be welcomed.
At the other end of the methodological scale, it is clear that more editions of the
existing material are needed in order to involve other researchers in the field of
the linguistic and textual history of Norway. The texts from Bergen influenced
other places in Norway, especially in the west and the north, and these texts
should be made available to those who do not have the time or the skills to work
with the handwritten manuscripts in the different language varieties used in the
city.
The research field of language contact in Bergen over the ages is wide, and
there are many tasks still to attend to. Most critical in my view is to reopen the
investigations of German that were started in the works of Olav Brattegard in
the 1930s and 1940s. A sociolinguistic approach to the German language of
Bergen, compared to the language in the northern part of Germany, could give
further insights not only into the Bergen German language as such, but also into
language contact between Norwegian and German.
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Taranger, Absalon (ed.), 1912: Norges gamle love, 2. rekke, 1388–1604 a Tekst. Chris-
tiania [Oslo].
Unterbeck, Barbara, Rissanen, Matti, Nevalainen, Terttu & Saari, Mirja (eds.), 2000:
Gender in grammar and cognition. Berlin/New York.
Weinreich, Uriel, 1953: Languages in contact. Findings and problems. New York/The
Hague.
Semi-communication and beyond 95
Semi-communication and beyond: some

results of the Hamburg Hanseatic Project
(1990–1995)
Kurt Braunmüller, University of Hamburg
Introduction
At the beginning of the 1980s, researchers once again became more interested
in how the Mainland Scandinavian languages were influenced by the impact of
(Middle) Low German, the language of the Hanseatic League. But the focus of
interest in language contact was still primarily on the lexical loans from Low
German and sometimes on the borrowed word-formation patterns as well (see
Ureland (ed.) 1987). Both of these aspects were quite obvious and could hardly
be overlooked (cf. the survey in Törnqvist 1977 for Swedish). Structural, gram-
matical or typological investigations in general were, however, rare or absent,
though they are crucial for any deeper understanding of the development and
typological restructuring of the Mainland Scandinavian languages.
In Copenhagen in 1987, I presented for the first time an outline of my ideas,
which were published two years later in the proceedings (Braunmüller 1989).
In the section entitled “Semikommunikation in Skandinavien und im Ostsee-
raum zur Zeit der Hanse?” [Semi-communication in Scandinavia and in the
Baltic during the time of the Hansa?], I suggested a new research project, the
main purpose of which was to investigate the hypothesis that there was a form
of communication in the late Middle Ages similar to the way people in the
Mainland Scandinavian countries communicate with each other today, a phe-
nomenon which has been called ‘semi-communication’ (see Haugen 1966).
This term is quite misleading, however, at least for native speakers of English,
since it supposes that one is only able to understand half of what has been said.
In fact, it actually means ‘receptive multilingualism’, and can be traced back to
a short dictum in Hockett’s popular introduction to structural linguistics in the
1950s and 1960s (retrieved again by Börestam Uhlmann 1997, p. 240f.). The
misleading term ‘semi-communication’ should therefore, in principle, be re-
placed by the more appropriate term ‘semi-bilingualism’:
Among educated Danes and Norwegians, however, communication is quite unim-
peded: each speaks his own personal variety of his own language, but has learned by
experience to understand the speech pattern of the others. The result may be called
semi-bilingualism: receptive bilingualism accompanying productive monolingual-
ism. (Hockett 1958, p. 327.)
96 Kurt Braunmüller
Haugen (1966) himself, however, speaks rather vaguely of some ‘code noise’
for the divergence between speakers of different varieties. But the term ‘code
noise’ is not at all clear, nor does it cover the fact that the linguistic codes in-
volved must be genetically more or less closely related, which is indispensable
for any proper treatment of the linguistic situation in Scandinavia. Attitudes
and other social factors did not get the attention they deserved either.
One may also view this kind of direct communication between speakers of
genetically related codes as an interdialectal form of communication which is
quite common between speakers of varieties within the same linguistic ‘diasys-
tem’ (a term coined by Uriel Weinreich in 1954). If one takes this point of view,
one has to disregard the fact that the northern and western Baltic Sea languages,
Old Danish, Old Swedish and Middle Low German, were considered Ausbau
languages – which they actually are, to use Heinz Kloss’ term (cf. Kloss 1975)
– but rather consider them mutually intelligible varieties that are part of an
over-arching (pan-Baltic) diasystem, and not as national languages in their own
right. Old Norwegian and its dialects belong to this scenario as well, but cannot
be considered languages/varieties of the Baltic area in the strict sense of this
term.
The hypothesis that ‘semi-communication’ was possible between the pan-
Baltic varieties and beyond (in Norway) in the Middle Ages later became the
starting point for a smaller research project, financed by the German Research
Foundation (DFG) in the years 1990–1995. The three researchers were Dr Wil-
ly Diercks (full-time), a specialist in the history of Low German (and a native
speaker of this language himself), Gabriela Niepage (part-time), who had
worked before with Middle Low German texts from a philological point of
view at the University of Hamburg, and myself (part-time) as the principal in-
vestigator with expertise in the history of the Scandinavian languages, plus as-
sistance from students in the Scandinavian Department. Unlike other on-going
research projects in Scandinavia and Germany, our main focus was on socio-
linguistics and contact linguistics, and not on the philological aspects of text
analyses or on lexical borrowing from Low German as such. Moreover, our
project was the first one which used the new personal computer technology
wherever possible, and a (former) student, Per Warter, developed a special
morphological parsing programme called MANAL (see the bibliography for
further references). With this programme it was, at least in part, possible to
analyse morphological items of the target language using an algorithm (origi-
nally) developed for the source language, e.g. using the Low German version
of MANAL for an analysis of Danish or Swedish word structures, simulating
parts of the receptive morphological decoding process of this parent language
and thus making semi-communication understandable.
I still consider this idea a hypothesis, which became very plausible
through our research in this field but which never can be proved with absolute
certainty due to the lack of meta-linguistic data, e.g. comments on how
people communicated with each other in the (early) times of the Hanseatic
League. We only know for certain that Latin texts were translated, if neces-
sary, for those who were not able to understand this language (primarily un-
educated people). But as far as I know, there are no notes or references attest-
ing that utterances or texts in the Germanic languages were translated in Han-
seatic cities during the Middle Ages and beyond. Evidence has been found of
translations at much later times, however, when High German replaced Low
German as a medium of documentation. But this did not happen before the
second half of the 16th, and especially in the 17th century, e.g. in Bergen (see
Nesse 2010, pp. 91, 97). The reasons for this linguistic change in practice
were the substantial divergent developments of the varieties involved, both
in the dialect of the city of Bergen and in late Middle Low German, as well
as in early New High German.
The most plausible explanations for direct receptive communication in the
Baltic in the early days of the Hansa are, in my view, (1) multilingualism, in-
cluding receptive multilingualism, as a default before the age of nationalism,
(2) the omnipresence of numerous linguistic varieties (or the lack of standard-
isation) in any type of communication, and (3) the absolute desire to under-
stand each other, especially in trading situations, because only the results –
economic success – counted, and not linguistic correctness or stylistic appro-
priateness.
This hypothesis was well received within a very short time and is sometimes
mentioned without any reference, a fact which I take as a kind of a compliment
that my research hypothesis has become part of the received knowledge when
dealing with Scandinavian language history. For example, Teleman (2002, p.
29) says about the role of the German language in Sweden:
Här kan det ha funnits en tämligen utbredd tvåspråkighet eller möjligen semikommu-
nikation mellan svenska och tyska borgare. [Here one could find some rather wide-
spread bilingualism or possibly semi-communication between Swedish and German
citizens; my emphasis.]
This view has been referred to again recently and more explicitly (see Tele-
man 2010, p. 333), now with reference to Braunmüller (1993c), where the
structural/grammatical similarities between Middle Low German and the
(Mainland) Scandinavian languages have been pointed out in detail. Teleman
claims, however, that divergences in the vocabularies of the contact lan-
guages have to be considered the real hindrance to unimpeded semi-commu-
nication in the Baltic. Moreover, the spread of Low German lexical loans,
earlier mostly confined to the varieties used in trading stations and towns, has
to be seen instead as a result of the nation-building process and integration of
the dialects into the standard language over the course of the 19th century
(Teleman 2010, p. 339).
Sources and methods

Our project primarily used translations of different types of texts. The (direct)
sources for these translations were, in most cases, of Middle Low German ori-
gin but were in some cases also written in Early High German. The main mo-
tivation for proceeding in this way was to obtain valid results within a very
limited period of time (two years of funding each for a maximum of two
periods). Moreover, the working capacity of the two researchers who would do
most of the work was also limited. But why did we restrict our project to trans-
lations?
Preliminary research in the archive of Lübeck did not give us hope of find-
ing translations, code-switches or even code-mixing in the official documents
we looked at. We got the impression that all the texts in the archive were mono-
lingual, either in Latin or in Low German, and obviously did not contain traces
or paragraphs written in any Scandinavian contact language. This fact, though
not directly encouraging at first glance, fitted, however, the initial hypothesis
presented in Copenhagen in 1987, that there was no need for interpreting in
pan-Baltic communication since all the languages involved in contact were im-
mediately and directly mutually intelligible, at least for travelling professionals
such as the Hanseatic tradesmen (if not for everybody).
The translated texts selected for the projects were:
A) popular reading texts (so-called Volksbücher), all of them of southern or
central European origin, among others from the Italian Decamerone, in
their Low German versions;
B) selected Bible texts from both the Old and the New Testament. The first
text investigated was a Low German Bible translation from the year
1480, and the last ones were the first comprehensive national Bible trans-
lations, the Gustav Vasa Bible for Sweden (1541) and Christian III’s
Bible for Denmark (1550). Both translations were dependent on pre-
liminary versions of Luther’s (High German) Bible translation published
in 1545;
C) law texts, especially the town laws of Flensburg and Schleswig (Flens-
borg/Slesvig stadsret, 1284 and 1200, respectively), and The Jutish Law
Codex (Den jyske lov), but the research carried out on these law texts was
not very intense due to the lack of time;
D) another semi-religious type of text which became wide-spread in the Bal-
tic, the so-called ‘danses macabres’ (Totentänze: Des Dodes Danz [Low
Germ. source text 1489/1496] and Den gamle danske dødedans [Danish
translation 1536]).
Since the texts of (A) and (B) formed the bulk of our data, we will give a more
detailed survey of those, mentioning the Low German source texts: (A1)
Broder Rusche, (A2) Eyne schone historie van twen kopluden vnde eyner
thuchtigen framen frawen, (A3) Griseldis, and (A4) Reynke de Vos; (B1) a se-
lection of Genesis I, (B2) the Swedish Pentateuch paraphrasis (compiled from

the five books of Genesis), and (B3) a selection of the four gospels; B1 and B3
are in parallel translations into Middle Low German (functioning as a model),
Danish and Swedish. Often it was quite obvious that the Danish version was
the first one in Scandinavia and subsequently became translated into Swedish,
though these two languages did not differ considerably from each other. They
were translated anyway because they played a central role in the church service
and should therefore be fully idiomatic.
All texts were made available both in WORD and ASCII/DOS files and
analysed by rather simple word-crunching and parsing programmes written in
FORTRAN (Octaword and Octoword, developed by Ralf Thiele in Kiel), some
of them especially designed and/or modified for this Hansa project. One has to
keep in mind that, at that time, personal computer technology was still in its in-
fancy, and the most advanced computers were IBM AT machines (with 8-bit
technology, a very slow processing capacity and equipped with a hard disc
maximum capacity of 100 MB, or at best 200 MB).
One might suppose that most of the texts analysed were from rather late pe-
riods of contact when receptive multilingualism had been superceded by active
and proficient bilingualism (which certainly was the case for many people in
Scandinavian towns). Comparisons with one of the oldest (religious) texts
available, the Swedish Pentateuch paraphrasis from the middle of the 14th cen-
tury, showed, however, no significant structural or lexical differences com-
pared with later translations. Moreover, the number of loanwords was not the
most important factor as far as mutual and direct intelligibility is concerned:
most similarities were either inherited due to the close genetic relationship or
had their sources in replicated word-formation patterns, which made use of
common lexical items and borrowed prefixes and suffixes.
The historical and linguistic background

As we argued for in our first outline of the Hamburg Hanseatic Project (see
Diercks & Braunmüller 1993), there was a very favourable linguistic situation
for language contact in the Baltic in the Middle Ages when the merchants of
the Hanseatic League took over the established Visby trade across the Baltic
Sea in the middle of the 12th century. Among other factors, we mentioned the
big socio-economic and technological differences between the European con-
tinent and Scandinavia. This fact facilitated various kinds of transfer from the
south to the north of Europe, involving such things as Christianity, Latin-based
education and literacy in general, administration and the banking system and,
last but not least, book printing (cf. the export of book(block)s from Mohnkopf
in Lübeck to Stockholm; Menke 1987).
In addition, the Jutish peninsula always functioned as a pivotal link between
the North, West, and especially North Sea, Germanic dialects. Common (or
wide-spread) grammatical features are:
1) the lack of morphosyntactic gender markers and the emergence of in-

stances of semantic gender marking;
2) the pre-posed definite article, in some West Germanic dialects some-
times rendered in two different forms with divergent referential func-
tions;1
3) morphological simplification and reduction, such as lack of inflexion due
to apocope;
4) only one possessive-reflexive pronoun in the 3rd person (unlike in North
Germanic, which has two); cf. Eng. his/her, Dut. zijn/haar and Jutish dia-
lects hans/hendes [± reflexive] vs. (Standard) Dan. both sin/sit [+ re-
flexive] and hans/hendes (in principle [– reflexive] or [± reflexive], due
to certain syntactic restrictions, such as in NPs like (here) Sw. Peri och
hansi /*sini bror [P.i and hisi brother]; and
5) common (sentence) intonation patterns (rapid fall in intonation at the end
of a sentence vs. a continuous fall; no rising pitch on unstressed vowels
as in Insular Danish varieties, esp. eastern ones). In the most southern
Jutish dialects, we also see some German word-order patterns (the
so-called ‘Satzklammer’, i.e. the use of discontinuous complex verb con-
structions, or the tendency to place the finite verb at the very end in sub-
ordinate clauses).
Seen from a more general perspective, the Baltic Sea area can be considered a
typical instance of a dialect continuum due to close genetic relationships. This
fact facilitates many forms of convergence, and grammatical and lexical trans-
fer.
When language contact occurs, there are, in principle, at least four possibil-
ities for coming to grips with this situation:
a) A subjected population can be forced to adopt the conquerors’ language,
the result of which will be a foreign (mostly syntactic) substratum in the
restructured local language. Lexical borrowing of parts of the vocabulary
will lead to an expansion of the inherited vocabulary, a phenomenon
which normally is called a superstratum.
b) Speakers can use a third or intermediate language as a lingua franca,
often only for specific purposes (e.g. in trading relations or for writing
documents). Latin and, later, Middle Low German functioned as such a
neutral, transnational third language.
c) Becoming bi/multilingual is another option when immigrating to an-
other country. This can, in the long run, result in (i) the simultaneous
acquisition of two mother tongues from birth (2 L1s), (ii) early sequen-
tial bilingualism, or (iii) second (or adult) language acquisition, which
1
Cf. the dialect of Amern in the Lower Rhine area, referred to in Heinrichs (1954), or the North
Frisian variety Fering, spoken on the island of Föhr, as described in Ebert (1971). One of the two
forms there might be due to language contact with a Jutish (or a lost North Sea Germanic) dialect.
comprises all forms of language acquisition which take place beyond

puberty and which hardly every result in native speaker competence
(L1 + L2 + …).
d) Speakers can make use of the (more or less) close genetic relationship be-
tween the languages or dialects involved, which is still the default case
in (Mainland) Scandinavia today when communicating with other fellow
Scandinavians. In this case speakers either take advantage of the various
relationships and similarities (including historical and stylistic) between
the varieties involved, thus expanding their potential knowledge of the
diasystem of their mother tongue, or sooner or later they become, at least
receptively, bilingual with respect to the neighbouring languages due to
learning by communicating. As already mentioned above, we have called
this semi-communication or, more generally and more precisely, recep-
tive (or ‘passive’) multilingualism.
Towards a typology of language contact during the era

of the Hanseatic League (1150–1550), seen from the
Hamburg perspective
I would now like to give a short typological outline of language contact be-
tween the people who came into contact with each other and spoke either Low
German or a (Mainland) Scandinavian variety.
Written communication was far more restricted than today and was used
only for certain purposes, especially for official documentation, such as muni-
cipal records (tänkeböcker – Stadtbücher), juridical statements of any kind,
treaties, etc., but also for bookkeeping. Latin was the default language for
documentation and later was replaced by Low German, but not before the
1370s as far as Hanseatic League’s own documents were concerned. This de-
velopment coincided with a change in the social status of Low German, which
became more and more a lingua franca in the Baltic and, later, a prestigious
language as well.
Oral communication made use of the narrow distance between the North
Saxon variety of Low German on the one hand and the Scandinavian languages
and dialects on the other. Even before the intense period of contact in the Late
Middle Ages, we can observe many lexical and structural correspondences be-
tween these languages which facilitated face-to-face communication consider-
ably, primarily in traditional situations, where the context, the terms of trade
and the merchandise were well known to everybody working in this field. In
face-to-face situations one can also point to items whose names are unknown,
or use gestures. In short, during the early times of the Hanseatic League and be-
yond, one can say that communication involved far more than only verbal ex-
changes.
A very important point was that the languages involved in contact were not
yet standardised, nor were there certain (written) norms which had to be fol-
lowed. So people needed to be open to linguistic variation to a very high extent
but could, in return, also make use of any diasystematic variation they were fa-
miliar with. In our project we thus talked about “diffuse code intersection” and
“fuzzy rules” (cf. Braunmüller 1995d), and investigated language contact phe-
nomena in terms of family resemblances and gestalt perception mechanisms,
since codified grammatical forms did not yet exist at that time. Moreover, ac-
commodation was the key technique in oral communication: speakers could
adjust to their trading partners’ or neighbours’ variety and could immediately
see which convergence strategy gave the best results. In addition, one will earn
more money in trading contexts when one’s accommodation strategy (here: the
convergence towards the dialect of the addressee) is effective. The very posi-
tive effects of extrinsic (here: commercial) motivation and strategic accommo-
dation can hardly be overestimated!
Another important point about this intense language contact is the fact that
we observed many polycentric points of contact, especially along the coastal
areas in Scandinavia. In contrast to later forms of language contact, which were
bound to courts or economically dominant centres, the Hanseatic contacts were
not tied to the upper classes nor to the merchants or citizens alone, but reached
even fishermen and craftsmen (cf. Andersen 1995, where it is demonstrated
that the core vocabulary of Jutish dialects was deeply influenced by Low Ger-
man but also includes some Frisian loan words). In these coastal towns and
trading stations we find (a) receptive multilingualism between genetically
closely related varieties (Low German and a Scandinavian vernacular), (b) di-
glossia (many domains had specific languages or at least vocabularies of their
own), (c) simplified Latin (also called ‘dog Latin’) as a kind of lingua franca
(e.g. for travelling purposes), (d) L2 varieties and inter-languages as inter-
mediate stages in second language acquisition, and finally (e) partial (active)
competence in various languages for specific purposes.
Besides these forms of multilingualism, we observe not only the (inevitable)
interference and transfer from the L1 varieties into the target languages due to
incomplete second language acquisition by adults, but also forms of creative
code-mixing, resulting in new word-formation patterns which were well re-
ceived and often succeeded as productive innovations, since linguistic stand-
ardisation was unknown in the Middle Ages and in Early Modern Times.
Typical of Hanseatic language contact is the typological restructuring of
the Mainland Scandinavian languages, which adopted word-formation
patterns previously only found in West Germanic varieties, such as verbal
prefixes (an-, be-, for-/för-, miss-) and nominal derivational suffixes (mostly
-he(i)t, -else). Along with Heine & Kuteva (2005) we call this process ‘lin-
guistic replication’. The transfer of these patterns was facilitated by the close
genetic relationship of the languages involved in contact, speakers’ mutual
linguistic flexibility and willingness to directly understand their neighbours
and, last but not least, the lack of standardisation and absence of norms, at
least in oral communication.
The lexical impact and transfer from Middle Low German has often been
overestimated (cf. Rosenthal 1987). One of the main problems for getting a
realistic picture is the close genetic relatedness between the languages in con-
tact. Often it is hard to determine whether a word has been borrowed due to in-
tense language contact, became reactivated, or was inherited and could be
found in one of the varieties of the target language. Rosenthal (1987, p. 186ff.)
mentions as realistic figures about 17% loan words from Low German and
about 27% from High German into the Mainland Scandinavian languages. In
texts containing languages for specific purposes (Fachsprachen), one will find
between 23% and up to 30% loans from Low German. These figures, based on
random samples, were supported by our project as well (cf. Zeevaert 1995b). It
has to be observed, however, that the basic vocabulary has generally not been
affected by this contact: the only instance that could be documented was a new
modified reading of a conjunction replicated from Low German (but not the
form of the conjunction itself) in Danish and Swedish (Old Scand. þa ‘then’
[temporal conjunction; cf. Germ. dann] > Dan. da – Swed. då ‘since’ [tempo-
ral/causal] < Low Germ. dô [temporal/causal, introducing clauses]). Unlike in
Old English, no pronouns, verbs or nouns in the basic vocabulary were bor-
rowed into the Scandinavian languages to a larger extent. The bulk of transfers
involved new derivations which could be documented in detail when we com-
pared translations from Low German into Danish or Swedish, where we ob-
served more tokens than types of word-formation elements in the target texts
(Diercks 1993b). It is possible that a new type of word formation led to the re-
placement of an inherited noun, probably helped by an increase in transparency
(cf. Old Swed. sûtari > Swed. sko-makare ‘shoe maker’).
Other domains of grammar did not show significant divergence between
the varieties involved: the differences in the phonological system and in pho-
notactics were rather marginal and did not impede mutual understanding or
prevent language acquisition. As far as inflexional morphology is concerned,
the picture is more ambiguous. While Ringgaard (1986) argued for an inde-
pendent, language-internal development, at least for texts written in Jutland,
can the loss of inflexional markers also be traced back to language contact
due to widespread imperfect second language acquisition? The predomi-
nance of oral communication in the early days of the Hansa certainly plays a
considerable role in this process as well: Low German and Jutish varieties
had already lost their weakly stressed vowels (apocope) before the intense
period of contact began. Moreover, the mastering (or recognition) of inflex-
ional morphemes is not so important when decoding any Germanic dialect
since the lexical roots and the derivational suffixes contain the crucial seman-
tic information, unlike the Finnic languages, where e.g. the case or possessive
morphemes following the lexical morpheme cannot be neglected when de-
coding an utterance.
Since the word-order patterns in the languages of this contact scenario were
not yet fixed, much more variation in word order was possible than would have
been the case in modern times. This provided a good chance for imperfect
(adult) bilinguals to predominantly use parallel syntactic patterns in both of
their languages, ignoring e.g. less frequent syntactic structures or word-order
patterns not found in their L1. The ordering of constituents in utterances could
thus follow communicative needs and preferences, since it was not (yet) bound
by strict syntactic norms. Moreover, the syntactic structures of the contact lan-
guages already showed significant correspondence at many crucial points,,
such as (a) V2 placement in main clauses, (b) agreement in the position of the
subject, the finite verb and the sentential adverb in the so-called nexus field,
and free variation in the content field (to use two terms from Paul Diderichsen’s
topological model), and (c) rather free variation in the position of the finite verb
in (dependent) clauses, since the absolute final position of the finite verb was
far from being mandatory in Middle Low German or in any Scandinavian va-
riety (for more details, see Braunmüller 1998b, pp. 330ff.).
To sum up, the following were crucial factors for contact between Low Ger-
man and the Scandinavian languages in the Middle Ages and beyond:
1) at the beginning of the contact period, receptive multilingualism (or
semi-communication) in direct oral communication, like in Scandinavia
today;
2) the dominance of oral communication in the vernaculars, which also led
to the use of non-standard varieties and forms that were not yet conven-
tionalised. Oral communication thus gave rise to linguistic creativity and
unorthodox word-formation and word-order patterns. Some of them,
however, were well received and integrated into the target language
within a very short period of time.
3) inter-dialectal accommodation and the occurrence of spontaneous inter-
language varieties, comparable to strategies in modern inter-Scandina-
vian communication, when people who accommodate say that they are
speaking ‘Scandinavian’;
4) the absence of established norms in writing and the lack of standardisa-
tion. This gives rise to parallel constructions, frequently used by lan-
guage learners and many bilinguals as well, unimpeded transfer and
grammatical innovation, especially from the prestigious language Low
German into the Scandinavian vernaculars.
Conclusion
The Hamburg Hanseatic Project and the follow-up SFB project H 3 “Scandina-
vian Syntax in a Multilingual Setting”, conducted within the Collaborative Re-
search Centre (SFB 538) on Multilingualism from 2005 onwards, investigated
not only Low German and the Mainland Scandinavian languages, but also con-
sidered the subsequent contacts with High German and the parallel contact with
Latin as the dominant written language in the Middle Ages and beyond (cf.
Braunmüller 2000a, 2004 and Höder 2010).
We not only analysed the different grammatical layers and domains of the
languages involved but introduced, for the first time and to a larger extent, so-
ciolinguistic issues, issues of language contact and bilingual communication,
based on linguistic variation. We thus changed the paradigm from a predomi-
nantly philological approach, still based on neogrammarian principles, to mod-
ern sociolinguistics and contact linguistics, including investigations into the
amount and types of vocabulary borrowed into the Scandinavian languages.
Moreover, our project was the first to make use of the new personal computer
technology, which changed the data base for empirical projects completely:
now it was possible to analyse all phenomena in a text and carry out quantita-
tive analyses as well. The change in the research paradigm was complete: new
methods (a preference for structural and typological features of the languages
involved), a new focus of interest (a sociolinguistic and contact linguistic ap-
proach, combined with research on variation and multilingualism), and new
technology (word-crunching programmes) were applied.
References (cf. also the bibliography of the Hamburg

Hanseatic Project)
Andersen, Torben Arboe, 1995  bibliography.
Börestam Uhlmann, Ulla, 1997: Utblick för inblick – några aspekter på grannspråks-
kommunikation i teori och praktik. In: Nordisk tidskrift för vetenskap, konst och in-
dustri 3. Pp. 239–254.
Braunmüller, Kurt, 1989  bibliography.
Braunmüller, Kurt, 1993c  bibliography.
Braunmüller, Kurt, 1995d  bibliography.
Braunmüller, Kurt, 1998b  bibliography.
Braunmüller, Kurt, 2000a  bibliography.
Braunmüller, Kurt, 2004  bibliography.
Diercks, Willy, 1993b  bibliography.
Diercks, Willy & Braunmüller, Kurt, 1993  bibliography.
Ebert, Karen H., 1971: Referenz, Sprechsituation und die bestimmten Artikel in einem
nordfriesischen Dialekt (Fering). Bredstedt. (Studien und Materialien 4.)
Haugen, Einar, 1966: Semicommunication: the language gap in Scandinavia. In: So-
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Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania, 2005: Language contact and grammatical change. Cam-
bridge. (Cambridge approaches to language contact.)
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Low German texts from Late Medieval Sweden 113
Low German texts from Late Medieval

Sweden
Stefan Mähl, Uppsala University
Introduction
In medieval times, Sweden was a multilingual area where three languages were
used in written communication: Latin, Low German and Swedish. The impact
of Low German is an important part of Swedish language history. Not only
were a substantial number of words transferred from Middle Low German into
Old Swedish, but it has also been argued that Middle Low German influence
played an important role in the loss of inflectional morphology and in some
changes in the syntactic field (cf. Braunmüller & Diercks 1993; Braunmüller
1995). However, during the 20th century Swedish and German scholars paid
little attention to the Low German texts that were written in Late Medieval
Sweden. The aim of this paper is threefold: to provide some background infor-
mation on the multilingual situation in Sweden, and especially in Stockholm,
during the Late Middle Ages; to describe the origin of the use of Low German
in documents written in Sweden; and to give a brief summary of a project
which investigates and describes the Middle Low German variety that was used
in Stockholm during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.
The emigration from Germany to Sweden during the

Late Middle Ages
The impact of German emigration and of the growing trade between North
Germany and Sweden has been investigated in several studies by German and
Swedish historians (e.g. Ahnlund 1953; Dahlbäck 1995, 1998; Koppe 1933;
Lamberg 2001; Schück 1940). This section is based upon the research carried
out in these studies.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, cities like Arboga, Kalmar and Stockholm
grew rapidly. This period is characterized by increasing trade and a better econ-
omic climate than previously. A close investigation of city records shows that
a great many inhabitants were German immigrants. Most of them were crafts-
men and merchants (cf. Sundqvist 1957).
The origin of Stockholm pre-dates its written history, and how and why the
city evolved in the mid-13th century is still disputed. However, a number of sur-
114 Stefan Mähl
viving documents seem to indicate that Stockholm grew rapidly and became
the largest city in Sweden towards the end of the 13th century. Researchers still
argue about whether this development was a planned process initiated by the
king and German merchants or a more spontaneous type of growth. It is rea-
sonable to assume that Birger Jarl’s primary aim when founding Stockholm
was not only to strengthen his own domestic and international position, but also
to achieve general economic growth. German immigrants are frequently attest-
ed in documents from the late 13th century, so we can assume that German im-
migration started much earlier, before the reign of Birger Jarl (cf. Maillefer
2007). Around 1250 Birger Jarl renewed an agreement with the city of Lübeck
in which he invited Germans to settle in Sweden as Swedish citizens and prom-
ised the immigrants generous benefits (Wessén 1992, p. 4):
Om åter några från eder stad vilja uppehålla sig hos oss och bo i vårt rike, så vilja vi,
att de skola bruka vårt lands lagar och styras efter dem och i övrigt kallas svenskar.
[If some people from your city wish to reside in Sweden and live in our kingdom
again, we would like them to use our country’s law, be governed by them and be
called Swedes in all other respects.]
During the reign of Magnus Birgersson (1275–1290), relations with North Ger-
man cities were strengthened. In 1276, Magnus married Helvig von Holstein,
and through the marriage he strengthened his ties to the North German elite.
During the 14th and 15th centuries German immigration flourished. According
to some calculations, Stockholm had a population of approximately 5,000 by
the end of the 15th century, which made it the largest city in Sweden. German
immigration probably reached its peak during the reign of the German Albrecht
von Mecklenburg (1364–1389). German noblemen, knights, servants and war-
riors emigrated to Sweden in order to increase their own wealth. The Swedish
king Albrecht often selected German knights for certain administrative posi-
tions, for instance Raven van Barnekow (bailiff at the royal castle of Nyköping)
and Vicke van Vitzen (bailiff at the royal castle of Kalmar). He was deposed
after his defeat at the battle of Åsle/Falköping. As a result, Germans temporar-
ily lost their political influence, but their cultural and linguistic influence was
still massive.
Many of the German immigrants came from cities in the Baltic region, for
instance Lübeck, Stralsund and Wismar. But a large proportion also came from
cities in Westphalia or in the eastern part of Holland. Their surnames are often
derived from their cities of origin: van Ossenbrügge (Osnabrück), van Unna
(Unna, near Dortmund), van Warendorpe (Warendorf, near Münster) (cf.
Sundqvist 1957).
Middle Low German – a definition

The term Middle Low German is used here to refer to the compound of dialects
(Märkisch, Nordniederdeutsch, Ostfälisch, Westfälisch) spoken in the northern
part of Germany during the period 1200–1650. The exact time span covered by
the term Middle Low German sometimes varies between studies. The dialects
in question were spoken north of the so-called Benrather Linie, the boundary
line of the zweite Lautverschiebung (the High German Sound Shift). In the Low
German area the consonants p, t, k are intact, whereas in High German they
have undergone affrication:
HIGH GERMAN LOW GERMAN SWEDISH ENGLISH
Apfel appel äpple apple
Zunge tunge tunga tongue
Lauch lôk lök leek
Middle Low German, like any label of its kind, is only a convenient abstrac-
tion. At no time was there ever one uniform language, but what existed was a
continuum of many different dialects (cf. Mähl 2008, pp. 42–45).
The use of Low German in Sweden during the Late

Middle Ages
Within the last five decades, scholarly interest in the study of Low German
texts from Denmark, Finland and Norway has increased considerably (cf. Kan-
tola 1987; Schöndorf 1987; Tiisala 2004). Unfortunately, most of the studies
are based on very little empirical evidence. However, Low German texts from
Sweden have hardly received any attention at all. An important exception is the
study of Low German documents from Visby carried out by Artur Gabrielsson
(1971/1972; see also Ahlsson 1989 on Everhard von Wampen).
The first Middle Low German letters from Sweden date from 1360. Issuers
are King Magnus of Sweden and his son King Håkon of Norway (Diplomata-
rium Suecanum 6300–6302). The table below lists the first Middle Low Ger-
man documents from Swedish cities during the period 1360–1375:
Date Place Issuer(s) Diplomatarium
Suecanum (DS)
28 June 1360 Helsingborg King Magnus and King Håkon DS 6300–6302
20 September 1360 Helsingborg Duke Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 6348
28 September 1362 Söderköping King Magnus and King Håkon DS 6676
6 July 1364 Söderköping Duke Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 7024
26 July 1364 Jönköping King Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 7030
14 November 1364 Stockholm Karl Ulfsson DS 7095
5 February 1367 Kalmar King Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 7498
6 June 1367 Kalmar Vicke van Vitzen DS 7537a
16 November 1367 Borgholm King Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 7605
5 August 1369 Stockholm Mayor and Council DS 7935
19 November 1370 Stäkeholm Johann and Vicke Ummereise DS 8235
19 November 1370 Stäkeholm Johann and Vicke Ummereise DS 8236
116 Stefan Mähl
24 February 1371 Stockholm Bo Jonsson DS X 28

24 February 1371 Stockholm Bo Jonsson DS X 29
3 March 1371 Stockholm Minter Hans Kolnare DS X 35
15 May 1371 Stockholm Mayor and Council DS X 53
8 November 1374 Stockholm King Albrecht von Mecklenburg and DS 8675
Duke Albrecht von Mecklenburg
11 January 1375 Stockholm Vicke van Vitzen DS 8707
2 February 1375 Stockholm Raven van Barnekow DS 8719
2 February 1375 Stockholm Raven van Barnekow DS 8720
8 May 1375 Stockholm Duke Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 8776
6 July 1375 Stockholm King Albrecht von Mecklenburg DS 8811
8 September 1375 Västerås Bo Jonsson DS 9170
In the 15th century, Low German became the dominant language in correspond-
ence between cities in the Baltic region. Latin slowly lost its leading position
owing to the breakthrough of the vernacular into written texts, a process which,
in Germany, started in the 13th century and reached its conclusion in the 15th
century (cf. Gärtner 1995; Mähl 2008, pp. 36–45). Swedish was seldom used
in correspondence with foreign cities. One example of it is the letter from Kris-
ter Niklasson to the city council in Reval dated 1436 where, at the beginning of
the letter, he points out:
Ok bidher jac idher kærliga, at i thet ey til mistycke takin, at jak idher scrifwer wppa
swensco, thy jak nw enghen tyschen scrifware ner mik hawer. [And I sincerely ask you
not to be offended by my writing to you in Swedish, for I do not have a German scribe
with me.] (Finlands medeltidsurkunder 3, no. 2168; see also Tiisala 1996, p. 278.)
Although Latin slowly lost its dominance in correspondence, it continued to be
used in certain domains, such as the church and universities. It was also used
among merchants, by whom it was still regarded as a very important language
(cf. Tiisala 1996, p. 282).
Low German documents from Swedish cities – the case

of Stockholm
German presence in Stockholm during the Late Middle Ages
From its origins, the city of Stockholm has been a location of German settlement.
In several ways, the Stockholm records tell us about the close connections be-
tween Stockholm and the northern part of Germany during the Late Middle Ages.
Right from the beginning Germans formed an essential part of the population of
Stockholm, roughly estimated at 30–40%. German immigrants played such an
important role in the city administration that it was necessary to regulate the num-
ber of German members of the city council so that no more than 50% of the posts
could be held by Germans (cf. Mähl 2008, p. 24), in Swedish called the tudel-
ningsprincipen. There is a great deal of evidence indicating that German immi-
grants formed an upper class of wealthy merchant families who were able to
maintain their German identity and their Low German language for generations
after their emigration to Sweden. In Stockholm they visited the same church and
the same guilds. They also married within the same circles. Furthermore, German
immigrants maintained close contacts with their business friends and their rela-
tives in the Baltic region. Because of this immigration, Stockholm – like many
cities in the Baltic region – was a heterogeneous city, where both Swedish and
Low German were written and spoken. From the outset, multilingualism was a
feature of medieval Stockholm.
As mentioned above, Germans played an essential role in the city adminis-
tration, which led to the regulation of the number of German members of the
city council manifested in Magnus Eriksson’s city law around 1350. The city
records, however, indicate that the nationality of the council members did not
always play a central role. An example is Lambert Westfal, who in 1438 was a
German member of the council and in 1444 a Swedish mayor in Stockholm.
After the battle of Brunkeberg in 1471, the tudelningsprincipen was cancelled
immediately, and no German could have a seat in the city council. The political
power of the German immigrants was now reduced.
City administration and scribes in Late Medieval Stockholm

In Late Medieval Stockholm there were at least two administrative organiza-
tions: the city administration and the royal administration in the castle of Stock-
holm. Unfortunately, there are very few studies of Swedish administrations be-
fore King Gustav I Vasa. In this section, I will describe some aspects of the or-
ganization of the city administration in Stockholm.
According to the city law issued by Magnus Eriksson, the city scribe had to
be a Swede. Furthermore, the law states that the city documents must be written
in Swedish, which indicates that (Low) German had a dominant position in the
city. Through this law, the use of Swedish in official documents was promoted.
The city scribe was responsible for a great many documents, for instance city
(court) records, letters and other legal documents. The city scribes of Stock-
holm in the 14th century are unknown, but during the period 1420–1533 the fol-
lowing scribes have been identified in the records of Stockholm (Mähl 2008, p.
50):
City scribe Period
Laurens Sonason –1440
Conradus Stadsskrivare 1440–1444
Mickel Skrivare 1444–1452
Engelke Hanson 1453–1459
Nicolaus Hanson 1459–1472
Ingevald Stadsskrivare 1472–1487
Helmik van Nörden 1487–1511
Andreas Anderson 1511–1524
Olaus Petri 1524–1533
118 Stefan Mähl
It is reasonable to assume that the city scribes knew three languages: Swe-
dish, Latin and Low German. However, it is clear that there were differences
between the scribes listed above. Lena Moberg, who has carried out a de-
tailed investigation of two of the scribes, Ingevald Stadsskrivare and Helmik
van Nörden, claims that Ingevald had limited knowledge of Middle Low Ger-
man:
Ingevalds anslutning till en mera allmänt omfattad fsv. norm i många av de beskriv-
na fallen medger slutsatsen att denne skrivare varit huvudsakligen enspråkig och haft
endast mer eller mindre ytlig kännedom om medellågtyskan. [Ingevald’s adherence
to a more general Old Swedish norm in many of the cases described indicates that
the scribe was chiefly monolingual and had only a more or less superficial knowl-
edge of Middle Low German.] (Moberg 1989, p. 253.)
Low German documents from Stockholm – an analysis of the

variety
In the first half of the 14th century, Latin and Swedish were used in letters sent
from the Stockholm city council to other cities. Latin was used in correspond-
ence with foreign cities, and Swedish was used within Sweden. In the second
half of the 14th century, scribes began producing letters in Middle Low Ger-
man, mostly in correspondence with cities in Northern Germany, such as
Lübeck.
Within Low German philology, the importance of the city of Lübeck for the
development of the Middle Low German language in the Baltic region has al-
ways been stressed. Because of Lübeck’s dominant position in the German
Hansa, researchers have assumed that the Middle Low German variety used by
the city administration in Lübeck (the Lübecker Norm) was a model for the
Middle Low German language in the Baltic region, but also for the other
Middle Low German dialects. In handbooks, it is often claimed that only one
Middle Low German language existed. This theory, defended in the 20th centu-
ry by, for instance, Conrad Borchling and William Foerste (cf. Foerste 1949),
has never been verified by sufficient empirical evidence. Recent studies show
that the Middle Low German variety used by the city administration in Lübeck
in the 14th and 15th centuries was not homogeneous at all. For instance, it was
less homogeneous than the variety used by the city administration in Hamburg.
In Westphalian cities such as Herford, Münster and Osnabrück, very little in-
fluence of the Lübeck variety has been attested. Therefore the German re-
searcher Robert Peters labels the Lübecker Norm a myth (Peters 1995).
An interdisciplinary project funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East
European Studies gave me the opportunity to investigate the Middle Low Ger-
man variety that was used for internal and external correspondence in Stock-
holm (Mähl 2008). The main aim of my study was threefold:
– to analyse the Middle Low German variety used in Stockholm during the
Late Middle Ages;
– to compare the development of the Middle Low German variety in Stock-

holm with the development of Middle Low German varieties in northern
Germany;
– to analyse the effects of the multilingual environment in Stockholm. Is
there any transfer from Swedish in the Middle Low German documents?
In my project I investigated 111 Middle Low German documents that were

written in Stockholm during the period 1364–1508. These documents are most-
ly original texts that are kept in different European archives. In general, three
types of documents were investigated:
– letters from the city mayor(s) and the city council to other cities in the Bal-
tic region, for instance Danzig, Lübeck and Reval;
– deeds;
– real-estate transactions that were registered in the city books.
An example of one of the document types investigated is given below. It is

dated 20 September 1420, and the issuer is Jens from Svartnö, who was selling
a cabbage plot at Stockholms norra malm to Erik Skinnare (Mähl 2008, pp. 33,
162):
Vor alle den genen de dessen breff seen vnde høren lezen bekenne ik jønis i swar-
tenøø dat ik myt wol vordachten mode rechtliken vnde redeliken vorkoft hebbe erik
schynner mynen kolhoff vppe deme norderen malme beleghen welke vorscreuen
kolhoffes rwm bret is xj ele vnde is lank xxv ele to water wart dyt heuet my de vor-
benomede erik to danke wol betalet hir vmme late ik myt mynen eruen vnde antwar-
de deme vorbenomeden erike vnde synen eruen dat vorscreuen rwm to brukende
vnde to hebbende to ewigen tiden sunder ansprake myner vnde mynen eruen vnde
des to tughe vnde hoghere bewarynge zo hebbe ik vorbenomen jønis i swartenøø
ghebeden her clauwes braschen ratman to deme stocholme vnde tideken vp der goten
dat ze ere ingesegele to eyn witlicheit henghen an dessen breff wante ik seluen nen
ingesegel en hadde de ghegheuen vnde screuen is to deme stocholme na der bort vn-
ses heren xiiijc iar in deme xx iare in vigilia mathei apostoli et ewangeliste.
My investigations show that the Middle Low German variety used in Stock-
holm during the period 1364–1508 was influenced not only by the Lübeck
variety, but also by the Middle Low German used in the Bremen–Hamburg–
Lübeck–Rostock area (North Low Saxon) (Mähl 2008, pp. 124–130). A
smaller investigation of Middle Low German letters from other Swedish cities
yielded a similar result (Mähl 2004). My study also shows that there is West-
phalian influence in these Middle Low German texts, mostly in the city-inter-
nal documents. Typical Westphalian features are the forms vrent ‘friend’, nîn
‘nobody’, and sal ‘shall/will’, where the cities Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and
Rostock instead use vrünt, nên and schal (Mähl 2008, pp. 130–132). It is not
surprising that both North Low Saxon and Westphalian features are attested in
Middle Low German documents from Stockholm, as a large proportion of the
German immigrants came from these two areas. Quite often, leading members
of the city council were born in the western part of the Low German area (cf.
120 Stefan Mähl
Sundqvist 1957), and their native dialect of course would have influenced their
language. My findings indicate that the description of the Middle Low German
variety used in Swedish cities, which assumes that only the city administration
in Lübeck influenced the Baltic region linguistically during the Late Middle
Ages, must be revised, especially for Stockholm but also for other Swedish
cities.
Surprisingly, there are very few Swedish elements attested in Middle Low
German documents from Stockholm. Swedish words sometimes occur in the
texts, such as gatebode ‘street shop’, hustru ‘wife’, and tompte/tumpte ‘plot of
land’. Most of the words that were not translated into Middle Low German be-
long to Swedish city culture. It is reasonable to assume that legal issues were
sometimes the reason words were not translated into Middle Low German. It is
also clear that these words were transparent to the city’s populace, so a trans-
lation was not always necessary (Mähl 2008, pp. 132–134).
Concluding remarks
German immigration was important for the development of Swedish society
and the Swedish language during the Late Middle Ages. An understanding of
contact between Swedes and Germans in Swedish cities in the Late Middle
Ages is fundamental to the interpretation of the development of Swedish cities.
In this paper, I have briefly described one of these interesting fields; my study
of course needs to be followed up by further research, since many questions are
still unanswered.
My research shows that essential knowledge about the use of language, in
this case Latin, Low German and Swedish, can be obtained through philologi-
cal methods. It is clear that Middle Low German played an important role in
Swedish cities’ correspondence with other cities in the Baltic region during the
Late Middle Ages. But I have also shown that Middle Low German was used
for internal communication in the city of Stockholm, which was not known be-
fore. More research is needed in this field, which is of central importance to
Swedish and German medieval studies.
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A survey of Low German loanwords in Danish 123
A survey of Low German loanwords in

Danish in the medieval period and the
transition from Low German to High
German as the written language in Tønder
in the 17th century1
Birgit Christensen, Vanløse
Low German loanwords in Danish medieval charters

My motive for selecting Low German loan words as the topic for my Master’s
thesis was the fact that the subject has been rather neglected. I was familiar with
Peter Skautrup’s discussion of the topic in Det Danske Sprogs Historie (vol. I,
1944, pp. 298–302 and vol. II, 1947, pp. 102–111), as well as with Marius Kris-
tensen’s doctoral thesis (1906) and the works of Clara Holst (1903) and Ida
Marquardsen (1908), together with more recent articles such as Anders Bjer-
rum’s (1969) on the Oath of Allegiance from 1387, Magda Nyberg’s (1971) on
loan words in a North Schleswig dialect, and H. Bach’s (1977) on Modern Ger-
man influence on the Danish standard language.
I wanted to find out whether there was a difference between the borrowing
of Low German words between various parts of the country and at differing so-
cial levels, and I therefore decided to work with texts that were both dated and
localised, namely charters. From among a collection of Old Danish charters,
duplicated for the use of the Dictionary of Old Danish (Gammeldansk Ordbog),
I selected a number of charter groups: the “Halland group”, consisting of a
deed, two mortgage deeds and a receipt from noblemen (1378–1387); an “Ol-
der chancellery group” (1397–1400); the “State papers group” (1387–1397),
including inter alia the Act of Union from 1397; a “Younger chancellery
group” (1433–1435); a group of letters from the Copenhagen city court (byting)
(1430–1432); a similar group from Køge (1431–1433); and three groups of
depositions from the district courts (herredstingene) of Sjælland (1433–1435),
Fyn (1433–1435), and Jylland (1432–1435). The loanwords were divided into
different types, e.g. simple words and composita for which only one of the
components is a loanword, and the frequency of their occurrence was calculat-
ed as the percentage of loanwords occurring in the total number of running
words counted. These figures were then compared for the different groups of
1
This paper was translated into English by associate Professor Dr. Phil. Gillian Fellows-Jensen.
124 Birgit Christensen
charters. The result was that Low German influence was not as strong in the
“Halland group” (6.39) as in the “Older chancellery group” (9.88), the “State
papers group” (10.0), or the “Younger chancellery group” (14.22). Thus the
Low German influence was weakest in the “Halland group”. In the 1430s, Low
German influence was strongest in the “Younger chancellery group” and weak-
est in the charters from the district courts from Jylland (9.38), Sjælland (9.13)
and Fyn (7.95). The documents from the city court (byting) in Copenhagen are
on a middling level (11.44) and have most in common with those from the
chancellery in terms of percentage of loan words, while the documents from
Køge (9.23) are on a level with those from Jylland. It is hardly surprising that
there are more loanwords in texts from a higher social level, the chancellery,
than in the texts from the lower social levels, since the scribes who worked in
the higher social levels probably had a more comprehensive education than the
other scribes; they may even have studied at the North German universities.
With respect to the depositions from the district courts, I would like to men-
tion one factor which I did not touch upon in my earlier work: it is thought-pro-
voking that the frequency of occurrence of the loanwords in the 1430s is weak-
est in Fyn. This raises the question as to whether the presence of Low German
loan words in Sjælland reflects an influence from Copenhagen or whether the
influence in Jylland reflects a spread from south to north. My material is unfor-
tunately too limited to enable me to draw a reliable conclusion.
The suffixes -else, -inge and -nisse

In 1908 Marquardsen demonstrated for the first time that Danish words with
the suffix -else often correspond to Low German words with the suffix -inge.
It had previously been thought that they were renderings of Low German words
with the suffix -nisse. Marquardsen’s discovery was not, however, generally
accepted. Thus it was in Seip’s opinion (Seip 1952, pp. 53–54) probably incor-
rect to say that the Low German suffix -nisse lies behind the great productivity
of the Danish suffix. Rather, we should say that when Low German verbs were
borrowed, they received the native suffix -else instead of the suffix -nisse that
they had had in Low German. Now that I had a large collection of relevant
material, it suddenly became clear that Marquardsen had been right and that
-else did not as a rule correspond with -nisse but with -inge. It seems that in the
Middle Ages the idea had spread that when a word ends in -inge in Low Ger-
man, there must be a corresponding word in Danish that ends in -else, and vice
versa. In addition, there are some Danish words in -else which correspond both
with a Low German word in -inge and one in -nisse; the latter, however, is West
Low German, specifically Westphalian. It is on analogy with these that the
Low German words in -nisse which do not have a corresponding form in -inge
receive a Danish suffix -else (Christensen 1982, pp. 57–61). This was a sur-
prise; no one could have anticipated that this would prove to be the case.
Low German loanwords in letters from Køge

Later I studied the frequency of occurrence of loan words in some documents
from the Køge town archive from the period 1488–1494 (Christensen 1989);
the frequency for this subgroup was 12.11. A comparison was then made with
the older documents from Køge dating from the 1430s, where an increase in the
frequency of loanwords can be observed. However, this result has to be taken
with certain reservations, since the documents from the 1430s were all written
by one scribe, while those from 1488–1494 were written by four or five differ-
ent scribes, and their personal preferences may have made themselves felt. The
documents in question are letters of patent, that is, proclamations to the general
public, so I thought it advisable also to examine some private letters sent to a
specified recipient.
I selected three letters from the private archive of the nobleman Bent Bille:
two drafts written by him, and a letter in Danish from the merchant Oluff Lar-
ber in Stralsund. One letter from Bent Bille was to another nobleman, Iver
Axelsøn Thott, dealing with a legal dispute about a mortgage deed. It is slightly
formal, although not sufficiently so to prevent the inclusion of a small amount
of direct speech. The frequency of loanwords for this letter is 11.30. The sec-
ond letter is a complaint to the Bishop of Roskilde that the Bishop’s half-broth-
er had stolen four of Bent Bille’s best pigs, which he would like to have re-
turned, together with compensation. The frequency of loan words for this letter
is 9.70. Thus, in the more formal letter connected with the legal dispute there
are more loanwords, while in the angry letter about the theft of the pigs there
are fewer loanwords. The Danish letter from Stralsund occupies an intermedi-
ate position.
Low German loanwords in private letters

Over the course of the last 30–40 years, it has become more and more usual
within research in the humanities to take an increasing interest in people’s
daily life, their private and intimate concerns. Inspired by Peter Skautrup’s
claim that it is in private correspondence that one can find a style approaching
that of the spoken word (Skautrup 1944–1970, vol. II, p. 73), I studied the fre-
quency of occurrence of loanwords in some private letters exchanged be-
tween close relations and married couples (Christensen 1992). Such letters,
which are less formal, might also be referred to as family letters. The family
in question was the nobleman Jørgen Rud of Vedby, who was a rigsråd (state
counsellor, 1435–1440) and lensmand (lord lieutenant, 1504–1505), his wife
Kristine Rosenkrantz (dates of birth and death unknown), their daughter
Anne Rud (date of birth unknown; she died in 1533), and his son-in-law Hen-
rik Krummedige (c. 1465–1530), a Norwegian and Danish counsellor and
knight; he was born in Norway but the family came originally from Holstein
and had also lived in Schleswig. Their letters, which are from the years 1497–
1502, are presumably all written in their own hands. The frequency of occur-
rence of loan words was greatest in Henrik Krummedige’s two letters, at 9.52
and 12.60, but not as great as in the chancellery letters from the 1430s. The
frequency in Anne Rud’s letter is 12.59. The older couple had the lowest fre-
quency of loanwords, which was not even as high as that in the depositions
from the district courts in Fyn in the 1430s. Kristine Rosenkrantz’ letter has
a frequency of 5.54, and Jørgen Rud’s 4.72. In spite of the fact that Jørgen
Rud was a very learned man, the letter written to his daughter contains few
loan words.
The transition from a Low German written language to

a High German one in Tønder
My motive for taking up the topic of the written language in Tønder was once
again the fact that this topic has been rather neglected. The reason why I select-
ed Tønder from among the four market towns in North Schleswig was that its
archive, which is kept in the North Schleswig provincial archives, was the most
well preserved, the largest, and the one whose documents go furthest back in
time. This last fact was important, since it was impossible to determine in ad-
vance exactly when the change in written language from Low German to High
German took place. I had imagined that it had taken place much earlier than
proved to be the case. It turned out, in fact, that this change happened at a very
late date. Emden is the only other town where the change of language took
place equally late (Hahn 1912), and nowhere did it happen later. It must be em-
phasised that it is the written language with which I am concerned. I cannot,
however, avoid touching on the spoken language from time to time, but here I
rely on the findings of Anders Bjerrum, who stated that in about 1600 every-
one, whether of high or low status, spoke Sønderjysk (the Danish dialect of
North Schleswig), and that in addition most adults could speak Low German
(Bjerrum 1943, p. 443; 1973, p. 63).
A survey of the source material

It was first necessary to clarify the chronology of the language change. In the
town archives there are 75 bundles of documents with material antedating
1700, as well as a number of well-preserved court records. It is possible to work
through the court records and find out when the language changes, but this can-
not be done with the bundled material, for those documents are not kept in an
exact chronological order. Random sampling would not be satisfactory, since
there might be material in the unopened bundles that could cause the chronol-
ogy to be seriously disrupted. All the bundles were therefore examined. For
each year, I compiled a survey of the material and divided it up into groups ac-
cording to the issuer of the documents: the Duke, members of the municipal
government, persons outside the municipal government etc. This survey is too
extensive to publish here, but it has proved to be an essential tool for me. Work-
ing in this way, I could not only produce a frame for all future work but also
fulfil my most important aim, namely to have access to the individual human
beings who lived and worked in the town under the conditions prevailing at the
time so that I could see what written language they employed. And the chron-
ology was a vital factor not least because of the correlation with political his-
tory.
Reports of the actual use of language are rare. The scribes themselves never
said why they wrote in Low German or High German. Nor did I find any direc-
tive from one person to another that this was the occasion to write in High Ger-
man. And I only found a single reference to knowledge about the language of
another person (see below). Historians distinguish between a relic and a report
(Erslev [1926] 1987, p. 5). I treat the sources primarily as relics.
Division into phases

It is possible to say that all the material contained in the town archive belongs
to one domain: administration. This is not an entirely satisfactory label, how-
ever. Administration consists of many branches, and it is therefore advisable to
divide it into sub-domains. Here it is important to distinguish between whether
the texts were for external consumption, in practice in most cases correspond-
ence with the Duke, or for internal use, which would in practice consist of ac-
counts and other texts concerned with financial matters. In addition, informa-
tion can sometimes turn up about the use of language in other domains. I oper-
ated not only with the concept of domain but also with the concept of diglossia
(Christensen 2006a, pp. 138–151; cf. Fishman 1967, Ferguson 1973, Trudgill
1995).
I divided the sequence of events into five phases (Christensen 2006a, pp.
141–151). The first phase extends from 1436 – the date of the oldest document
in the town archive, a confirmation by Duke Adolf of the town’s privileges –
up to 1536. All the documents in the town archive from this phase are written
in Low German. I include this phase, defined by the exclusive use of Low Ger-
man, in anticipation of future research. This will make it possible to examine
whether there is evidence of a gradually increasing influence on the actual lan-
guage in this period.
The second phase extends from 1537 to 1604. This phase begins with the
oldest surviving High German document, a charter issued by King Christian
III, who had introduced the Reformation to the Kingdom of Denmark the pre-
ceding year and who had already introduced it to the Duchy of Schleswig in
1528 (Gregersen 1986, 2000). The first High German document from the
Duke, who was the King’s brother, is from 1545. From then on the Dukes
regularly corresponded with Tønder in High German with one exception, a
proclamation from 1570 which concerns the surrounding area. The correspond-
ence from Tønder to the Duke, on the other hand, consisting of petitions, con-
tinued to be in Low German. For the short period 1600–1603, the court records
were entered in High German by town clerks who came from outside, but sub-
sequently they returned to being written in Low German. During this phase
High German was beginning to make its entry from outside.
The third phase extends from 1605 to 1651. The first petition to the Duke in
High German dates from 1605. It was written by the town clerk Jurgen Thim-
sen, who must have taken up his post in 1603. He died in 1651 or at the begin-
ning of 1652. He mastered both of the written languages. In the course of that
period High German increasingly came into use, and this development seems
to have been particularly swift in the 1630s. During this phase High German
was the language of the Duke, while Low German was the language of finan-
cial matters and accounts, as well as of the church – with the exception of the
Danish morning service (matins) – and of municipal schools.
The fourth phase extends from 1652 to 1672. In 1652 Dean Stephan
Kenckel from Flensburg (Danish Flensborg) took up his post. High German
then became the language of the church – with the exception of the Danish
matins – and presumably High German also became the language of the borger-
skole (the municipal school), although I have not been able to find information
about this. Low German was still the language used for accounts. The last treas-
urer’s accounts in Low German are from 1672.
The fifth phase begins in 1673. It would seem that the change of language
was by then more or less complete, although we still find various financial ac-
counts in Low German, both from a deputy mayor and from craftsmen. I
stopped searching at the year 1700, and I cannot therefore guarantee that there
was no Low German used thereafter. If there was, it cannot be expected to have
been very much.
The historian H. V. Gregersen, according to whom High German as a writ-
ten language did not become significant until late in the whole of the Duchy, is
probably right to think that this was because Low German was easier to learn
than High German if one had the North Schleswig Danish dialect as one’s
home language (Gregersen 1974, p. 247; Christensen 2006a, p. 152).
If one accepts Fishman’s definition of diglossia as an alternation between
two languages – which Jan Goossens does in his works on the situation around
the western boundary for Low German (see particularly Goossens 1984) – one
comes up with the following simple description of the situation in Tønder:
phase 1– diglossia, involving the Danish dialect and Low German; phases 2
and 3– increasing triglossia, with High German as the high language, the
Danish dialect as the low language, and Low German as an intermediate lan-
guage; phases 4 and 5– decreasing triglossia (Christensen 2006a, p. 151). In ad-
dition, there were traces of a knowledge of the Danish written language in
Tønder as early as in the first half of the 17th century, a matter to which I shall
return. How widespread this knowledge was is impossible to determine. Per-
haps one ought to speak of quadroglossia instead of triglossia, and triglossia in-
stead of diglossia? At least the situation ended up with not just a new diglossic
situation but a quadroglossic situation.
The transition from a Low German to a High German written

language in various social and socio-functional groups
The division into phases is supplemented with a survey of the change of written
language in the various social and socio-functional groups (Christensen 2007a)
and a number of articles which go deeper into the question. I shall mention the
most important results from these.
Decrees promulgated by the prefects (amtmænd) in Tønderhus, Dietrich
Blome (1594–1608), Hans von der Wisch (1608–1624) and Wolf Blome
(1624–1664), continued from the beginning of the 17th century to alternate be-
tween Low German and High German, but most of them were written in High
German. The last Low German document from a prefect in Tønderhus that I
have found in the Tønder town archive dates from 1652 and was issued by Wolf
Blome (Christensen 2007a, p. 100).
As already mentioned, the court records were kept in High German during
the short period 1600–1603. The men who did this had come from the south.
The town clerk Johann Bouke, who was probably from Ostfriesland, kept the
records in High German in 1600 and the town clerk Johannes Faust, who came
from Flensburg (Danish Flensborg) but whose family originated from West-
phalia, continued keeping the records in High German until 1603 (Christensen
2000a, pp. 124–126). He was succeeded by the town clerk Jurgen Thimsen,
who in 1612, probably in connection with a visit by the Duke to the city, went
over to using High German in the records (Christensen 2000a, p. 136).
The other town clerks both before and after this short period wrote in Low
German. Peter Jacobsen, who was town clerk in Tønder from, at the latest,
1578 to 1594, was born in Tønder, educated in Rostock, and wrote in Low Ger-
man. At the university in Rostock the transition to High German had been made
in 1550 – although Low German had not entirely disappeared in the second half
of the 16th century – but this did not mean that he wrote in High German during
his employment in Tønder (Christensen 2000a, p. 120–121).
Jurgen Thimsen was the town clerk who was particularly affected by the
language change in the Tønder administration. It is not known where Thimsen
was educated. He took over his post in 1603. He mastered both written lan-
guages and his use of these was systematic: he wrote in High German from
1605 to the Duke and from 1612 in the court records. He retired as town clerk
in 1638 but continued to be employed in the town administration, and he wrote
texts dealing with financial matters for internal use in the town until his death
in 1651 or 1652 (Christensen 2000a, pp. 126–136; 2005, pp. 112–130).
The system began to disintegrate with his son, Frederich Thim, who also
worked for the town administration and was town clerk for the short period
1648–1649 but had to resign his post in favour of a man from outside whom the
Duke wished to be employed (Christensen 2005, pp. 131–137; 2007a, p. 103).
Frederich Thim wrote in High German to the Duke and the King and in the
court records; in daily life he mostly wrote in Low German, particularly in con-
nection with money matters, but he also occasionally wrote in High German in
this context (Christensen 2005, p. 137; 2000a, pp. 116–118).
From Henricus Schallichius onwards, who came from Westphalia in 1638
(Christensen 1999, p. 35; 2006a, p. 147; 2007a, p. 103), the written language
of the town clerk for the administration was High German. The town clerks
were too well-educated to be considered typical representatives of the popula-
tion of Tønder. More typical were the mayors, treasurers and craftsmen.
The mayors, who were merchants and only left behind a few texts, from the
middle of the 17th century wrote mainly in High German for administrative af-
fairs (Christensen 2006a, p. 148; 2008).
The treasurers, who were also merchants, continued to use Low German
for a long time (Christensen 1999; 2000b; 2007, p. 104). The last accounts
kept by treasurer Hinrich Meysahl in Low German date from 1672. It should
also be mentioned that treasurer Jacob Jensen Roost also used Low German
for his accounts in 1675 (Christensen 2006a, p. 149), but these were probably
not as formal as the official treasurer’s accounts. The treasurers’ texts were
for internal use in the town. Just as in the German towns, there is a clear dif-
ference here: High German was used for correspondence going out of the
town, which would normally be to the Duke, and Low German was for inter-
nal use within the town.
This becomes very clear in connection with the administration of hospitalet,
which was not a hospital but an institution for the poor. The town ran a kind of
bank associated with this institution, and the accounts for this have survived.
Jurgen Thimsen kept these accounts in Low German from at least 1615 till his
death in 1651 or 1652 (Christensen 2005, p. 125–126; 2009, p. 103). In 1652
they were kept for a short time by the mayor, Thomas Andersen, and then by
the Dean, Stephan Kenckel, in both cases in High German (Christensen 2009,
p. 103). Bonds were issued, largely written in Low German by Jurgen Thimsen
and in both Low German and High German by Frederich Thim. The interesting
fact about these bonds was that the citizens themselves had signed them, some-
times adding a brief accompanying text saying that they were signing in their
own hand. Among these bond holders were a few women; one of them, Agete
Dalleres/Daleres, wrote the whole bond herself in Low German in 1639 (Chris-
tensen 2009, p. 110). The last bond written in Low German was issued in 1662
to Christian Amdersen, a citizen of Tønder. The identity of the scribe is un-
known; Frederich Thim had died the preceding year (Christensen 2011).
Women were not involved in the administration of the town, but there is a
certain amount of evidence to show that they could write – for example, they
signed bonds, as mentioned above. Laureta Preuss, who was married to Peter
Preuss, the mayor of Tønder in 1675–1680, and who after his death continued
to run his merchant business, added a note in Low German to a letter from 1646
somewhat later, but in 1696 as an old woman she wrote a receipt in High Ger-
man (Christensen 2011).
It was the craftsmen who continued using Low German longest. The mate-
rial they left behind can all be said to fall within the domain of money matters,
particularly receipts for their work for the town. Their use of Low German first
began to decrease in the period 1688–1699, particularly after 1690. The last
Low German text is an invoice from the locksmith Christian Petersen in 1699
(Christensen 2006a, p. 150). Irmtraud Rösler also confirms that the craftsmen
in Mecklenburg went over to using High German much later than did the ad-
ministrators of the town (Christensen 2006b, p. 85; Rösler 2000, p. 43).
At the lowest level of the social scale, we see that in 1696 there was an
executioner in Tønder who could write an invoice to the town, and this was in
High German. He was one of a family of executioners called Asthusen, from
Hamburg (Christensen 2007a, p. 109). His invoice was not for an execution but
for the cleaning of “the secret room”, that is the toilet, in Rådsvinkælderen (the
council’s wine cellar), a hostelry in the Town Hall.
School and church

It was a disappointment that I did not find more material about the municipal
school, which was the normal form of schooling available to citizens. Such
documents might have revealed which language or languages were taught and
employed for teaching. It is assumed, as already mentioned, that the change of
language in the school took place at the same time as the transition to High Ger-
man in 1652 for preaching in the church (Christensen 2006a, p. 148). It was a
surprise that names of private schoolmasters turned up in the records, but un-
fortunately these were found in the tax censuses, which provide no information
about the language of eduation (Christensen 2006c).
It was an equally great disappointment that there was so little information
about the language used in church, as this would certainly have been of great
significance. The use of High German as the language of preaching would
have lent this language authority. One priest made an attempt to employ High
German as the preaching language in 1631, but on this occasion the citizens
protested (Christensen 2006a, p. 146; 2007a, p. 106). High German was first
used at the morning service in 1652, when Stephan Kenckel took office as
Dean (Christensen 2006a, pp. 147–148; 2007a, p. 106). In addition, through-
out the 17th century there was an early morning service in Danish, although
German hymns were sung during the service (Christensen 2007a, p. 106). It
is conceivable that it was easier to get hold of German hymn-books at that
time.
Danish in Tønder
Finally, I shall make a brief mention of one element in this project that was
quite unexpected: there were a few texts in Danish, which demonstrated that
there were people who could read and write Danish in Tønder. It was already
known that during the years 1614–16 there had been a municipal school that
taught in Danish in Tønder (Christensen 2006c, p. 219).
The oldest Danish text that I have discovered in the town archive is from
1602, but this was written by a plumber (a specialist on lead roofs) in
Møgeltønder who belonged to the Danish enclaves. The oldest text in Danish
that was written by a citizen of Tønder is the text by a signature on a hospital
bond from 1632 (Christensen 2006c, p. 220). In addition, there were several in-
direct indications of knowledge of Danish as a written language in Tønder, for
example correspondence from 1685–1696 between some people in Odense
who wrote in Danish to Tønder, with responses in German from Tønder (Chris-
tensen 2006c, pp. 223–224). Most significantly, I found a reference to actual
language use: the nobleman Benedikt Rantzau, former provincial governor of
Møgeltønder, had his scribe write in 1609 that “de Herrn Burgermeister vnnd
Rath der denischen jo so wol kundlich dann der duttschen sprache” (‘the Lord
Mayor and the council know both the Danish and the German language’)
(Christensen 2006c, p. 219).
In this connection, it was also interesting that rather unexpectedly a letter
turned up dated 1634 from the priest Petrus Jacobi von Alsleff (Alslev, a vil-
lage in Højst parish), who had studied in Germany, spent some time in Copen-
hagen and been offered a living in Tønder. However, he refused to return home
until he had become more proficient in the Danish standard language; he later
ended up in Vodder parish, slightly north of Tønder (Christensen 2007b,
2007c, pp. 10–12).
Summary and concluding remarks

In conclusion, it can be said that the High German written language was
brought to Tønder by the Duke and his chancellery at the beginning of the 17th
century, but only spread slowly throughout the administration. From the
middle of the 17th century, when the town clerk Jurgen Thimsen died and the
Dean Stephan Kenckel arrived, High German became more commonly used in
the town, although the treasurers still kept to Low German in the 1670s for in-
ternal administration, while some craftsmen in the town still were writing Low
German in the 1690s. At the same time, there were also instances of Danish as
a written language in the 17th century.
I would not claim to have brought the Tønder project to completion. It
would be interesting to move up to a higher cultural level where the changes of
language could be observed, to go more deeply into the matter of how Low
German and High German were written, and to continue in the same manner
with the other market towns, Sønderborg, Aabenraa and Haderslev. I believe
that the chronological division into phases will give a firmer basis for further
research.
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MLG loanwords in medieval charters issued in Närke 137
Middle Low German loanwords in medie-

val charters issued in the Swedish province
of Närke
Helena Wistrand, Stockholm University
Introduction
This paper constitutes an effort to comprehensively describe the range, distri-
bution, and use of words imported from Middle Low German (MLG) in medie-
val charters originating from the Swedish province of Närke. A more extensive
account of the study which this paper summarizes, and its results, can be found
in my dissertation (Wistrand 2006). The aim of that study was primarily
descriptive from a quantitative perspective, although some qualitative aspects
are discussed here, mainly in the sections on lexical variants and regional
provenance.
The charters studied were all written between the years 1350 and 1520.
They have been divided according to three different aspects – social prove-
nance, regional provenance and chronological provenance – and the vocabu-
lary of MLG origin used in them has been studied accordingly. The main focus
here is on regional provenance. Three lesser parts of the full study deal with
foreign words (Germ. Fremdwörter), MLG affixes, and loan words used in the
different textual formulas of the charters. Of these, only the issue of foreign
words is briefly accounted for in this paper.
The province of Närke during the Middle Ages

The fairly small and geographically limited area that forms the medieval prov-
ince of Närke contains a series of culturally and socially interesting environ-
ments. For example, the town of Örebro dates back to the end of the 13th cen-
tury, although at that time it was already an important crossroad between routes
from the provinces of Värmland, Öster- and Västergötland, the mining districts
of Central Sweden and the region of Lake Mälaren. During earlier medieval
times, the Eriksgata (i.e. the journey traditionally taken by newly elected kings
to have the elections acknowledged by the rural courts and assemblies) led here
from the southwest (Lovén 1999, p. 142; Jonasson 1984, p. 23f.). Also situated
in Närke are various mining districts, the Cistercian convent of Riseberga, the
138 Helena Wistrand
castles of Örebro and Göksholm, and not least the rural court assemblies of the
province.
Some of the hundreds (small administrative districts) of medieval Närke
were loosely united in larger judicial districts called treding (appr. ‘third’),
which perhaps was a remnant of an older division of the province into three
parts (Tunberg 1911, p. 48). The two tredings remaining in the Middle Ages
were Västra tredingen (‘the Western third’) and Östra tredingen (‘the Eastern
third’); there was one rural court judge per treding, while the hundreds of
Glanshammar, Sundbo and Örebro, and also the mining district of Noraskogen
were not part of any larger judicial district of this kind, and subsequently each
had their own rural court judges (Styffe 1911, p. 302). However, at the end of
the 15th century, all of Närke seems to only have had one rural court judge prac-
tising in the entire province (Almquist 1955, pp. 50, 104).
Material
The selection of charters for the source material of the study was based on the
following criteria: the charters are original versions issued between the years
1350 and 1520 by people who can be assumed to have permanently resided in
the province. The source material for the study consists of 270 charters, of
which the majority has not yet been published. This means that they have had
to be read from photocopies or from the actual originals. Most of the charters
constitute official texts of a judicial nature, such as deeds of transfer of differ-
ent kinds (i.e. bills of sale, deeds of gifts, wills, etc.) or judgments. There are
also some letters of a non-official nature which mainly concern administrative
matters. These texts were for the most part written by members of the Sture
family, who were also members of the council of the realm, at the end of the
15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, and who resided at Örebro castle
(Wiktorsson 1983, p. 19).
MLG loan words were located in the charters by referring to different dic-
tionaries. Initially, every lemma with a MLG equivalence was extracted from
Ordbok öfver svenska medeltids-språket (Söderwall 1884–1918; Söderwall et
al. 1925–1973), resulting in a glossary of possible MLG loanwords in Old
Swedish (OSw). This glossary was used to locate loanwords in the charters,
while comparisons were also made with etymological information in other dic-
tionaries (SAOB 1893 ff.; Hellquist 1948; NEO 1995–96), resulting in a total
of 258 lemmas (107 nouns, 104 verbs, 33 adjectives, 13 adverbs and 1 conjunc-
tion) of MLG origin being identified in the source material. These 258 lemmas
occur in a total of 2,100 separate instances in the source material, and all are
accounted for in chapter 3 of Wistrand (2006). All MLG forms referred to in
this paper and in the study which it is based upon have also been drawn from
dictionaries (Lasch & Borchling 1928–; Schiller & Lübben 1875–1881).
Lexical variants
In a section concerning graphonomical and phonological integration of MLG
loanwords in Lena Moberg’s dissertation (1989, p. 54f.), she states that it is
primarily the form of the word in the source language that constitutes its base
in the target language. She writes that one should thus assume that the form
of a MLG loanword in OSw reflects its form in the source language, rather
than seeking to explain differences between them as being a result of changes
in OSw. In this context, she points out the problem that dictionaries often do
not give a fair representation of the variations in form that MLG vocabulary
items most likely had. Moberg also writes that a person who was familiar
with MLG ought to have produced words which were more similar to corre-
sponding forms in the source language than someone with a lesser knowledge
of MLG.
Unfamiliar pronunciation, accent, inflection, word formation and orthogra-
phy are all characteristics of foreign words. The orthography may be atypical
in different ways: it could be unfamiliar in the target language, or it could be
familiar but correspond to an unexpected pronunciation (Dahlstedt 1969, p.
18ff.). The study discussed in this paper reveals that some examples of import-
ed words display foreign traits even though in many cases these loanwords had
existed in OSw for quite some time in more orthographically and morphologi-
cally integrated forms. Such forms are thus assumed to have been produced by
scribes with a relatively good knowledge of MLG due to their position in
society and/or level of education.
Seven forms which have been extracted from charters issued in the 14th cen-
tury can be considered to be quite early. These forms are geographically dis-
tributed over three locations. In charters from the town of Örebro we find the
forms ‹macht› (in charter no. 11942, see Sources and Literature below)1 with
MLG ‹cht› for /kt/, and ‹qwytan› (14176), which indicates a long stem-vowel
as in MLG quit. From charters issued at the convent of Riseberga, I have ex-
tracted the forms ‹iuncfru› (13031), with /k/ preserved in the first element of
the compound, like in the MLG principal form, and ‹acht› (13979). In the area
south of Lake Hjälmaren, charters contain the forms ‹ganzlica› (12079) and
‹ganslika› (12848), clearly lacking /k/ in the root morpheme like the MLG
form, and ‹macht› (13816).2
During the 15th century, words which may be characterized as foreign are
more scarce and geographically scattered, and they will not be mentioned fur-
ther here. Foreign forms are most frequent in charters issued in the early 16th
century, primarily from the office of Örebro castle. Two of the scribes of the
1
References to specific charters are given here, since specific written forms are discussed in this
section.
2
MLG macht, OSw. makt ‘power’; MLG quit, OSw. qvitter ‘quits, free’; MLG juncvrûw(e),
OSw. iungfru ‘maiden’; MLG acht, OSw. akt ‘intention’; MLG ganslĩk, gantz-, -lĩke(n), OSw.
gansklika ‘entirely’.
140 Helena Wistrand
charters in question have been identified as Erik skrivare (‘Erik the scribe’)
(Sjödin in Pers 1932, p. 691), and Kettil skrivare Påvelsson (‘Kettil the scribe
Påvelsson’) (Utterström 1968, p. 19). Erik uses the forms ‹befollandes›
(34517b, 34680), which seems to be derived from the MLG alternative be-
volen, and ‹legx› (34517b), which reflects the MLG monosyllabic subsidiary
form leysch. Kettil Påvelsson uses the forms ‹Rögtid›/‹Rökcthä› (34826),
‹röcthe› (35512/ 35695), probably from the MLG parallel form röchte. He
also writes ‹Joffrws› (34803), ‹Joffrvner› (34822), ‹Joffrv› (34864) and
‹joffrv› (35808), where the first element of the compound is perhaps derived
from the MLG western subsidiary form juffer; and ‹ffor vetten› (35512)
which, with its short vowel in the root morpheme, obviously is influenced by
the MLG alternative form vorwetten. Furthermore, he writes ‹Rittärss›
(34863) and ‹Rittherss› (34865), which reflects the MLG subsidiary form
ritter.3
The early instances of forms characterized as foreign here can perhaps
partially be explained as being the result of their fairly young age in relation
to their time of appearance in OSw, i.e. they occur chronologically relatively
close to the actual borrowing of the words. The fact that relatively young
MLG loanwords are written in ways which closely reflect their forms in the
source language may not be considered strange, but it nevertheless reveals
that the scribes must have had some knowledge of the MLG forms. Perhaps
the later instances, i.e. those found in charters issued in Örebro in the first two
decades of the 16th century, are more noteworthy, not least since they are at-
tributed to known scribes. It is particularly interesting when forms can be at-
tributed to a specific MLG dialectal area, as is the case with Kettil Påvels-
son’s way of writing iungfru. A further study of the charters written by this
particular scribe might perhaps reveal more about MLG influence on his text
production.
MLG loanwords according to social, regional and

chronological provenance
The frequency of the imported words was also studied from social, regional and
chronological perspectives. The charters issued by the burghers of Örebro and
the miners of Noraskogen were found to be richest in imported words, followed
by texts issued by members of the nobility. Regarding the regional comparison,
the charters originating from the northern parts of Närke, where the town of
Örebro and the Noraskogen mining district are located, and from the south-east
3
MLG bevālen, bevēlen, bevolen, OSw. befala ‘command’, ‘entrust’; MLG leydisch, leitsch,
leysch, OSw. leidhisker ‘cloth from Leiden’; MLG rüchte, röchte, OSw. rykte ‘piece of news’;
MLG juncvrûw(e), jon-, juffer, OSw. iungfru ‘maiden’; MLG vorvēten, OSw. forvita ‘know of’;
MLG ridder, riddere, ritter, OSw. riddare ‘knight’.
of the province, contain the largest number of imported words. The chronolog-
ical comparison shows that both the number and the frequency of the imported
words increase over time.
Social provenance
Comparison on a social basis is somewhat problematic, starting with the cate-
gorization of the source material. One drawback is that in most cases we do not
know who actually wrote the charters, or to what extent the person issuing a
charter influenced in the wording of the text, i.e. how the responsibility for for-
mulating the text was distributed between the scribe and the person issuing a
charter. The comparison according to social provenance was thus made in
pairs: chief judges and rural judges, knights and squires, members of convents/
monasteries and priests, burghers of Örebro and members of mining commu-
nities (see Table 1 below).
Looking at the first two pairs, the group of people with the highest social
standing – i.e. chief judges and knights – have the greatest variation in their use
of MLG loanwords Counting all parts of speech together, there are a larger
number of loanwords in charters issued by chief judges than by rural judges,
with regard to both lemmas (types) (on average 2,0 types of MLG loanwords
per text in charters issued by chief judges (54/27), compared to 1,5 in those is-
sued by rural judges (65/42)) and separate instances (tokens) of loanwords (on
average 6,6 tokens of MLG loanwords in charters issued by chief judges (179/
27) compared to 4,7 tokens in charters issued by rural judges (196/42)).4 How-
ever, a slightly different pattern emerges for charters issued by knights and
squires: knights’ charters have on average the largest number of types of MLG
origin (on average 3,3 types of MLG loanwords per text in charters issued by
knights (30/9), compared to 2,4 in those issued by squires (65/27)), while the
squires’ have the largest number of tokens (on average 8,0 tokens of MLG
loanwords in charters issued by squires (216/27) compared to 6,6 in charters
issued by knights (59/9)). Although the squires used a smaller number of types
than the knights, they used these types all the more frequently.
Texts issued by members of convents and monasteries do not differ much
from those issued by priests concerning the number of loanwords. MLG nouns
and especially verbs are somewhat more frequent in charters issued at convents
4
Concerning all given average numbers in this paper, it must be considered that they are not re-
lated to the length of the charter texts respectively, i.e. the number of words in each text. When
writing my dissertation, I refrained from making such calculations. In OSw it is not easy to clearly
state what is a clearly-defined lexical unit, and what is not. What we in modern Swedish consider
solid compounds, is in OSw sometimes written as two words and sometimes as one, often varying
within each text. Even Söderwall (1884–1918, 1925–73) do not give consistent directions in this
matter, since some compounds are lemmatized as one word, others as two. The reliability of such
calculations simply would not correspond to the amount of work they would have led to. There-
fore, the calculations of average numbers of MLG loanwords in the texts are simply based on the
number of loanwords and the number of charters in each group.
142 Helena Wistrand
Table 1: Social, regional and chronological variation. Frequency of types and

tokens of MLG loanwords in absolute numbers.
Number Adj./ In
Nouns Verbs
of adv. total
charters types tokens types tokens types tokens types tokens
Chief judges 27 28 91 16 60 10 28 54 179

Rural judges 42 25 90 22 52 18 54 65 196
Knights 9 12 29 9 15 9 15 30 59
Squires 27 27 82 22 74 16 60 65 216
Members of
convents/ 39 36 105 36 107 16 43 88 255
monasteries
Priests 41 30 93 24 80 18 52 72 225
Social variation
Burghers 33 35 149 37 84 19 65 91 298

Members of
mining 4 10 18 11 16 4 6 25 40
communities
In total 221 203 657 177 488 110 323 490 1468
Northern Närke 24 22 40 15 37 7 20 44 97
-The mining district 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 2 2
of Noraskogen
-The hundred of
19 20 35 15 32 5 13 40 77
Örebro
Regional variation
-The hundred of
4 4 4 3 5 6 6 13 15
Glanshammar
Western third 20 21 50 12 20 14 27 47 97
Eastern third 31 25 82 23 62 17 50 65 194
In total 75 68 172 50 119 38 97 156 388
1358–1399 52 24 89 14 66 18 71 56 226
1400–1432 63 38 209 36 138 21 100 95 447
1433–1466 56 48 202 32 134 17 69 97 405
Chronological
1467–1499 50 38 148 35 123 17 65 90 336

variation
1500–1520 49 62 263 69 247 28 181 159 691

In total 270 210 911 186 708 101 486 497 2105
and monasteries, which probably is due to the fact that verbs generally occur
more often in a couple of specific types of charters, namely testaments and
deeds of will. This group of charters contains a number of verbs of MLG origin
which are not found in any other charters in the data base, e.g. begripa ‘agree,
decide’, bevara ‘protect, keep’, forbarma ‘have mercy’, kosta ‘defray’, qvitta
‘reduce, settle, quit’, stikta ‘found, establish’, tøva ‘delay, put off’, and æra
‘honour, venerate’.
The group of charters which has been found to contain the largest number
of MLG loanwords was issued by the burghers of Örebro and by members of
the mining communities. Of these two groups, the first impression is that the
latter (the average number of MLG loanword types in charters issued by mem-
bers of the mining communities is 6,3 (25/4), and the average number of tokens
is 10 (40/4)) seems to contain a somewhat larger number of loanwords than the
former (the average number of MLG loanword types in charters issued by
burghers of Örebro is 2,8 (91/33), and the average number of tokens is 9 (298/
33)). However, the charters issued by members of mining communities are
fewer and occur very late; the four texts which constitute this group were all
issued at the end of the 15th century or later. So, excluding charters issued by
members of the mining communities, the charters issued by the burghers of
Örebro on average contain the largest number of MLG loanwords, followed by
those issued by members of convents and monasteries (e.g. mainly from the
convent of Riseberga, but a few texts originate from the monastery of Örebro).
Regional provenance
For the regional comparison, two categories of charters have been selected:
those issued by rural judges and those issued by parish priests. The reason for
this is that rural judges and parish priests can be linked to specific places within
the province. Since a rural judge in late medieval Närke did not exclusively
practise in one particular hundred but rather in a whole third (unless he worked
in one of the northern hundreds), the division into thirds has formed the base of
the regional comparison. It is true that the ecclesiastical administration did not
make use of the same divisions, but charters issued by parish priests have
nevertheless been categorized according to the same principle in this study.
The hundreds which were not part of these judicial districts, i.e. those of
Glanshammar, Sundbo and Örebro, and the mining district of Noraskogen, have
been combined into a regional group of their own, whose the size better corre-
sponds to the size of Västra tredingen (‘the Western third’) and Östra tredingen
(‘the Eastern third’), both concerning geographical area and number of charters.
This group of charters is called Norra Närke (‘Northern Närke’) in the study.
Thus we have three regional groups of charters: Northern Närke containing
24 charters, the Western third containing 20, and the Eastern third containing
31 (see Table 1). Average years of issue of the charters in these groups are 1446
(Northern Närke), 1412 (the Western third), and 1417 (the Eastern third); so the
charters issued in Northern Närke differ from the others in being on average
younger.
Although only charters issued by rural judges and parish priests were
singled out in this part of the study, one should keep in mind that the centre for
issuing charters in the Western third was the castle of Göksholm, with its resi-
dent noblemen; in the Eastern third it was Riseberga, with its convent; and in
Northern Närke it was the town of Örebro, with its burghers. Thus charters
from these environments might still to some extent be subject to influence from
other social classes, although more or less indirectly.
144 Helena Wistrand
Figure 1: The geographical distribution of MLG loanwords within the province. (N=nouns,
V=verbs, A=adjectives and adverbs combined.)5
5
N: bevarning ‘certainty, confirmation’; borghare ‘burgher’; borghmæstare ‘chief magistrate’;
byte ‘exchange, barter’; damber ‘dam, mill-dam’; del ‘part’, ‘share, lot’; foghate ‘sheriff, bailiff’;
forordh ‘reservation, condition’; gava ‘gift’; hovudsman ‘captain’; hælft ‘half’; iungfru ‘maiden’;
klensmidher ‘locksmith, smith who repairs and manufactures small metal objects’; kompan ‘com-
panion’; liverne ‘life, way of life’; makt ‘power’, ‘importance’; mata ‘degree, extent’; nødhthorft
‘necessities (of life)’; panter ‘pledge, pawn’; plata ‘(metal) plate’, ‘cuirass’; provaster ‘(ecclesi-
astical) dean’; redha ‘account’; riddare ‘knight’; rænta ‘income, levy’; rættoghet ‘right, claim’;
sinne ‘mind, reason’; skomakare ‘shoemaker’; skræddare ‘tailor’; stadher ‘town’; thanke
‘thought’; vidhergiæld ‘compensation, payment’; vikt ‘weight’; vilkor ‘condition, stipulation’;
væghna ‘behalf’; vælmakt ‘power, health, well-being’; væpnare ‘squire’; værkmæstare ‘foreman,
superintendent of a craft guild’; æra ‘honour’.
V: akta ‘intend’, ‘notice’, ‘respect, consider’; anama ‘receive, accept’; befala ‘order’, ‘entrust’;
behalda ‘keep’; bekænna ‘confess’; beradha ‘confer, consider’; beredha ‘pay’; bestanda ‘be in
possession of’; betala ‘pay’; bevara (sik) ‘concern (oneself)’; bevisa ‘prove, establish’; bliva ‘re-
main’, ‘become’; byta ‘change, exchange’; børa ‘ought to’, ‘be fitting for’; fata ‘stow (in drum or
barrel)’; forbiudha ‘forbid’; forfylghia ‘claim, exact’; forlika ‘reconcile’; formagha ‘be capable
of’; forvara ‘protect’, ‘keep’, ‘make secure’; forvissa ‘ensure, guarantee, promise’; fulbordha
‘fulfil’, ‘confirm’; føgha ‘ordain’; hantera ‘handle’, ‘discuss, consinder’; hindra ‘prevent, re-
strain’; hopa ‘hope’; ivirsea ‘consider’; ludha ‘run, read’; rænta ‘yield, bring in’; tilstanda ‘con-
Figure 1 constitutes an attempt to illustrate a somewhat more qualitative an-

alysis of the MLG loanwords occurring in the source material. The words
which are common to all three regional groups are also fairly common in the
general charter vocabulary; many of them are part of formulas, such as til mere
visso ok høghre bevarning (‘to make doubly sure and further protect’), medh
akt ok forordh (‘with intent and conditions’), full makt ok vald (‘complete
power and might’), i sva mato (‘to that extent’), a nokors væghna (‘on some-
body’s behalf’), bekænnis medh thesso øpno brefe (‘avow with this public
letter’), medh beradhno modhe (‘with aforethought’), beskedheliker man (‘sen-
sible man’), ærliker man (‘respected man’). These words are all frequently
used in the source material as a whole and occur throughout the research period
1375–1520.
Except for borghmæstare, the nouns which are only found in charters issued
by rural judges and parish priests in Northern Närke occur only once each.
Skomakare, skræddare and værkmæstare are used as bynames, and epithets
like borghare and borghmästare are both likely to be found here, since the
town of Örebro is situated in the area. The verbs unique to this part of the prov-
ince are found only once each in the material, and the one unique adjective oc-
curs twice. This group of charters has the smallest number of types of MLG
loanwords per text (see Table 1: on average 1,8 types per charter (44/24) com-
pared to 2,4 (47/20) in the Western third and 2,1 (65/31) in the Eastern third)).
This may seem strange, since the town of Örebro is situated in this part of the
province, and one might expect a fairly extensive use of MLG loanwords in the
towns compared to rural areas, not least since this is also the youngest group of
charters in the regional comparison. However, looking at social provenance,
the group of charters with the highest number of loanwords per text was issued
by the burghers of Örebro, and these charters are not included in the compari-
son by regional provenance. A possible interpretation of these results is that
lexical influence between different social classes in the area, or maybe more
correctly between their respective scriveners, was not very extensive.
The nouns which are only used in the charters of the Western third occur
once each, of which klensmidher is used as a byname. The verbs unique to this
group of charters are also only used once each, as are the adjectives and ad-
verbs, except for yterlika, which is found twice. However, when looking at all
the MLG loanwords occurring in the charters in this group, one finds that on
fess, admit’; tygha ‘certify, attest’; upantvardha ‘transfer, convey, assign’; vilkora ‘bind, pledge’.
A: beskedheliker ‘sensible, deliberate’; frir ‘free, unimpeded’; gansker ‘whole, entire’; gansk-
lika ‘entirely, completely’; kranker ‘frail, infirm, ill’; lidhugher ‘free, free of liability’; likervis ‘as
if’; lødhogher ‘stirling’; myndogher ‘authoritative, empowered’; mæktogher ‘authorized, em-
powered’; opinbar ‘public, official’; opinbara ‘publicly, officially’; pliktogher ‘bound, obliged’;
qvitter ‘quits, free’; redhelika ‘clearly, plainly, lucidly’; redho ‘ready (money)’, ‘reliable, honest,
scrupulous’; saligh ‘blessed, delighted, blissful’; strænger ‘strong, powerful, competent, promi-
nent’; sunder ‘sound, healthy’; sunderlika ‘particularly, above all’; yterlika ‘further, additionally,
in greater detail’; ælænde ‘miserable, unfortunate, in distress’; ærliker ‘respected, esteemed, dis-
tinguished’.
146 Helena Wistrand
average they actually contain the highest number of types of MLG origin per
text (see Table 1: on average 2,4 tokens (47/20) of MLG loanwords per char-
ter). This is interesting, since this group is also the oldest of the three. One poss-
ible reason for this might be some influence from the convent of Riseberga, as-
suming that the nuns there were mainly members of the nobility. The compar-
ison according to social provenance, which is briefly accounted for above,
shows that charters issued by members of the convent (combined with a few
charters issued by members of the monastery of Örebro) on average contain a
larger number of MLG loanwords than those issued by rural judges and priests.
Also, the texts of the charters issued at the convent of Riseberga tell us that ru-
ral judges and priests from time to time were involved in issuing charters in the
convent; that there had to be some contact and influence between these priests
and the members of the convent is scarcely questionable.
The group of charters issued by rural judges and parish priests of the Eastern
third contains the highest number of separate instances of MLG loanwords.
The explanation for this is, of course, that it also comprises the largest group of
charters in the regional comparison. The nouns which are unique to the charters
issued by rural judges and parish priests in the Eastern third are all only found
once, except for plata, which is used twice as a byname. This is also the case
concerning all of the verbs found only in this set of data. Of the adjectives and
adverbs unique to this group, gansklika and pliktogher occurs three times each,
while the rest occur only once. The number of lemmas which are unique to this
group of charters is considerably higher than it is for either of the other groups.
The Eastern third contains the castle of Göksholm. In the late Middle Ages,
important members of the Natt och Dag family, which belonged to the high no-
bility of medieval Sweden, resided there. In the 15th century the knights Bengt
Stensson and his son Magnus Bengtsson lived there, and both in turns held the
office of chief judge of Närke. The son married a woman of German birth,
namely Ermegård Fickesdotter Bülow, who also issued a few charters which
appear in the source material. Compared with the circumstances mentioned in
Northern Närke, this might be interpreted to mean that lexical influence be-
tween social classes was more extensive in the Eastern third than in Northern
Närke.
Chronological provenance
All charters in the source material issued in the 14th century (i.e. 1375–1399)
form the oldest group of charters, and all charters issued in the 16th century (i.e.
1500–1520) form the youngest group. Those issued in the 15th century have
been divided into three periods: 1400–1432, 1433–1466, and 1467–1499. The
five chronological groups are adequate for seeing a change over time, and since
every group contains a large enough number of charters, the results of the com-
parison are reasonably reliable.
As one might expect, the average number of MLG loanwords increases
steadily over time, except for the combined number of adjectives and adverbs,
whose frequency is fairly constant throughout the four first periods; they even
decrease in number to some extent. Between the fourth and fifth periods, a sig-
nificantly larger increase in the number of nouns and verbs of MLG origin ap-
pears. During this time the adjectives/adverbs also increase in use somewhat.
This increase in the use of MLG loanwords at the turn of the 16th century is
partly explained by the nature of the charters issued in the latest period. For
some reason, the number of preserved deeds of transfer from the end of the 15th
century is not as extensive as it is from the 14th century and the bulk of the 15th
century. The majority of charters from the period 1500–1520 consist of texts of
a non-official nature – private letters concerning administrative matters – and
it is natural that these are more varied in their wording than the deeds of trans-
fer, since the latter are more dependent on formulas and model texts. Neverthe-
less, the texts from the youngest group of charters are lexically influenced by
MLG to a remarkable extent, as well as morphologically, e.g. the MLG prefix
be- often has the form bi-, and the suffix -are often has the form -er(e).
Conclusion
There are many problems connected to the completion of a study like this. One
drawback is that in most cases we do not yet know who wrote the Swedish me-
dieval charters, or to what extent the scribe relied on formulas and model texts
or drafts. Another problem has to do with the survival and conservation of
source material; in this study, the lack of preserved charters of a regular official
nature from the late 15th and early 16th centuries means that texts in the data
base from this period are in most cases slightly different in nature from the
other time frames, as they contain a more varied vocabulary, and they are there-
fore not completely comparable to the rest. These are factors which often make
comparisons difficult, but as always when dealing with historical material, we
are compelled to manage with what we in fact have available.
On the other hand, there is one major advantage to the use of charters as
source material for studies in the field of historical linguistics. In contrast to
most OSw texts, which in most cases have more or less been definitely and ac-
curately dated by scholars, the scribes of medieval charters almost always care-
fully noted down the date, year and place of issue, which renders it possible to
make relatively reliable regional and chronological comparisons. This makes
charters well suited for a study with regional and chronological perspectives,
such as the one partly summarized and accounted for in this paper.
It has not been possible to give a complete and comprehensive picture of the
distribution and propagation of MLG loanwords between different scriptorial
environments in the province of Närke. However, the study hopefully gives a
fairly accurate representation of the occurrence, range, distribution and use of
MLG loanwords in different kinds of scriptorial contexts within the province.
148 Helena Wistrand
A few possible paths of lexical diffusion between different environments and/

or social classes have been suggested in this paper, and a couple of scribes
whose complete text production might be interesting to study from a language
contact perspective were pointed out.
Sources and literature

Sources: archives, collections and charters referred to
RA = Riksarkivet (The Swedish National Archives).
RAp = Pergamentsbrev (‘charters on parchment’), kronologisk huvudserie (‘chrono-
logical main series’), RA.
Stu = Sturearkivet (The Sture Archive), RA.
Sä = Sävstaholmssamlingen (The Sävstaholm Collection), RA.
11942 = RAp, Örebro 9 July 1381.
12079 = RAp, Segersjö 3 January 1382.
12848 = RAp, Mellösa 9 April 1385.
13031 = RAp, Riseberga 7 January 1386.
13816 = RAp, Askers kyrka 21 October 1390.
13979 = RAp, Riseberga kloster 12 November 1391.
14176 = Sä, Örebro 6 May 1393.
34517b = Stu no. 262, Örebro 28 March 1502 (loose bill enclosed with 34517 = Stu no.
262, Örebro 28 March 1502).
34680 = Stu no. 610, Örebro 31 October 1503.
34803 = Stu no. 203, Örebro 25 April 1504.
34822 = Stu no. 217, Örebro 15 May 1504.
34826 = Stu no. 625, Örebro 19 May 1504.
34863 = Stu no. 204, Örebro 24 June 1504.
34864 = Stu no. 204b, Örebro 24 June 1504.
34865 = Stu no. 204c, Örebro 24 June 1504.
35512 = Stu no. 1393, Örebro 8 September 1506.
35695 = Stu no. 875, Örebro 24 January 1507.
35808 = Stu no. 829, Örebro 9 April 1507.
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Stockholm. (Verdandis skriftserie 17.) Pp. 1–31.
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150 Helena Wistrand
The history of complex verbs in Scandinavian languages revisited 151
The history of complex verbs in

Scandinavian languages revisited:
only influence due to contact with
Low German?
Kurt Braunmüller, University of Hamburg
and Steffen Höder, University of Kiel
Introduction
The ruling doctrine in Germanic language history states that early Germanic
had verbal prefixes which, however, were lost in North Germanic in historical
times (Krahe & Meid 1967, p. 42 [§ 52]):
Im N o rd g er manischen … schwinden sowohl beim Verbum als auch beim No-
men sämtliche unbetonten Praefixe entweder völlig oder werden stark reduziert. [In
No rth Ge r manic … all unstressed prefixes disappear in verbs and in nouns as
well, either totally or they became greatly reduced.]
Consequently, prefix verbs and other kinds of morphologically complex verbs
(including particle verbs) that are found in Modern Scandinavian must reflect
later innovations, particularly language contact with Middle Low German and,
to a lesser extent, Medieval Latin during the (Late) Middle Ages. The introduc-
tion of verbs such as Swedish betala ‘to pay’, förstå ‘to understand’ or miss-
förstå ‘misunderstand’ has indeed been considered one of the most salient rep-
lications from West Germanic that entered the (Mainland) Scandinavian lan-
guages during the era of the Hanseatic League – along with some derivational
suffixes such as -he(i)t or -else (equivalent to English -ing).
This general view is based on the assumption that Ancient Germanic pos-
sessed verbal prefixes, not only the prefix ga-/gi- used in the formation of the
preterite participle in West Germanic, but a word-formation strategy involving
verbal prefixation in general. The extant verbal prefixes are thus taken to be in-
herited from Ancient Germanic, and it is assumed that they were already an es-
tablished part of the Germanic verbal systems in the earliest period, as is illus-
trated by the following quote:
Grundsätzlich gilt für das Altgermanische, daß in der verbalen Komposition die
Praefixe unbetont, in der nominalen betont sind. (Krahe & Meid 1967, p. 41.) [It is
taken for granted as far as Old Germanic is concerned that the prefixes in verbal
compositions are unstressed whereas as they are stressed in nominal ones.]
152 Kurt Braunmüller and Steffen Höder
However, some questions still remain: (a) Where did the respective derivation-
al patterns originally come from? Were they of Germanic or non-Germanic
origin? (b) How were they integrated into the verbal systems of the Scandina-
vian languages? (c) Did the different prosodic patterns associated with the var-
ious types of complex verbs play a role in these processes?
In this contribution, we approach these questions from a wider typological
and contact linguistic perspective. Our basic claim is that all kinds of complex
verb constructions in Modern Scandinavian are ultimately the result of, or have
at least been heavily influenced by, language contact, via a transmission chain
that involves different, and in part layered, language contact situations and both
direct and indirect transfer from the source languages. Furthermore, we claim
that this process is evidence for contact-induced complexification, as opposed
to the simplification phenomena often observed in language contact situations
such as that between Low German and Mainland Scandinavian during the Han-
seatic era (cf. Braunmüller, this volume).
Prefix verbs: a contact feature?

Hypotheses
In contrast to the current theory, we hypothesise that the Ancient Germanic
dialects did not possess any verbal prefixes or any prefixation patterns of the
type that occurs in the Modern Germanic languages, and that these elements
consequently were not “lost and re-invented” in the later development of Ger-
manic. The main argument for this view is empirical: the fact that prefix verbs
or similar structures are not attested in the oldest West and North Germanic va-
rieties as represented by the extant sources, viz. the (nearly) 400 runic inscrip-
tions written in the Older Futhark (of which only 117 are analysable syntacti-
cally; cf. Beuerle and Braunmüller 2004, p. 7ff.). In these inscriptions we do
find morphologically simple verbs combined with directional adverbs such as
ut/uti ‘out of, outside’ or i/hi ‘into, in, hither’ (Krause 1971, p. 121ff.), but no
constructions that are lexicalised or show some other signs of a ‘special status’
within the language system.
On the other hand, the main evidence in favour of the existence of verbal
prefixes in Ancient Germanic comes (solely!) from Gothic – a language that
was, however, heavily influenced by Biblical and Byzantine Greek, in particu-
lar in the syntax, and of which no non-translated texts have survived (leaving
the three runic inscriptions1 aside). Indeed, Gothic has some verbal prefixes (cf.
Braune and Ebbinghaus 1981, p. 134f. [§ 217a]). But the use of prefix verbs
1
Cf. the runic inscriptions of Pietroassa (on a ring, found in Romania) and the spearheads of
Dahmsdorf-Müncheberg (southern Germany) and Kovel (Ukraine). None of them contains a verb.
The (partly East Germanic) fibula of Charnay, found in Burgundy (France), might, however, con-
tain a prefix verb: unþf[i]nþai ‘to find out’, but there are other divergent readings as well.
and the word formation pattern itself could also have resulted from the intense
contact with Greek, as they were needed for an appropriate translation of Greek
source texts into this (isolated) East Germanic dialect. Most obviously, prefix
verbs in Gothic very often occur as translation equivalents of structurally and
semantically parallel verbs in the Greek sources (such as urrinnan = ἐξέρχεσθαι
‘to go out’, anameljan = ἀπογράφειν ‘to write down’, anaqiman = ἐφιστάναι [<
ἐπ-ἱστάναι] ‘to come upon’; examples from the Gospel of St. Luke 2: 1–9).2
We find this observation very instructive, as it suggests that language con-
tact is not only responsible for the later establishment of prefix and particle
verbs in Modern Scandinavian, but that even the oldest prefix verbs attested in
Germanic could be the result of language contact. If the model of Gothic – a
prestigious, written, dominant language with its important religious, literary,
and scientific domains as well as its function as a lingua franca in the Byzan-
tine Empire – led to, or at least reinforced, the emergence and use of innovative
derivational patterns in a less prestigious Germanic vernacular, one should also
expect similar developments in Germanic languages spoken in the area where
the dominant lingua franca and literary language was Latin (a language as rich
in prefix verbs as Greek is). Although direct empirical evidence for such a de-
velopment is lacking, for want of comparably early sources, we can judge the
hypothesis indirectly based on its predictions: if Latin is the source of prefix
verb constructions in Germanic, we would expect the emergence of prefix
verbs to be earliest and most thorough in those Germanic languages that were
exposed to Latin earliest and in the most intense contact situations, geographi-
cally closest to the Roman Empire, Christianised first, and developed into writ-
ten languages (in the sense of Kloss’s 1978 ‘language Ausbau’; cf. the model
proposed by Höder 2010, p. 73ff.) earlier than others.
Consequently, our hypothesis is that prefix verbs in all Germanic dialects
are due to language contact, either with Ancient Greek (only for Gothic and
possibly for other East Germanic dialects such as Burgundian) or with Latin
(for all other Ancient Germanic dialects), and that they entered these dialects
through intense contact or even via translations of (predominantly religious)
texts into the Germanic vernaculars. Prefix verbs are thus replications of con-
structional patterns in the respective model languages, caused by the need to
express more complex and differentiated verbal meanings as found in the con-
tact languages or the source texts. This does not necessarily mean that individ-
ual lexical items were calqued or imitated by Germanic speakers – although
this has happened as well – but rather that a word-formation strategy as such
was adopted in the respective languages, while the lexical material was still
Germanic. In addition, it is important to mention that the replication of a con-
structional pattern from a model language does not rule out the possibility that
Germanic speakers occasionally used similar constructions independently of
2
The Greek influence is but one aspect of the contact history of Gothic. Several features of Gothic
grammar seem to indicate that Gothic must have been in contact with various other languages as
well (cf. van Coetsem 2000, p. 200ff.).
language contact as well. But the existence of a model construction of course

reinforces (if not initiates) the stabilisation, systematic expansion, and gram-
matical functionalisation of such patterns. (For more details on the notion of
‘replication’, see Heine and Kuteva 2005; Johanson 2008 has coined the term
‘code copying’ for basically the same phenomenon.)
Seen from a North Germanic perspective, this means that we assume a chain
of repeated, direct and indirect replications of Latin constructions and their
subsequent stabilisation and integration into the systems of the recipient lan-
guages, which of course involved interaction with pre-existing indigenous
structures (see further below for details). The West Germanic languages, espe-
cially Middle Low German, were actually no more than a transmitting link
from Latin to Scandinavian and not the original source of the emerging com-
plex verb patterns. These are either secondary or transmitted replications from
Latin via Low German or indeed, once more, primary replications of Latin
models. Another consequence is that (some) prefix verbs in Faroese (and, to a
lesser degree, in Icelandic as well) are actually tertiary replications, based on
previous secondary replications from Danish as the dominant contact and/or
colonial language over a long period of time.
Background: Ancient Germanic as a contact language

Transfer mechanisms similar to the proposed replication of prefix verbs are by
no means new for the Germanic dialects in general. As has been demonstrated in
detail in Braunmüller (2007, 2008a,b), Ancient Germanic has to be regarded as a
contact language, which emerged in a period of intense contact with people who
must have spoken a very divergent (more precisely, a non-Indo-European) lan-
guage, and which only became more complex during its later development. The
foreigners reduced the morphology of the old (pre-)Germanic dialects consider-
ably due to incomplete second language acquisition. The result in this case was
a restructured rudimentary Indo-European contact dialect with obvious traces
from a language in which ablaut played an important role in word formation and
especially in verbal tense formation. (For more details see, e.g., Vennemann
2003, p. 653ff., ‘Germania Semitica’ and passim, and particularly Mailhammer
2007 on the so-called strong or irregular verbs in Ancient Germanic.)
Ancient Germanic, as documented in its earliest sources, had e.g. (a) a simp-
lified tense system (reduced to present and past tense), (b) no inherited voice
distinction (only the common Germanic medio-passive verb haita ‘to be
called’ has been preserved, and some residual passive forms are attested in
Gothic), (c) no inherited subjunctive (only older optative) mode and reduced
imperative forms, (d) fossilised and extremely simplified ablaut patterns in the
verbal system (based on five e/o and two a/o classes) and (e) fixed (phonetic)
word-initial stress which was not distinctive phonologically. Classical Latin
and Greek were, as is well-known, far more complex and more typically Indo-
European in this respect: their verbal systems were considerably more com-
plex, but ablaut had only a marginal status; they had an elaborated tense sys-
tem, including passive voice and subjunctive forms.
Moreover, Ancient Germanic shows some other features which are typical for
creolised or grammatically simplified languages, such as the emergence of (f) a
new past tense formation element, viz. the so-called weak or regular preterit,
formed by a dental suffix (-þa/-ða; one of the two innovations specific for early
Germanic; for the second one, see (h) below). This new suffix is a typical result
of a far-reaching reduction and simplification process, which is not unusual for
creolised languages, in which either new tense-mood-aspect (TMA) markers
emerge or functional verb constructions take over tense formation, based on un-
specified verbs like ‘to make’ or ‘to do (!)’ (cf. Muysken 2000, ch. 7 on ‘Bi-
lingual Verbs’; for a more detailed argumentation, see Braunmüller 2008a).
In addition, early runic Germanic shows (g) a tendency to develop replicated
passive forms as well. As we can see from the oldest runic inscriptions in the
Older Futhark, the only inherited medio-passive verb, haita ‘to be called’ (Ger.
heißen, Sw. heta), in some instances gets a cliticised but sometimes redundant
personal pronoun marker (-ek[a] ‘-I’). A more detailed analysis (see Braunmül-
ler 2004a,b,c) suggests, however, that the writers of these inscriptions tried to
imitate (or ‘replicate’) the synthetically formed passive forms of Latin that they
were familiar with.3 The forms haitika (Zealand 2 / Køge) and ek … ha(i)teka
(Lindholm) ‘(I) am called-I’ represent this stage of replication, which later be-
came generalised in forms such as rAisidoka (Ellestad: ‘was erected’), tojeka
(Noleby: ‘I experience/get [benefactive]’) and felAhekA or fAlAhAk (Stentoften
and Björketorp, respectively: ‘is concealed’). This point shows that the Latin
verbal system was in the focus of bilingual writers who tried to find and estab-
lish forms that could be taken over into their Germanic vernaculars in order to
live up to the many grammatical differentiations which were a default for the
model language Latin but absent in the early Germanic dialects. Therefore,
these grammatical replications have to be considered parts of a more general
expansion process that typically occurs when creolised languages become
more widely used and have to fulfil more differentiated functions (cf. Trudgill
1992, p. 32).
Last but not least, the second innovation of Germanic should be mentioned:
(h) so-called weak adjective inflection. Originally occurring as a definiteness
marker and a word-formation element in its own right which developed into
some sort of a corollary in a definite noun phrase containing an attribute, it has
to be considered a result of language contact, but this time as an instance of im-
perfect replication (for further details on that issue, see Braunmüller 2008b).
‘Imperfect’ because the word-formation element IE -an(t), also found in Hittite
3
We cannot go into details here. The (almost) “perfect fit” (cf. Derolez 1998, p. 112ff.) of the ru-
nic writing system with the Germanic phoneme system suggests that the few writers of the oldest
Germanic runic inscriptions must have been bilingual in a way, with deep(er) insights into the
grammatical system of Latin and into the wide-spread scribal practice in the Roman empire in
general (all references in the text above).
with a similar specifying or singling-out function, was perceived as an inflec-

tional ending and no longer as an Indo-European word-formation morpheme
by these second language learners. This is why the weak adjective inflectional
paradigms in all Germanic dialects are rather uniform but show only a few in-
ter-paradigmatic alignments (e.g. the forms of the genitive and the dative plural
are alike in all nominal paradigms).
Our claim that the complex (or prefix) verbs are not of Germanic origin but
replicated from a model language fits in with the context of these develop-
ments: it is not an isolated phenomenon but part of a far-reaching and deep-
going expansion process of an originally simplified/creolised Indo-European
variety.
Classification
We define ‘complex verbs’ in the Germanic languages as conventionalised and
potentially lexicalised constructions consisting of a verb and a particle in ar-
bitrary order and with the particle either adjacent to the verb (and potentially
univerbated in prosodic or graphic terms) or in a distant position. This includes
various classes of complex verbs in the different Germanic languages, among
others verbs with separable and inseparable prefixes in German (erwerben ‘to
acquire’, anfangen ‘to start’ [but: er fängt an ‘he starts’]), prefix and particle
verbs in Swedish (bebo ‘to inhabit’, angå ‘to concern’, tycka om ‘to like’), or
phrasal verbs in English (e.g. get up).
Complex verbs can be classified according to (a) the relative word order of
their components (P[article] V[erb] vs. V[erb] P[article]) and (b) the distribu-
tion of stress (stressed verb vs. stressed particle). Stress can be indicated by a
straight apostrophe as in Sw. ta 'av ‘to turn off [a road]’ vs. 'avta ‘to decrease’).
These parameters yield the classification in Table 1:
Table 1: Types of complex verbs

Type Structure Examples
I P'V Sw. för'klara ‘to explain’
Da. be'holde ‘to keep’
Eng. for'give
Ger. zer'reißen ‘to tear [apart]’
II 'PV Sw. 'avgöra ‘to decide’
Da. 'afskaffe ‘to abolish’
*Ger. 'aufgeben ‘to give up’ [but: gibt 'auf ‘gives up’]
III V'P Sw. stå 'upp ‘to stand up’
Da. se 'ud ‘to look, to seem’
Eng. get 'up
*Ger. gibt 'auf ‘gives up’ [but: 'aufgeben ‘to give up’]
*IV 'VP Sw. 'börja med ‘to begin with’
Da. 'tænke på ‘to think of’
Eng. 'wait for
Ger. 'trauern um ‘to grieve for’
As the PV order – in Germanic – coincides with adjacency, types I and II cor-

respond to the term ‘prefix verb’, whereas type III is the ‘particle verb’ or
‘phrasal verb’ construction. Type IV contains those constructions in which the
particle is normally analysed as a preposition introducing a prepositional ob-
ject, i.e. a prepositional phrase as an obligatory argument of the respective
verb. This type is mainly included here for the sake of completeness. In older
Germanic it is, however, often impossible to distinguish between types III and
IV, as there is little (if any) evidence for stress in written sources. The same
holds in principle also for types I and II, although phenomena of phonetic re-
duction (reduced vowel inventory, loss of vowels) in pre-tonal syllables often
hint at the position of stress. Additionally, two language-specific restrictions
apply: in German, types II and III are coextensive because the position of the
particle is not distinctive but varies depending on the clause type and the word
order rules.4 In Icelandic, types I and II coincide categorically because of the
non-distinctiveness of stress, which always is word-initial.
If we now compare the distribution of these types among the Modern North
Germanic languages, Modern German,5 Ancient Germanic, and the (hypothet-
ically) relevant contact language, Latin, we get an interesting picture:
Table 2: Distribution of complex verb types

Type I (P'V) Type II ('PV) Type III (V'P) Type IV ('VP)
Ancient Germanic – – ++ ++
Modern Icelandic + ++ ++
Modern Faroese + + ++ ++
Modern Norwegian ++ ++ ++ ++
Modern Swedish ++ ++ ++ ++
Modern Danish ++ ++ ++ ++
Modern German ++ ++ ++
Latin ++ – ++
This distribution suggests three inferences: (a) the particle-final constructions

are an inherited pattern; (b) the particle-initial constructions are innovative and
may have spread geographically from the southernmost Germanic dialects to
the north, reaching Insular Nordic later than the Scandinavian Mainland, result-
4
Similarly, minor language-specific rules may cause additional ambiguity. For example, types II
and III are also indistinguishable in Swedish participles; cf. the following example: en politiker
som alla tycker 'om är en 'omtyckt politiker ‘a politician that everyone likes is a liked [= popular]
politician’. However, such rules do not obscure the classification of the respective complex verbs
in general, unlike in the German case.
5
Modern German is taken to be representative for West Germanic in general, although excluding
English because of its unique contact history within the Germanic family, even if many develop-
ments are apparently comparable with the continental Germanic languages (for a more compre-
hensive discussion, cf. Hiltunen 1983).
ing in a lesser degree of establishment of prefix verbs; (c) Latin is a potential

source of this innovation, as particle-initial constructions are common, and in
fact are the only possible complex verb type in this language (for the coinci-
dence of types I and II, see below).
Contact scenarios and stages

General scenario
If Latin indeed is the source of Germanic prefix verb constructions, they must
have spread into Germanic in general and North Germanic in particular via
identifiable (i.e. sociolinguistically describable) contact situations. The most
likely general scenario involves (at least) four different steps in three different
contact situations and a multi-layered interplay of different replication stages.
The common denominator of these four contact stages is that they all involve a
politically and/or culturally dominant language already possessing prefix verbs
in contact with a dominated language without prefix verbs.
Step 1: contact between Latin and the oldest West Germanic dialects in Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The most important domain for this con-
tact was the function of Latin as a lingua franca and, additionally, Christianity
and the Latin educational system based on writing. The direct replication of
Latin prefixation patterns resulted in the emergence of type I (P'V) in West
Germanic (see below for details).
Step 2: contact between Middle Low German and Old Nordic in the Middle
Ages, including widespread bilingualism (of various types and degrees) in
Mainland Scandinavia. The replication of Low German prefix verb construc-
tions (i.e. the indirect replication of Latin patterns) led to the establishment of
type I (P'V) in Mainland Scandinavian – this is uncontroversial.
Step 3: contact between Medieval Latin and the Old Nordic languages dur-
ing about the same period. Replication of Latin prefixation patterns resulted in
the grammaticalisation of type II ('PV) constructions in Scandinavian, partly as
a variant of corresponding constructions of the indigenous type III (V'P; see be-
low for details on Old Swedish as an example).
Step 4: contact between Danish and Insular Nordic in Iceland and on the
Faroe Islands, as a consequence of the status of these countries as dependen-
cies, where Danish has had (or, in the case of the Faroes, still has) official sta-
tus, and where a varying proportion of the population has been (or still is) flu-
ently bilingual over a long period of time. Replication of Danish prefix verbs
reinforced the establishment of types I and II (i.e. a secondary or even tertiary
replication of Low German and Latin patterns; see below for some additional
remarks).
Table 3 shows the timeline for the different replication stages:
Table 3: Replication stages

Late Antiquity/ Middle Ages Late Middle Ages/
Early Middle Ages Modern Times
Primary Latin (I~II) Latin (I~II)
replication ↓ ↓
West Germanic (III) Nordic (III)
+I + II
Secondary Low German (I, II~III)
replication ↓
Mainland Scandinavian
(III)
+I
Tertiary Danish (I, II, III)
replication ↓
Insular Nordic (III)
+ I, II
In the following two sections, we discuss some constructional, semantic, and

prosodic aspects of the two stages of primary replication in more detail. This is
followed by some remarks on the situation in Insular Nordic.
Latin → West Germanic

Ancient Germanic, according to our hypothesis, did not have any genuine pre-
fix verbs; rather, the only complex verb constructions were of types III and IV,
i.e. particle-final constructions with the particle either adjacent to the verb or in
a more distant position, as a separate phonological word. Latin, in contrast, had
only prefix verbs (type I~II), i.e. particle-initial constructions such as deponere
‘to put down/away’, praedicere ‘to proclaim, to preach’, convenire ‘to come
together’.
The Germanic particles had, in most instances, a concrete local or direc-
tional meaning which were also kept when used in lexicalised combinations
with verbs (as, say, in Modern Swedish ta bort ‘to take away’, Modern Dan-
ish gå ud ‘to go out’). These constructions thus exhibited a lesser degree of
semantic complexity than the prefix verbs in Latin, which were subsequently
replicated in West Germanic. Latin prefix verbs could also convey concrete
meanings (such as de- ‘down’ in deponere ‘to put down’ or in- ‘in[side]’ in
ingredi ‘to go in, to enter’). Frequently, however, the prefix verbs had (addi-
tional) abstract meanings, which implies complex rather than compositional
semantic units, since the meaning of the complex verb cannot be derived or
predicted from the meaning of its components (cf. deponere in the senses of
‘to get rid of; to give up; to entrust’ or ingredi used to mean ‘to begin, to com-
mence’). This often includes a difference in aspectual meaning or in argu-
ment structure (cf. [gradi + (in + accusative)] ‘to go + into sth.’ vs. [ingredi
+ accusative] ‘to enter sth.’). The replicated derivational pattern in West Ger-
manic conveys the same semantic modification, as is reflected e.g. in Modern
German ver- with its aspectual (resultative) meaning in verbs like verbrennen
‘to burn [completely]’; or be-, which can turn an optional adverbial into an
obligatory argument (cf. the prepositional construction in [sprechen + (über
+ accusative)] ‘to talk (about sth.)’ vs. the direct object in [besprechen + ac-
cusative] ‘to talk about, to discuss’). The latter use of be- is still quite produc-
tive in German (cf. bespielen ‘to play on sth. [a sports ground]’, belasern ‘il-
luminate sth. [with laser beams]’).
The replication of Latin derivational patterns in West Germanic apparently
involves not only the transfer of a word-formation strategy but also the func-
tionalisation of different stress patterns. Similar to today’s Icelandic, Ancient
Germanic had fixed stress on the word-initial syllable, i.e. the word accent was
not phonologically distinctive but had a purely delimitative function. Germanic
verbs, including inflected forms, were therefore typically trochees accented on
the stem ('σσ); dactyls may have occurred but they were marginal (cf. OHG be-
rumes ‘we bear’, 'σσσ). Phonologically speaking, the Latin stress system was
quite similar. Stress was also fixed and oriented towards the end of the phono-
logical word, and its position was clearly predictable from the segmental and
prosodic context: in disyllabic words, the penultimate syllable was accented
('σσ, cf. 'ergo ‘thus’); in trisyllabic words (or words with even more syllables)
the penultimate was stressed if ‘heavy’ (containing a long vowel or a vowel fol-
lowed by certain consonant clusters: -σ'σσ; cf. mor'tālis ‘mortal’, mā'ternus
‘maternal’), otherwise the antepenultimate was stressed (-'σσσ; cf. 'lacrima
‘tear’). As for the prefix verbs, this had the effect that the accented syllable
normally was within the verbal component, either in the stem (as in dē'pōnō
‘I put down’) or in the inflectional suffix (e.g. ingredi'untur ‘they enter’).
Only in marginal cases did the stress fell on the prefix (in forms like 'ēligō ‘I
elect’).6
The earliest prefix verb constructions in West Germanic are of type I (P'V)
– a clear violation of the original Germanic word-initial stress pattern. If type I
constructions in West Germanic, as we argue, emerged as a replication of Latin
prefix verbs, then the deviant stress pattern in these constructions can be ex-
plained as a transfer of the Latin pattern that was taken over along with the con-
structional replication. This involves a process of functionalisation: the transfer
of an accidental, phonetically determined stress pattern from Latin resulted in
an innovative system in Germanic, where stress became marginally distinctive
in that non-initial stress marks a structurally complex verb and also carries se-
6
The rarity of stressed verbal prefixes results from the concurrence of different factors. For a pre-
fix to be stressed, the following conditions are required: (a) the stem syllable of the simplex has to
be ‘light’ (i.e. contain a short vowel, not followed by consonant cluster); (b) the inflected simplex
verb is mono- or disyllabic; (c) the inflectional suffix is monosyllabic or non-syllabic. One conse-
quence is that while stress always falls on the verbal component of most prefix verbs, no prefix
verb always gets stressed on the prefix (cf. 'ēligō ‘I elect’ vs. ē'ligimus ‘we elect’).
mantic information by indicating some degree of semantic complexity (aspec-

tual modification, for example). This emergence of a more complex phonolog-
ical, morphological and semantic system is another example of a contact-in-
duced increase in complexity (cf. Dahl 2009) as a result of linguistic creativity
in a contact situation.
Latin → Old Swedish

The second scenario in which primary replication (directly from Latin) plays a
role is contact between Latin and Old Scandinavian in the Middle Ages. This
contact in general has been investigated in some detail for Old Swedish, and we
will consider our discussion to be, mutatis mutandis, representative of the me-
dieval development in mainland Scandinavia.
The contact between Old Swedish and Latin is related to the beginning of
the vernacular being used as a written language by a culturally elite group of
Latin-Swedish bilingual speakers, mainly clerics. The main locus of language
Ausbau was thus the bilingual milieu and bilingual text production (which in-
creased rapidly after 1400) in ecclesiastical institutions, first of all in the ‘great
translation workshop’ (Wollin 1991) in Vadstena Abbey (for a detailed analy-
sis of the translational practices in Vadstena, see Wollin 1981/83). During this
period, a range of (mainly syntactic) constructions were replicated from the
Latin model, which resulted in the emergence of innovative structural patterns
in the written variety of Old Swedish (clause-linking strategies, subjunction in-
ventories, relative clause types, and more; cf. Höder 2009, 2010; Höder and
Zeevaert 2008; for the role of translation in such replication processes, see
Kranich, Becher and Höder 2011). Most of these innovations were restricted to
(or at least specifically dominant in) the written language, a restriction that is
still perceivable in today’s Swedish, where such constructions are either ar-
chaic or stylistically marked as more or less formal and thus avoided in every-
day spoken language.
Complex verb constructions of type I ('PV) may well fit into this category.
In the (Late) Middle Ages, Swedish had only complex verbs of type III, i.e.
the inherited V'P constructions, and, as a result of contact with Middle Low
German, prefix verbs of the type I (P'V). Type III constructions still con-
veyed relatively concrete, compositional meanings, and included for the most
part motion verbs and directional particles. Concrete (but semantically modi-
fied) meanings prevailed even in type I constructions. Some Latin prefix
verbs were semantically equivalent to Swedish V'P constructions, but some
also represented metaphorical lexical concepts without a direct Old Swedish
equivalent.
Type II ('PV) constructions appeared at first as variants of corresponding
type III constructions consisting of the same verbs and particles (cf. läggia
nidher vs. nidherläggia, in the sense of Latin deponere ‘to put down; to give
up …’). Both types, prefix verbs and particle verb constructions, formed a com-
mon class of verbs (a hybrid type II~III, similar to Modern German), without
any specific lexicalisation of or semantic differentiation between the two types.
However, quantitative studies (Ljunggren 1932 as well as first results from our
own Old Swedish corpus7) show that by far the most occurrences of type II pat-
tern are found in younger texts from the Late Old Swedish period (yngre forn-
svenskan, c. 1375–1526). This is particularly true for texts from Vadstena Ab-
bey, i.e. religious prose written or translated from Latin originals by trained bi-
lingual scribes during the 14th and 15th centuries. Here, the majority of complex
verbs of the common class (type II~III) are of type II, i.e. constructed with a
prefix, while the inherited type III is in the minority. This distribution of the
two types (in texts written by a highly bilingual group) in itself suggests that
the replication of the Latin pattern played an important role in the stabilisation
of this innovative construction. The dominance of type II in Vadstena texts sug-
gests an early affiliation of these constructions with written, rather than spoken
language. This is also reflected in the Modern contemporary Swedish tendency
to perceive these constructions as being rather formal (or ‘bookish’) whenever
there is no lexical differentiation between two corresponding verbs (cf. inställa
vs. ställa in ‘to cancel’, utkomma vs. komma ut ‘to be published’, framkomma
vs. komma fram ‘to turn out, to appear’).
Furthermore, the quantitative distribution also hints at an incipient seman-
tic differentiation between the two constructional variants – thus, the estab-
lishment of type II seems also to have been motivated by the need to express
specific meanings. The innovative pattern is most prominent when a lexical
gap is filled, i.e. when the lexical concept expressed by the complex verb is
newly introduced. This is most evident in metaphorical loan-translations
from Latin. As religious prose is the dominant genre during the Late Old
Swedish period, religious metaphors are easiest to detect. Here we get a high
proportion of complex verbs like (type II) upstanda meaning ‘to resurge, to
rise from the dead’ as opposed to (type III) standa up ‘to rise, to get up’, um-
vända ‘to convert (to Christianity)’ (vs. vända um ‘to turn round’) or uptända
‘to inflame (religiously)’ (vs. tända up ‘to set on fire’). These metaphorical
complex verbs are used as (conventionalised) translation equivalents of Latin
words (or, as it were, religious ‘technical terms’) that are isomorphic to their
Swedish counterparts or at least similar in structure, such as resurgere ‘to re-
surge’, convertere ‘to convert’, and inflammare ‘to inflame’.8 This semantic
distinction is strikingly parallel to the tendency in Modern Swedish to differ-
7
The Hamburg Corpus of Old Swedish with Syntactic Annotation (HaCOSSA) is a digital corpus
of Old Swedish texts containing c. 150,000 words, compiled and annotated at the Collaborative
Research Centre on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg (Project H3: Scandinavian syn-
tax in a multilingual setting). The corpus and the annotation scheme have been described in Höder
(2010), and a more detailed documentation will be published online via the Zentrum für
Sprachkorpora in Hamburg in 2011.
8
Note that the corresponding English translations of such terms are often Latinate – this illus-
trates another possible strategy of differentiating concrete and metaphorical concepts, introduced
by bilingual speakers.
entiate structurally between rather concrete meanings, encoded as type III

constructions, and abstract, metaphoric concepts, which are lexicalised as
type II constructions. In some cases, this differentiation has been lexicalised
(cf. avbryta ‘to interrupt’ vs. bryta av ‘to break, to tear off’; avböja ‘to reject,
to refuse’ vs. böja av ‘to bend, to turn’), while in others it is optional (cf. stry-
ka under ‘to underline, to underscore’ vs. understryka ‘to underline [literal-
ly]; to emphasise’).9
Finally it is worth mentioning that the emergence of a semantic distinction
between type II and type III constructions may also be related to a universal
cognitive mechanism, namely iconicity, viz. the principle that the form of lin-
guistic expressions is partly motivated by their meaning. As for metaphorical
complex verbs, compositionality could be a crucial point: in cases like standa
up ‘to rise, to get up’, the meaning of the complex verb is entirely predictable
from the meaning of its components (endocentric construction). This is mir-
rored by the possibility of a discontinuous construction in Swedish, in which
the particle is distant from the verbal stem or even the whole inflected verb.
Metaphorical complex verbs like upstanda ‘to resurge’, on the other hand,
have an unpredictable (if comprehensible) semantic relation to their compo-
nents (exocentric construction). This kind of complexity is reflected in the in-
separability of the verb and the particle. Thus, the emergence of type II verbs
in Old Swedish illustrates that language contact phenomena are, as a rule, the
result of different interacting factors, in this case: (a) a source construction in
the model language Latin, (b) a related but different construction in the recip-
ient language Old Swedish, and (c) a language-independent cognitive mech-
anism that affects any process of language change, whether contact-induced
or not.
Insular Nordic
The situation in the Insular Nordic languages is characterised to a high degree by
contact with the colonial language Danish. On the one hand, the replication pro-
cess that started in early Germanic continued after the Viking settlement in the
North Atlantic in various ways. Primary replications from Latin probably played
a minor role in establishing innovative complex verb types, as did secondary rep-
lications via Low German, but the most important factor in the later development
of Icelandic (and Faroese) was Danish influence from the Late Middle Ages on-
wards: the replication chain thus goes (A) from Latin to (Low) German and then
(B) to Danish and finally (C) to Insular Nordic. On the other hand, the rise of pur-
ism, particularly in Iceland, led to a ban on typical foreign elements in the lan-
guage, which of course in practice meant elements that were clearly identifiable
9
For the semantic relation between type II and type III constructions in Modern Swedish, cf.
Teleman, Hellberg and Andersson (1999, p. 431ff.); for the (similar) situation in Modern Norwe-
gian, cf. Faarlund, Lie and Vannebo (1997, p. 83ff.).
as Danish in origin. At the same time, the same elements became much more ac-
ceptable in Faroese due to the lack of a similar purist movement, while the entire
population became more and more fluently bilingual.
The innovative complex verb type (PV) is attested in Modern Icelandic pre-
fix verbs such as afturkalla ‘to revoke’, fordæma ‘to reprobate’, fyrirgefa ‘for-
give’, endurbæta ‘to repair’ and undirbúa ‘to prepare’ (examples from Jörg
1989; cf. Guðrún Kvaran 2005, p. 153). However, no examples for verbal pat-
terns with be- (or a phonetically corresponding prefix) are found. In contrast, a
Low German or Danish origin did not impede the establishment and use of pre-
fix verbs in Modern Faroese, not even in conservative written varieties. Prefix
verbs of type I (P'V) with be- are fully acceptable (cf. Wittkugel 2009, p. 92ff.),
and type II constructions ('PV) exist as a constructional alternative to particle
verb constructions (type III, V'P; cf. Petersen 2010, p. 218f.; Höskuldur
Thráinsson et al. 2004, p. 219). The difference between today’s two Insular
Nordic languages can be traced back to a heterogeneous distribution in the Old
West Norse varieties as early as the High and Late Middle Ages. Type I con-
structions are only scarcely attested in the Old Icelandic literary language as
preserved in the classic prose texts. Baetke (1976), for instance, lists complex
verbs beginning with for- ‘for-’ (11 entries), fyrir- (27 entries) ‘for-’ and mis-
‘mis-’ (21 entries), but none formed with salient foreign lexical material. In
non-literary texts, however, such prefixes are attested, including prefixes that
are clearly of Low German origin, such as be-/bí-, as has been shown by Ve-
turliði Óskarsson’s (2003, p. 182ff.) investigation of the language of adminis-
trative and juridical documents before 1500.
The difference between Icelandic and Faroese can thus be explained as a re-
sult of a different tradition regarding linguistic purism: in the case of Icelandic,
certain verbal prefixes, especially be- and bí-, were stigmatised and became to-
tally banned, as early as in the (Late) Middle Ages, although they had been used
in non-literary text types. Other prefixes such as af- ‘from’, aftur- ‘after-’, fyrir-
‘for-’, in contrast, were accepted, especially if they were homophonous with in-
digenous adverbs or preposition, even if their use as prefixes was based on (or
reinforced by) foreign-language models. For example, the use of fyrir- as a ver-
bal prefix was related to the parallel use of the Latin prefix prae- in pairs of
translation equivalents in text types influenced by Latin textual norms
(Veturliði Óskarsson 2003, p. 187). This – seemingly paradox – situation indi-
cates that the structural patterns of prefix verbs were not necessarily perceived
as contact-induced innovations and, hence, not necessarily rejected by purists,
except in those cases where the lexical material was (exclusively) Danish or
Low German.10
10
The same process has also taken place during the elaboration and codification of the second
written variety of Norwegian, Landsmaal, today called Nynorsk (cf. Gerdener 1986, p. 190ff.).
The label for these banned derivational prefixes and suffixes is “anbeheitelse words”. These ‘for-
bidden’ particles are flagged as colonial Danish and thus non-Norwegian, though most of them
are originally of Low German origin.
In the Faroe Islands, the situation is entirely different. Linguistic purism is

much less important, and pragmatic factors – including bilingual communica-
tive strategies, transfer mechanisms, and the preference of structural equiva-
lents in the two national languages Faroese and Danish – prevail. It is therefore
not surprising that borrowings from Danish into Faroese are very common. The
prefix be-, for example, is almost as frequent as in Danish, which is nothing
special for a totally bilingual society: Danish prefix verbs facilitate the parallel
use of both languages and frequent code switching. Only a few purists try to
counteract this development, inventing (or copying Icelandic) verb forms
which actually do not exist in Faroese and are therefore not used by native
speakers of this language.
Conclusion
We have shown that the current explanation of how prefix verbs entered the
Mainland Scandinavian languages does not give the full and true picture of
what actually happened in Germanic language history due to various episodes
of intense language contact. Rather, the transfer of prefix verbs has to be seen
as part of a more complex chain of grammatical replications that took place
when the creolised early Germanic dialects later underwent an intense expan-
sion process. This process was necessary in order to match the written stand-
ards provided by the ancient model languages, Byzantine Greek (for the eastern
Germanic dialects, especially for Gothic) and predominantly Latin (for all
other Germanic vernaculars that came into contact with the Mediterranean
civilisation). Making translations from Greek and Latin spurred the ancient
Germanic elite to expand their, in part, grammatically reduced native lan-
guages. Otherwise it would not have been possible to render the full contents
of the original texts into their vernaculars. As is well known for Gothic (Ulfi-
las’ Bible, the Skeireins) and e.g. Old High German (Tatian) as well, these ear-
liest translations are heavily dependent on their model texts, mostly in the syn-
tax, but also with respect to grammatical and word-formation morphology.
Various forms of transfer and grammatical replication that can be observed in
these texts are, however, not restricted to translations: the increase in literacy,
formal education based on script and, above all, the rapid dissemination of
Christianity were the driving forces behind a systematic expansion of the gram-
matical systems of the early Germanic dialects.
One of these innovations was the replication of prefix verbs which, were
originally not part of the earliest (creolised) Germanic language. The only
means of modifying verbs was to use adverbial or prepositional particles
which were placed after the inflected verbs. The transfer of prefixes, which
were the default way to differentiate verbal stems in Greek and Latin, into the
Germanic verbal system filled a typologically empty position, the pre-verbal
position. The result was a more complex verbal system, more complex even
in relation to their model languages. Thus language contact in this case did
not lead to a reduction of the target language but rather to its complexifica-
tion.
A very similar (grammatical) process took place when Low German speak-
ers came into intense contact with Scandinavians. Until the beginning of the
Middle Ages their vernaculars had only little contact with written Latin. The
main impact of a fully expanded written language on a broader scale came in
the High and Late Middle Ages when the Hanseatic merchants extended their
activities to the Baltic Sea area and to the Scandinavian countries. In the course
of this contact, Low German prefix verbs came into the North Germanic/Scan-
dinavian varieties. The effect of this contact was very similar: the Mainland
Scandinavian vernaculars took over Low German prefix verbs and thus ac-
quired approximately the same complex verbal system as to be found in any
other Western Germanic language. Furthermore, contact with Latin (predomi-
nantly in the highly bilingual ecclesiastical institutions) led to the establish-
ment of additional verb prefixation patterns in at least the written (and more
formal) varieties of Scandinavian languages.
Finally, due to widespread bilingualism with the colonial language Dan-
ish, the innovative verbal derivation system entered the Insular Nordic lan-
guages as well and again, in principle, in the same manner. The only differ-
ences to be observed are due to sociolinguistic factors, viz. language policy
(purism in Iceland) and balanced bilingualism (on the Faroe Islands), respec-
tively.
In short, the development of a complex verbal system in the Scandinavian
languages is part of a much longer and more complex process, namely the ex-
pansion of a creolised proto-language and its varieties in order to match the
needs of literacy and linguistic elaboration. We are not only faced with a sin-
gular replication or code-copying process but rather with a chain of gram-
matical replications, from Latin to West Germanic (Low German), from
(Low) German to Mainland Scandinavian, and from Danish to Insular Scan-
dinavian.
Epilogue
On the plane back from the conference in Kristiansand, we found evidence that
the distribution of different types of complex verbs still causes problems in dai-
ly language usage – the integration of the replicated patterns has not been com-
pleted yet (Aftenposten, 25 November 2010, Kultur, p. 6):
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Low German influence and typological change in Swedish 171
Low German influence and typological

change in Swedish: some results from
a research project
Ludger Zeevaert, Háskóli Íslands
Background
For approximately the last 20 years, the department of Scandinavian studies at
Hamburg University has been among the central research facilities on Middle
Low German–Scandinavian language contact (for a detailed overview, see
Kurt Braunmüller’s article in this volume), although the focus of research has
steadily shifted towards different contact interactions (Danish–Faroese, Swe-
dish–Latin).
A dominant feature of the research carried out in Hamburg is its focus on
Middle Low German influence on the typology of the Scandinavian languages,
whereas traditional research in this area concentrated primarily on the lexicon
– Middle Low German loanwords, and occasionally also word formation and
morphological loans. More contemporary theories of language contact, how-
ever, stress the importance of including syntactic loans, because in widely ac-
cepted typologies of contact such as Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988), syntac-
tic loans have been evaluated as evidence for intensive language contact.
This article is intended as a summary of the results of research concerning
Middle Low German influence on the syntax of Swedish that was carried out
as a part of the project “Scandinavian syntax in a multilingual context” between
2004 and 2008 at the Collaborative Research Centre at Hamburg University.
Typological change from Ancient Nordic to Modern

Scandinavian
The fundamental question for the project was to examine the role of bilingual-
ism in the typological restructuring of the Scandinavian languages from the
first written sources in the 2nd century to the modern Scandinavian languages
Danish, Norwegian and Swedish (Sonderforschungsbereich 538 Mehrspra-
chigkeit. Finanzierungsantrag für den Förderungszeitraum Juli 2008 – Juni
2011, p. 278). One of the aims of the research was to determine the influence
of Low German on the order of constituents (subject, finite verb, object) of the
172 Ludger Zeevaert
Scandinavian languages, using Greenberg’s word-order typology (Sonder-

forschungsbereich 538 Mehrsprachigkeit. Finanzierungsantrag für den För-
derungszeitraum Juli 2002 – Juni 2005, pp. 329, 339, 341).
Differences between Ancient Nordic and the modern Scandinavian lan-
guages exist on all linguistic levels (phonology, morphology, lexicon, syntax;
Pettersson 1996, p. 70f.), but not all of these differences can be described as ty-
pological changes, and not all of them derive from the influence of Middle Low
German. The influence of the Hanseatic League, which is usually associated
with Low German–Scandinavian language contact, is limited to the period be-
tween 1250 and 1550. Linguistic changes that can be observed earlier in the
written sources, i.e. changes from the language of the Ancient Nordic runic in-
scriptions to the language of the younger runes and the texts from the classical
Old Swedish period written with the Latin alphabet, cannot be attributed to
Middle Low German. But even for changes from the time of Hanseatic influ-
ence, Middle Low German is rather implausible as the source if similar changes
can be found in Icelandic, given the fact that the Faroe Islands and Iceland were
not part of the Hanseatic sphere and thus were not influenced by Low German
(Kjartan Ottósson 1990, p. 14). Therefore, the examination of typological in-
fluence from Low German has to focus on changes which can be observed after
approximately 1200 in the continental Scandinavian languages, but not in Ice-
landic, and which correspond to structures which are found in Middle Low
German.
What is typological change?

The identification of Middle Low German influence on the Scandinavian lan-
guages appears to be a feasible task, but it is less easy to define what should be
counted as typological change. Language typology deals with the examination
of systematic linguistic variation. Usually, the aim of typological research is
the description of linguistic universals and of principal differences between dif-
ferent language types. Thus, in order to characterise linguistic change as typo-
logical change, there has to be a change in the language system. However, the
criteria used to determine whether a change is regarded as systemic or not do
not seem to be very well defined (Thomason 2001, p. 1641ff.).
Generally, lexical loans should not be evaluated as an indication of contact-
induced typological change, nor should single grammatical differences. Unfor-
tunately, holistic approaches in typology that aim at establishing a small num-
ber of language types characterised by a bundle of common linguistic traits
which, on the surface, seem to be independent of each other but which exhibit
a deeper relationship and thus appear to be connected have not yet provided
convincing results (Comrie 2001, p. 26). Contemporary typological research
seems to focus on contrasting single grammatical differences in selected lan-
guages.
Morphology
One characteristic difference between Icelandic and the Scandinavian lan-
guages on the mainland is to be found in the morphological domain. Tradition-
ally, languages are described as belonging to different morphological types
(isolating, agglutinating or inflecting; Comrie 2001, p. 26). It is not disputed
that all the different geographical and historical varieties of the Scandinavian
languages and German belong to the inflecting type. The differences in the in-
flectional systems of e.g. Swedish and Icelandic lie only in the different com-
plexity of the systems, and the reduction of complexity of Swedish inflectional
morphology, which began long before the Middle Low German period (Pet-
tersson 1996, p. 65), cannot be attributed to the influence of a language from a
different morphological type. It is commonly assumed that contact with Low
German played an important part in this development (Jahr 1995, p. 12);
nevertheless, this has to be seen as a universal language contact phenomenon
and not as typical of contact between Low German and the Scandinavian lan-
guages.
There is, however, one morphological change that definitely can be at-
tributed to Low German influence, viz. the import of a group of affixes for
word formation in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, the so called anbeheitelse
affixes (Akselberg 2005, p. 1829). These affixes are not found in the earliest
written sources but appear first in texts from the Hanseatic period, and they are
not used in Icelandic (at least not as a productive means of word formation, but
merely as elements of lexical loans from Danish). In the mainland Scandina-
vian languages, these affixes were first borrowed as parts of purely lexical
loans and became productive later on (Wessén 1954, p. 19). Generally, how-
ever, the use of prefixes and suffixes in word formation is definitely not atypi-
cal for the Scandinavian languages as a whole, so that one would subsequently
hesitate to speak of a typological change in morphology.
Typology and syntactic change

Since Greenberg’s 1963 article “Some universals of grammar with particular
reference to the order of meaningful elements”, the description of different lan-
guage types based on syntactic criteria has played a central role in research on
language typology, probably due to the fact that a description of word order
constitutes a rather straightforward way of characterising the world’s lan-
guages without a deeper knowledge of the languages involved (“Japanese is a
typical SOV language, Irish is a typical VSO language”). Moreover, syntactic
typology allows for a combination of different syntactic criteria, viz. the order
of elements in phrases and in clauses, and establishing a logical correlation be-
tween them (see Braunmüller’s 1982 distinction between left- and right-modi-
fying languages). In this way it is possible to organise the diversity of human
languages and to reduce the verbalisation of human thoughts to a few simple
174 Ludger Zeevaert
and logical principles. This approach also provides the possibility of explaining
the differences that diverging word-order patterns display when teaching for-
eign languages (e.g. the word order in German subordinate clauses for speakers
of French, or in Swedish subordinate clauses for speakers of German), and gen-
erally the fact that a change of word order is seen as a typical result of language
contact and especially of substratum interference.
Very often, however, languages cannot be described as being consistent
when it comes to syntactic typology. Word order can vary between main and
subordinate clauses, and frequently differences can be found between the order
of modified and modifying elements in phrases and clauses (Vennemann 1974,
p. 347). Such inconsistencies can be explained as stages in the development of
one language type to another; this was the background for the afore-mentioned
research project.
Results from the project on Low German and Scan-

dinavia
The starting point for my work was results from an earlier project on Low Ger-
man–Scandinavian language contact that was carried out at Hamburg Univer-
sity between 1989 and 1995 (for a detailed description, see Braunmüller in this
volume). The central hypotheses for this project were the following (Braun-
müller 2000, p. 14):
– Contact between Middle Low German and the Scandinavian languages de-
pended mainly on semicommunication.
– The syntactic structures of the languages involved were very similar.
– The Scandinavian languages borrowed syntactic structures from Low Ger-
man which led to further reduction regarding the differences.
As a result of a syntactic analysis, Braunmüller (1993) established that syntac-

tic loans from Low German could not be found in his corpus of Early Modern
Danish and Swedish chapbooks, but that oral contact between Northern Ger-
man merchants and the inhabitants of Scandinavian villages favoured word-
order patterns which were common to all the contact languages, but which were
unmarked in Low German and marked in Swedish and Danish.
One exception, however, was word order in subordinate clauses. Braunmül-
ler (1993, p. 254f.) gives several examples of verb-final subordinate clauses
from the Swedish chapbook Grisilla which cannot be attributed to translation
interference but which are obviously derived from Middle Low German struc-
tures (“Strukturen mit offensichtlich mittelniederdeutscher Herkunft”, Braun-
müller 1993, p. 255).
Syntax in contact
Part of the project “Scandinavian syntax in a multilingual perspective” ex-
amined whether word order in the Scandinavian languages was influenced by
Low German–Swedish bilingual speakers favouring syntactic constructions
common to both linguistic systems and thus bringing about a syntactic paral-
lelisation in the languages. One key question was the extent to which this influ-
ence can be seen as a dominant factor in the typological change from the oldest
written sources of Northern Germanic (the Ancient Nordic runic inscriptions)
to the Modern Scandinavian languages.
From SOV to SVO?

When studying typological syntactic change from Ancient Nordic1 to
Modern Scandinavian, the question of a transition from one language type to
another is of special interest. Such a change can be described using Green-
berg’s typological model for syntax. Building on earlier research, Greenberg
argues that word order is characterised by an orderliness that is universal and
which can be described using universally valid rules (Greenberg 1990, p. 40).
According to Greenberg, the dominant word-order pattern in declarative sen-
tences characterises a language type. Elements of this basic order (Greenberg
1990, p. 42) that are relevant to the Germanic languages are the order of sub-
ject, predicate2 and object in the main clause, and the order of noun and ad-
jective, noun and demonstrative, noun and numerals, and noun and genitive
in the noun phrase.
The description of this basic order seems to be unproblematic for the lan-
guages involved. According to Greenberg (1990, p. 67), Modern Swedish is a
language of the SVO/AN/GN type and Modern German is of the SVO/AN/NG
type.3 The word-order type of Ancient Nordic, the oldest predecessor of Mod-
ern Swedish known from written sources, is less easy to determine using
Greenberg’s system. Based on a quantitative analysis of all runic inscriptions
from the Ancient Nordic period that can be analysed syntactically, Beuerle and
Braunmüller (2004) describe Ancient Nordic as SVO/AN/GN.4 However, an
analysis of the same corpus performed by Antonsen (2002) leads to the oppo-
site result, namely the order SOV/NA/NG. This is not, as might be expected
from the different theoretical approaches used by Antonsen and Beuerle/
Braunmüller, a result of differences in the definition of the notion of verb
(which in any case would not explain the differences in the analysis of the order
of adjective and noun and genitive attribute and noun). In both analyses, V de-
1
Cf. Braunmüller (2002, p. 649) for a discussion of this term.
2
The English/American term is verb.
3
Subject before predicate before object; attributive adjective before noun; noun before genitive
attribute.
4
In the sense of Greenberg’s dominant basic word order in declarative main clauses.
176 Ludger Zeevaert
notes the finite verb and not, as is common in syntactic analyses in the genera-
tive framework, the non-finite part of the predicate.
The different results stem partly from variations in the composition of the
corpus. The corpus for Beuerle & Braunmüller’s (2004) analysis consists of all
inscriptions in the older fuþark that can be syntactically analysed, while Anton-
sen rejects some of the inscriptions as not belonging to the Ancient Nordic pe-
riod. Given the rather small size of the corpus, this leads to substantial differ-
ences in the percentage of word-order types.
However, what is even more important for the fundamental differences be-
tween the two analyses (Beuerle and Braunmüller: 68% SVO, Antonsen: 71%
SOV) is the fact that difficulties in deciphering older runic inscriptions in par-
ticular can result in diverse interpretations of an inscription. Even in cases
where the transcription of the individual runes is uncontroversial, differing
analyses of the parts of speech of an inscription can lead to rather different re-
sults concerning word order. For example, the word fahi in the Noleby inscrip-
tion is analysed as an adjective (ʻsuitableʼ) by Antonsen (2002, p. 288), but as
a finite verb (ʻI paintʼ) by Beuerle & Braunmüller (2004, p. 12).
Vg 63 Fyrunga Stora Noleby: runo fahi raginakudo tojeka5
The possibility cannot be completely excluded that, in such cases, Antonsen’s

interpretations are biased partly by his view on the typological classification of
Ancient Nordic and Proto Germanic.6
Such difficulties in determining Ancient Nordic word order may be one rea-
son for the fact that other researchers and even reference books refrain from
carrying out their own quantitative analysis and define the basic word order of
Ancient Nordic based on only one inscription, viz. the inscription on one of the
golden horns of Gallehus (e.g. Penzl 1989; Lehmann 1993), which is generally
interpreted as SOV (e.g. Faarlund 2001, p. 1707).
Gallehus: ek 'hlewagastiz 'holtijaz 'horna 'tawido7
5
Translation according to Beuerle and Braunmüller (2004, p. 12): “[Eine] Rune male ich, eine
von den Ratern (sc. den Göttern) stammende” ((A) rune, I paint, one descended from the coun-
celors (i.e. the gods)). Translation according to Antonsen (2002, p. 288): “I prepare [a/the] suit-
able, divinely-descended ʻruneʼ [message]”.
6
“According to the theory proposed by Greenberg (1966) [cited as Greenberg 1990 in this
article] and refined by Vennemann (1974, p. 345), XV languages should display noun-modifiers
before the noun. The older inscriptions, however, have them uniformly after the noun, with the
exception that genitive attributes can appear either before or after the head noun, depending on the
nature of the latter. It is also conceivable, indeed highly probable, that adjectives could have ap-
peared before nouns when they were nonrestrictive in function, but we have no direct evidence for
this position in the inscriptions. On the basis of this evidence, I conclude that Northwest Germanic
[= Ancient Nordic in this article] was still basically an XV language, with indications (particularly
in the substantival groups, but also occasionally in the position of the finite verb) of an incipient
shift to VX order (cf. also Lehmann 1978)” (Antonsen 2002, p. 295).
7
‘I, Hlewagastir [son] of Holt, made the horn’.
However, it is questionable whether just this single inscription should be relied

on for this purpose. The original inscription was destroyed some 200 years ago,
although fairly good copies of the text exist. A major difficulty for determining
the word order lies in the fact that the inscription is not written in prose but con-
sists of a Germanic long-line with a fixed pattern of stressed syllables (') and
alliteration (_) which largely determine the word order. The two stressed words
in the first half-line and the first stressed word in the second half-line alliterate,
which means that the only place left for the second stressed word in the second
half-line, the finite verb tawido, is in final position. Thus, OV order is the only
word order permitted by the metre.
Summing up, it has to be stated that the oldest Germanic sources, i.e. the
inscriptions in the older fuþark, cannot be used as a reliable source for deter-
mining the word order of Ancient Nordic. This means that an analysis of
typological change (in the sense of Greenberg’s word-order typology) based
on a written corpus has to start with the more reliable sources from c. 1100
onwards.
The basic word order of Old West Norse and Old East Norse
In contrast to the situation in Ancient Nordic, the basic word order of Old
Swedish is uncontroversial. In historical grammars and handbooks it is uni-
formly described as a V2 language, and Larsson’s (1931) study shows that this
already held true for the Swedish runic inscriptions in the younger fuþark (c.
950–1100). Findings from the project “Scandinavian syntax” confirm the ear-
lier research results. In main clauses in different Swedish texts from the 14th to
the 16th century, the finite verb takes either the first or the second position; main
clauses with finite verbs in a later position were not found. The percentage of
V1 clauses varied between 5% and 26%, and the percentage of V2 clauses be-
tween 95% and 74%.8 This corresponds to the situation in Modern Swedish and
Modern German which, according to Greenberg (1990, p. 67), are classified as
SVO languages.
In contrast, the word order of the noun phrase in main clauses is less clear.
According to Christoffersen (2002, p. 184f.), “the order of elements in the noun
phrases seems to vary” both in the inscriptions in the younger fuþark and in Old
Norse. A systematic investigation of the word order in Old Swedish noun
phrases has not yet been carried out as part of the project, but an analysis of the
position of genitive attributes and possessive pronouns is able to confirm the
assumption of variation in the order of attribute (A) and head noun (H) in this
domain, although there is a rather clear preference for the order attribute–noun
(table from Zeevaert 2006):
8
For a more detailed overview, see Zeevaert (2006).
178 Ludger Zeevaert
genitive possessive
attribute pronoun
AH HA AH HA
Rök Runestone Ög 136 (c. 800) 6 5 0 1
Law code of Uppland (Upplandslagen) (1296) 86 7 35 45
Old Swedish Genesis (c. 1300–1350) 144 2 158 2
Old Swedish Legendarium (c. 1300–1350) 88 10 205 0
Autograph of St Bridget of Sweden (c. 1360) 11 0 22 0
Swedish Charters (1375) 146 0 481 0
Old Swedish Charlemagne’s saga (Karl Magnus) 13 5 124 4
(c. 1400–1450)
Old Swedish Didrik’s chronicle (Didrik av Bern) 23 0 102 1
(c. 1450–1500)
Gospel of St. Mark (1526) 147 1 280 0
Gospel of St. Luke (1541) 247 1 496 1
Middle Low German influence on the basic word order of Old

Swedish
The basic word order of Middle Low German, viz. the word order in declara-
tive main clauses, is described as SVO/AN/NG in the research literature (e.g.
Härd 2000; Nissen 1884), even though some variation can be observed in the
noun phrase. Thus, the assumption of a typological change in Swedish caused
by Low German influence is rather implausible, at least if the basic word order
is seen as the crucial typological parameter. The position of the finite verb does
not change from Old Swedish to Modern Swedish, and it conforms to the posi-
tion of the finite verb in (High and Low) German. Even a change from SOV in
Proto-Germanic to SVO in the younger Germanic dialects, which is widely as-
sumed in the literature, would have been completed before the era of Middle
Low German influence on the Scandinavian languages, if it took place at all (cf.
the arguments against this assumption presented above). In addition, the word
order in noun phrases did not change fundamentally from Old Swedish to con-
temporary Swedish. What can be observed is a reduction in variation, which in
one case (the order of adjective and noun) goes in the direction of Low German,
whereas in the other case (genitive attribute and noun) the development goes in
the opposite direction.
Inconsistency in word order and typological change

Inconsistencies in the basic word order of a language such as Swedish (modi-
fying to the right in the clause but modifying to the left in the noun phrase) is
generally seen as a sign of the language changing from one type to the other
(Lehmann 1978, p. 37ff.; Vennemann 1974, p. 347ff.). The background for this
assumption is Greenberg’s (1990) statistical examination that led to the formu-
lation of his 45 universals. Only a small number of those universals are relevant
to the question of typological change in the Scandinavian languages due to con-
tact with Low German, and some of them are inconsistent with the typological
characteristics of German and the Scandinavian languages. Therefore, it is
mainly only the general conclusions about the basic word order of languages
drawn from Greenberg’s examination of over 30 languages that are of interest
here.
With respect to word order, Greenberg (1990, p. 60) distinguishes between
harmonic and disharmonic language types; the criterion for doing so seems to
be the order of modifying and modified structures. According to Greenberg,
linguistic harmony is a characteristic of languages which have prepositions and
the orders noun–genitive, noun–adjective and finite verb–subject. This implies
that languages with prepositions, such as the Germanic languages, are har-
monic only if they follow the word order VSO or VOS. Admittedly, Green-
berg’s reasoning about the consistency of languages remains rather vague, ob-
viously because his material does not contain a clear statistical tendency to-
wards harmony in languages. However, Greenberg’s description was subse-
quently taken as a linguistic law, especially in the research on word order in
ancient Germanic dialects (e.g. Lehmann, Vennemann, Braunmüller).
It does not seem unreasonable to compare Greenberg’s approach to the
neogrammarian tradition of research on the older stages of the Germanic lan-
guages. In his article on the regularity of word-order change, Vennemann
(1974, p. 339) departs from Otto Behagel’s third law on the order of specifying
and specified elements as stated in his Deutsche Syntax (“Ein drittes Gesetz
fordert, daß das unterscheidende Glied dem unterschiedenen vorausgeht” [The
third law demands that the differentiating element precedes the differentiated
one]). Vennemann provides examples which show that Behagel’s law does not
even hold for his mother tongue, German. However, Vennemann does not
question the idea of an iconic relationship between logical relations and syntac-
tic structure which forms the basis of Behagel’s approach, but rather revises the
definition of ‘modifier’ and ‘modified’ (‘operator’ and ‘operand’ in Venne-
mann’s terminology).
The fact that only a few languages show consistency in the order of operator
and operand is seen by Vennemann (1974, p. 349) as evidence for the correct-
ness of the principle rather than for its incorrectness. The reason for this is that
syntactic changes which can be triggered by e.g. language contact (1974, p.
351) can lead to a disturbance of the natural serialisation in a language. This
leads to a levelling out of this linguistic inconsistency over the course of the
next 3000 to 4000 years. Also Lehmann’s (1972) reconstruction of the word or-
der of Proto-Germanic as SOV, which was accepted by Antonsen for Ancient
Nordic, is based on the assumption that inconsistency is a sign of language
180 Ludger Zeevaert
change. From the fact that the Modern Germanic languages are inconsistently
SVO languages, it follows that they previously were consistently SOV lan-
guages.
Why should a language be type-consistent?

The reason languages should be type-consistent, or in Braunmüller’s (1982, p.
30) terminology pre- or postmodifying, is not entirely clear from the research
literature. Greenberg seems to aim for a natural scientific foundation of psy-
cholinguistic research by formulating scientific laws9 that can be used to ex-
plain the acquisition and the processing of language. Greenberg’s underlying
assumption seems to be that acquisition and use of language lead to a language
following universal laws because it is easier to learn, speak and understand a
language with a consistent word order. According to Hawkins (1994, cited in
Comrie 2001, p. 28), type consistency (head-initial: SVO, AdNP, NG, NA) is
a result of parsing preferences which favour combinations that are easier to
analyse. It seems to be the case that this assumption is not entirely based on em-
pirical facts but merely on intuitive plausibility (Braunmüller 1982, p. 42).
Greenberg’s universals, for example, do not permit any conclusions about SVO
or SOV languages at all.
The only empirical element in the discussion (e.g. in Vennemann 1974 and
Lehmann 1978) is the fact that type-consistent languages such as the SOV lan-
guage Japanese, the VSO language Arabic and the SVO language English, do
exist. The fact that there are not only “such marvellously consistent XV and
VX languages as Japanese and Arabic” (Vennemann 1974, p. 349), but also a
much larger number of inconsistent languages is, according to the research on
typological change, an argument that supports the principle of consistency.
Changes towards both typological consistency and typological inconsisten-
cy are explicable. An example of language change leading to a larger degree of
consistency is Vennemann’s (1974) description of the development of negation
in French. According to Vennemann, in the process of language acquisition the
originally emphatic pas (ʽstepʼ) was interpreted as negation because in a lan-
guage like French, which is developing in the direction of the SVO type, the
operator of a verb is expected to follow the verb. Developments leading away
from typological consistency are usually explained as examples of contact-
induced change. A typical case is the development of the position of the finite
verb in German subordinate clauses, which can be looked upon as a rather clear
example of type inconsistency, and which according to Lehmann (1972) is a
loan from Latin. This assumption does not lack a certain degree of irony, given
9
“In addition to its importance for the interdisciplinary field of psycholinguistics and psychology
proper, this study of language universals is intimately connected with the establishment of scien-
tific laws in the linguistic aspects of human behavior” (Greenberg, Osgood & Jenkins 1973, p.
xxiv f.).
the fact that German subordinate clauses with the finite verb in final position
are frequently taken as an argument that Proto-Germanic also had SOV order
in main clauses.
In other words, the literature on historical typology is not completely free of
contradictions and circular reasoning. A manifest example is Lehmann’s re-
construction of Proto-Germanic as a consistent SOV language. On the one
hand, his approach requires the acceptance of the principle of consistency in or-
der to establish SOV as the word order of Proto-Germanic through internal re-
construction. On the other hand, the development from this reconstructed word
order to the SVO order of modern Germanic languages is used as proof that this
principle has been at work in the development of the Germanic languages.
Most typologists seem to be aware of flaws in the theoretical and empirical
foundations of the typological method. Braunmüller (1982, pp. 41–44) gives a
quite clear description of these deficiencies; nevertheless, he decides to apply
a typological approach in his research.10 According to Vennemann (1984),
ideal linguistic typologies are of no theoretical value but should be exclusively
used as a benchmark for a typological description of a specific language.11
A holistic typological approach which tries to establish a limited number of
language types characterised by a number of common structures connected to
each other by a non-obvious, deeper interrelationship appears to have failed
(Strömsdörfer & Vennemann 1995; Comrie 2001, p. 26), resulting in contem-
porary typological research which concentrates on a contrastive description of
single grammatical differences between selected languages.
Preliminary conclusion
With reference to the project’s central question, i.e. the role that Middle Low
German played in the typological restructuring of the Scandinavian languages,
the following conclusions can be drawn.
For the Swedish language, there is no basis for stating that a fundamental
typological change occurred. Both Old Swedish and Modern Swedish are lan-
guages of type II (SVO) in Greenberg’s syntactic typology. The earliest written
10
Parts of Vennemann’s (1974) groundbreaking work on syntactic typology and (Germanic) word
order are capable of giving the impression of an ironic dissociation: “As a matter of fact, these
very inconsistencies may turn out to be the strongest argument for the universals and the principle
to those who are not already convinced by Greenberg’s statistics, by the existence of such marvel-
lously consistent XV and VX languages as Japanese and Arabic, and by the power of a principle
which reduces the entire basic word order structure of a language to a single rule of overwhelming
transparency and simplicity” (Vennemann 1974, p. 349).
11
“[W]hat is the purpose of an ideal typology? My answer is: a purely practical one” (Vennemann
1984, p. 600). “What about locutions, abounding in the recent historical linguistic literature, such
as that certain languages are, or have been, developing toward a certain type, e.g., that English has
become, during its recorded history, an ever more consistent SVO language? In my opinion such
statements have a purely orientative value …” (Vennemann 1984, p. 606).
182 Ludger Zeevaert
Scandinavian sources, the Ancient Nordic inscriptions in the older fuþark, are
only of limited value for an evaluation of typological development, given the
facts that the text corpus is rather limited (117 inscriptions) and a syntactic
analysis is very often ambiguous or impossible. Interestingly, an examination
of all syntactically analysable inscriptions carried out for the project (Beuerle
& Braunmüller 2004) gave the result that Ancient Nordic was already a lan-
guage of Greenberg’s type II.
Concerning the noun phrase in Scandinavian, a type-consistent develop-
ment, i.e. a tendency to right modification that would be expected for an
OV-language according to typological theories, cannot be detected. Even
though the amount of variation in word order that can be observed in the oldest
Swedish texts was reduced in later stages of Swedish, the result was not con-
sistency, but type-inconsistent left modification. Evidence for influence from
Middle Low German on the basic word order of Swedish could not be found.
Moreover, with regard to the decrease in noun phrase word order variation
from Old Swedish to Modern Swedish, contact with Low German influence is
not a convincing explanation, since adjective–noun order is in accordance with
Low German whereas genitive–noun order is not.
Word order in subordinate clauses

Though the assumption, based on earlier research on the word order of Ancient
Germanic and typological change, that the basic word order of Swedish was in-
fluenced by contact with Middle Low German could not be verified, Braun-
müller (1993, p. 254f.) was able to show such an influence in Swedish subor-
dinate clauses:
... , att du aldrig därut slitas skallt, ...
that you never from there fatigue-INF-PASS shall-2SG.PRES
(Braunmüller 1993, p. 255, from the Swedish chapbook Grisilla)
In the context of contact-induced language change, the word order in subordi-

nate clauses is of special interest because a structural difference can be found
between the two clause types in Modern Swedish, but not in Modern Icelandic,
a language that was basically not influenced by Low German. Both in Modern
and Old Icelandic the finite verb is in second position in main and subordinate
clauses. In contrast, Modern Swedish exhibits a difference between clause
types which, according to Vennemann (1984), can be denoted as ‘verb-early’
and ‘verb-late’. Therefore, contact between Swedish and Low German was dis-
cussed in the research literature as a source for this change. De Boor (1922, p.
171) assumes that the tendency to place finite verbs in subordinate clauses not
in second position but in a position later in the clause, which can be observed
in Later Old Swedish, developed under the influence of German. Larsson
(1931, p. 145ff.) showed that the new structure can be found particularly in
translations from Low German and in texts written by Swedish–Low German
bilinguals. However, he does not see Low German as the source of the new
structure but rather as a factor that reinforced an already existing tendency.12
The same opinion is expressed by Wessén (1992).13
The new word order in subordinate clauses: a result of oral con-

tact?
In the research literature, contact between Middle Low German and Scandina-
vian is usually described as oral contact between speakers of Low German and
Scandinavian languages in Scandinavian towns (e.g. Törnqvist 1955; Marold
1980; Simensen 1989; Braunmüller 2007). Interestingly, an examination of
word order in contemporary Swedish subordinate clauses carried out by Jör-
gensen (1978) demonstrates convincingly that the typical word order adverb–
finite verb in subordinate clauses first developed in the written language and
has not yet been completed in the spoken language. Jörgensen’s corpus of (spo-
ken) interviews contains about four times more conjunctional clauses with the
order finite verb–adverb than with the order adverb–finite verb, i.e. the word
order of the written standard language (see the table in Jörgensen 1978, p. 63).
In his corpus of written language, however, the proportion of conjunctional
clauses conforming to the standardised word order is 92%. According to Jör-
gensen (1978, p. 189), this is due to the fact that spoken language, at least in
this case, is more conservative than written language. This would imply that the
word order of modern Swedish subordinate clauses is an innovation, rooted in
the written language.
A comparison of the position of the sentence adverb in Swedish and Icelan-
dic conjunctional clauses in internet texts (Zeevaert 2009, p. 288) showed that
the verb–adverb order is especially frequent in blogs, i.e. texts that are charac-
terised by oral language use, whereas subordinate clauses with the finite verb
in final position (the extreme case of verb-late) can be found mainly in formal
written contexts.14 Icelandic texts with the non-standard word order adverb–
verb were found exclusively in rather formal texts (parliamentary speeches and
theological texts). These few exceptions can be explained as remnants of the
chancellery language, with its roots in the 17th and 18th century, which was in-
fluenced by Danish.
12
“I denna lågtyskans likhet med vårt språk torde man böra se en av anledningarna till att det tys-
ka inflytandet kunnat bli så kraftigt, som faktiskt synes vara fallet.” [This likeness of Low German
and Swedish can be seen as one reason for the fact that the German influence became as strong as
it in fact seems to be the case.] (Larsson 1931, p. 173.)
13
“Under y. fsv. tid har tyskt inflytande kraftigt främjat bruket av denna bisatstyp med predikatet
sist, även i svenskt skriftspråk.” [During the time of Younger Old Swedish German influence has
strongly strengthened the use of this type of subordinate clause with the predicate at the end of the
sentence also in written Swedish.] (Wessén 1992, p. 333.)
14
Platzack (1983, p. 47): “On the whole, this word order [i.e. final position of the finite verb in
subordinate clauses] is lost in YNSw, although it may be found now and then in officialese ...”
184 Ludger Zeevaert
Middle Low German as a source for SOV word order?

It seems to be the case that in Middle Low German, subordinate clause word
order was also affected by the written language. According to the research lit-
erature on Middle Low German syntax (Härd 2000; Nissen 1884, p. 5; Marelli
2004), all three word-order options (finite verb in the second position, after the
second position, and in final position) were possible. Chirita (2003, p. 189ff.),
however, was able to show that the word order in chapbooks, i.e. texts repre-
senting an authentic oral style quite close to the spoken language, differ from
chancellery language by a less consistent use of the verb-final order in subor-
dinate clauses. Rösler’s (1997) diachronic examination of the position of the fi-
nite verb in Middle Low German subordinate clauses, which was carried out on
a larger corpus, was able to show an increase in the use of verb-late word order
in her material. According to Rösler, this increase can be explained by a grow-
ing influence of the chancellery language on written language use.
Even if it is assumed that a prestige variety of Swedish that developed from
the spoken variety used between German merchants and craftsmen and native
inhabitants of Swedish towns, which was characterised by borrowings from
German (Diercks & Braunmüller 1993, p. 10), later influenced the written
standard, it is less plausible that oral contact was the source of the new word
order in Swedish subordinate clauses. Complex hypotactic constructions are
rather atypical in spoken language, and verb-late word order was not yet oblig-
atory in German during the earlier period of contact between Low German and
Swedish. Thus, the development of modern Swedish word order in subordinate
clauses seems to be mainly a phenomenon of the written language.
Diachronic variation
Another argument against the Low German provenance of verb-late word order
is the fact that verb-final subordinate clauses were already being used in the
oldest Swedish sources written in the Latin alphabet, the provincial laws. The
percentage of such verb-final clauses varies rather dramatically between differ-
ent texts (see de Boor 1922, pp. 122ff., 171ff.; Jörgensen 1987, p. 122), and the
widespread opinion that verb-final clauses are the remnant of an earlier SOV
stage of Scandinavian seems to be built on circular reasoning as the result of an
inappropriate mixing of different approaches to the dating of texts (paleogra-
phy, history, linguistics). According to Wenning (1930, p. 31), more archaic
(“ålderdomligare”) provincial laws like Äldre Västgötalagen (Older law code
of Västergötland, oldest manuscript from c. 1280) and Dalalagen (Law code of
Dalecarlia, oldest manuscripts from around 1350), exhibit a high percentage of
verb-final clauses, which can be taken as a strong indication of this word order
being especially conservative.
The explanation for the fact that (according to Wenning) more modern texts
like Upplandslagen (Law code of Upland, oldest manuscripts from the first
half of the 14th century) and Magnus Erikssons Landslag (oldest manuscripts
from the second half of the 14th century) show even more verb-final clauses
is, according to Wenning, that they are examples of a standardised official ju-
ridical language which exhibits an even more conservative character.15 Thus,
verb-final word order is used as a criterion for dating the texts, but at the same
time the fact that verb-final word order is found mainly in texts described as
linguistically conservative is taken as a proof of the archaic nature of this struc-
ture.
A comparison of Swedish law texts and the oldest law text preserved in Ice-
landic, Grágás – the oldest Icelandic manuscripts are from the middle of the
13th century, but according to historical sources, the Icelanders began to write
down their laws in the 12th century (Kristján Árnason 2003, p. 254) – is not able
to confirm the age of verb-final subordinate clauses. According to Jörgensen
(1987, p. 122), Grágás has only 0.4% verb-final subordinate clauses and would
thus represent a much younger type of language than the Swedish law texts,
which were written down later than the Icelandic texts.
It is safe to say that the Icelandic laws are strongly based on an oral tradition
(Kristján Árnason 2003, p. 254). According to Landnámabók and Íslendinga-
bók, before Iceland became a literate society, the law was recited orally at the
Alþingi. Thus, early Icelandic writing is the continuation of an oral tradition
based on contemporary language use, but also on a standardised style for oral
tales, and this already existing Icelandic oral literary standard could be used to
develop a written standard language. So the linguistic development from the
language of the younger runic inscriptions to the classical Icelandic sagas can
be looked upon as comparably unbroken. Such an oral tradition is also assumed
for the Swedish provincial laws,16 although the evidence is less clear than in the
case of the Icelandic laws. Therefore, the assumption that the word order in Ice-
landic subordinate clauses is a linguistic innovation, while the Early Old Swe-
dish word order represents a more conservative linguistic state, is less prob-
able.17
Another argument against this is the fact that verb-final subordinate clauses
are not found in Swedish texts from the 14th century, and they appear again in
the written sources much later, increasing in frequency until the 17th century.
The later examples, however, are usually looked upon as not belonging to the
core of the Swedish language system, but as a typical phenomenon of the writ-
ten language (Delsing 1999, p. 214). The development of word order in subor-
dinate clauses can definitely not be described as a steady change which hap-
15
Åkerlund (1944, p. 3); concerning the number of subordinate clauses with verb-late order in the
Old Swedish provincial laws, see Jörgensen (1987, p. 122).
16
For Delbrück (1918, p. 3) there is no doubt that the Older Law code of Västergötland, like the
other provincial laws, was transmitted orally and recited publicly at the Thing assembly. (Es kann
“nicht zweifelhaft sein, daß dieses Landrecht [Äldre västgötalagen] wie alle andern seit alter Zeit
mündlich festgehalten und in Thingversammlungen vorgetragen worden ist.”)
17
Magnus Lagabøters landslov, which was in use in Norway since 1274, also has, according to
Christoffersen (1997, p. 44) verb-second order in main and subordinate clauses.
186 Ludger Zeevaert
pened in all types of texts at the same time. The provincial laws have up to 18%
verb-final subordinate clauses; religious texts from the early 14th century have
0%; Swedish diplomas from the second part of the 14th century have 13%; nar-
rative texts from the 15th century have only 3%; and Swedish translations of the
Bible from the 16th century have up to 27% verb-final subordinate clauses.
Therefore it is reasonable to presume that the word order in Swedish subordi-
nate clauses was not so much influenced by (oral) contact with Low German
but rather by literacy in Latin. Latin as the language of the Church played a cru-
cial role in developing a tradition of writing in the vernacular in Sweden after
the adoption of Christianity.
The high percentage of verb-final subordinate clauses in Upplandslagen
(the provincial law of Uppland) (32%, against only 5% in the oldest Swedish
text, the provincial law of Västergötland from c. 1225; de Boor 1922, p. 162ff.)
can be explained very easily in this way. According to the preface (lat. confir-
matio), Upplandslagen is by no means a precise written record of an oral tradi-
tion, but rather a text that was revised by a committee of lawyers and theolog-
ians appointed by the Swedish king, including the lagman Birger Persson and
the Provost of Uppsala cathedral Andreas And (Lönnroth & Delblanc 1987, p.
52ff.). On account of their international education, these men were skilled in
Latin.
It is reasonable to assume that the specific word order for subordinate
clauses in Early Old Swedish texts is not a remnant of the Proto-Germanic past,
but rather a typical feature of Swedish chancellery language that was formed
through literacy in Latin and Latin text traditions; it is evident especially in
Swedish official letters and somewhat in juridical texts. This tradition was con-
tinued in the language of Bible translations in the 16th century, which were
heavily influenced by Martin Luther’s High German Bible. Luther’s translation
in turn was influenced by German chancellery style, being itself strongly based
on Latin models.18
Conclusion
One finding of the “Scandinavian Syntax” project is that the influence of Low
German on the typological development of Mainland Scandinavian word order
is rather marginal in comparison with the fundamental morphological and
lexical changes that were induced by this language contact.19 Low German def-
initely did not influence the syntactic typology of Swedish, and this research
shows that the changes which can be observed in the word order of subordinate
18
See Zeevaert (2002, with further bibliographical information) and Besch (2000, especially p.
1722) concerning the origin of Martin Luther’s German in the chancellery language of Upper
Saxony.
19
Cf. however Stefan Mähl (in this volume) on Low German influence on Swedish syntax.
clauses were not caused by oral contact between speakers of Low German and
Swedish. However, the emergence of written standard languages in Scandina-
via at the beginning of the 12th and 13th centuries has not been explored exhaus-
tively, and work remains to be done in order to reach a better understanding of
the processes that caused the differences in the word order of Swedish and Ice-
landic subordinate clauses.
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Low German and Nynorsk – a strained relationship? 191
Low German and Nynorsk – a strained

relationship?
A glimpse into Norway’s most recent language history
Erik Simensen, University of Oslo
Introduction
A good deal is known about contact between Low German and the Nordic lan-
guages during the Middle Ages. Much of this knowledge is documented
through research published in the conference series called “Niederdeutsch in
Skandinavien” (1985–2001). This linguistic contact was extensive, deep and
intense, and has left many traces in most of the Nordic languages (Icelandic be-
ing an exception in this respect), in the lexicon as well as in word formation.
An ensuing question may be asked: what happened next? What was the fate of
the Low German loans after the Middle Ages?
In 1989 I examined a limited section of Norwegian vocabulary in a study of
loanwords from German containing the prefix be-. These belong to a group of
Low German, and partly High German, loanwords – the “anbeheitelse words”,
as they are generally labelled by Norwegians, referring to the most widely used
prefixes (an-, be-) and suffixes (-heit, -else) imported from German. I have
tried to find out more about the status of these words in the vocabulary of
Nynorsk (for short: NN, lit. ‘New Norwegian’, one of the two official written
standards of Norwegian) in recent years, more precisely the period from 1993
to 2006 inclusive. In this paper I have not considered the situation in Bokmål
(for short: BM, lit. ‘book language’, the other official written standard of Nor-
wegian). My aim has been to see to what extent, and how, these words have
been included in – or excluded from – standard NN. The handling of these
words has been, and to some extent still is, the subject of heated discussion
among Norwegians. This subject has also interested linguists outside Norway.
Kurt Braunmüller has dealt with it in his survey of the Nordic languages
(Braunmüller 1991, pp. 166–169), and it has been treated with profound insight
and thorough discussion by Wilhelm Gerdener in his 1986 doctoral disserta-
tion. My own impression is that these loanwords have become gradually more
acceptable in standard NN, particularly in recent years. The question is whether
this impression has an empirical basis.
In order to discover possible phases and lines of development in greater de-
tail, I have studied different editions of two widely used works embodying the
official standards of NN:
192 Erik Simensen
Nynorskordboka (Dictionary of New Norwegian, henceforth NB)

2nd edition (1993)
3rd edition (2001)
4th edition (2006, electronic version 2010).
Alf Hellevik’s Nynorsk ordliste (New Norwegian Word List, henceforth
AH)
7th edition (1993)
9th edition (2000), with Kåre Skadberg (KS) and Aud Søyland (AS) as
co-editors
10th edition (2005), edited by KS and AS alone.
AH has been revised and reissued many times since its first appearance 1938.
It has been – and still is – the standard NN speller for Norwegian pupils and
students. It evokes strong emotions, being loved or hated with great intensity,
but negative feelings tend to prevail, as a headline in Norway’s biggest news-
paper, Aftenposten, revealed on 25 October 2010: “Spynorsk mordliste” (lit.
‘Spew Norwegian murder list’).
When the different editions of these works are compared, it becomes appar-
ent that significant changes have taken place. The course of changes are most
easily traced in the editions of AH (with KS and AS), and especially by com-
paring the changes in the Supplement (containing NN equivalents to BM),
which was first introduced in the 3rd edition (1962) and has been an insepar-
able component in AH ever since.
In the following surveys, compounds have not been counted.
Nynorskordboka
affix 2nd ed. (1993) 3rd ed. (2001) 4th ed. (2006)
an- 30 41 41
be- 99 130 130
-else 8 19 19
-heit 24 103 103
While there is a small increase between the 1993 edition and the later two edi-
tions for the an- and be- prefixes, the -else entries are more numerous, and the
biggest increase was found for the -heit suffix.
Alf Hellevik’s Nynorsk ordliste

The findings from comparing the AH editions are more interesting. In the 1962
edition, there is a comment in the preface on the use of BM forms (and ipso fac-
to the anbeheitelse words):
Neither can it be said that all these BM words are unacceptable in NN. (Sometimes
a tilde is added in order to indicate that the BM word may be allowed, at least in cer-
tain meanings. … It seems appropriate to stress that guidance [italics in original] is

given here, not instructions and prohibitions (p. 10) [my translation].
A corresponding comment appears in the 1993 edition (p. 29), where the entire
last sentence is italicized. In the same edition, notes on each of the an-, be-,
-else and -heit affixes have been included as footnotes in the main section of
the text.
In the 1993 edition we read that “More sparsely used in NN are words like
anbefale …, anfall …, angi or angje …” (p. 39). In the 2000 edition this had
been changed to: “Formerly not much used in NN, but many words beginning
in an- are well established in Norwegian dialects and are now common in NN,
e.g. words like anbefale [etc. as earlier]” (p. 32).
In 1993, AH stated that be- was:
Common in spoken language and in BM. Even in written NN several be- words are
used (see the word list), but we use many of them preferably in certain specialized
meanings, see, e.g. belysning, bestemme. Other be- words are sparsely or not at all
used in NN. We write, for instance, nytte instead of benytte, tyde instead of bety, sty-
re for bestyre, svare på for besvare; see the Supplement (p. 49).
In the 2000 edition (p. 47), the second sentence has been changed to: “Even in
written NN several be- words are used (see the word list), but we use some
[italicized by the editors] of them preferably in certain specialized meanings,
see, e.g. belysning.” This is repeated in the 2005 edition (p. 50).
In the 1993, 2000 and 2005 editions it was said that -else is “used in a few
words, mainly referring to concrete objects: …Especially -ing has replaced
-else, e.g. ending … .”
Where -heit is mentioned the warning is clearer:
Words ending in -heit (or -het) are common in the dialects, but have been sparsely
used in ordinary NN prose. Some derivatives with -heit are now entered in the word
list … but students should be permitted to use even other -heit derivatives which are
common in spoken language. But it is important that they also know and are able to
use the other derivational suffixes that are more frequently used in NN rather than
-heit, especially -dom, -leik and -skap … . We often recommend using the adjective
and not the derived noun (1993, p. 116; 2000, p. 141).
In the 2005 edition “Some” is replaced by “Several” (p. 143).

As we can see, the door has gradually been opened for more words in these
categories, which means that they have become more acceptable in standard
NN. In the following detailed survey of AH, I have distinguished between
three types of entry: those in the main text of the word list, those in the Sup-
plement, and those entered in both. Some words are entered only in the Sup-
plement but are marked as acceptable in NN (after some adjustments having
been made).
194 Erik Simensen
Words with an-

1993 (AH)
MAIN TEXT, 27: anbefale, anbefaling, anbod, andakt, andektig, anfall, anfekting,
angi, angivar, angrep, angripar, angripe, anheng, anlegg, anløpe, anmarsj, an-
namme, anordning, anretning, ansikt, anslag, anstalt, anstand, anstendig,
antrekk, anvise, anvisar.
SUPPLEMENT, 68: anbringe, anbud, anbyder, andel, andragende, anerkjenne, an-
erkjennelse, anføre, anfører, anførsel, angi, angivelig, angjeldende, angå, an-
gående, anhang, anholde, anklage, ankomme, ankomst, anledning, anlegge, an-
liggende, anløp, anløpe, anmelde, anmeldelse, anmelder, anmerke, anmerkning,
anmode, anmodning, annamme, anrette, anrik(n)ing, anrop, anrope, ansatt,
anse, anseelse, anselig, ansette, ansettelse, anskaffe, anskaffelse, anskuelig, an-
skuelse, anslag, anslå, anspenne, anstendighet, anstrenge, anstrengelse, anstøt,
ansøke, ansøkning, anta, antakelig, antakelse, antall, antenne, antrukken, an-
tyde, antydning, anvende, anvendelig, anvise, anvisning.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 6: anbod (a NN form which is only orthograph-
ically adjusted from the BM form is counted together with the latter as one lem-
ma), angi, anløpe (semantic difference BM/NN), annamme (different shades of
meaning BM/NN), anslag (semantic difference BM/NN), anvise (semantic dif-
ference BM/NN).
2000 (AH, KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 46: the same as in 1993, plus: anbydar, anerkjenne, angå, anledning,
anløp, anretning, ansats, anslå, anstendigheit, anstrengjande, anstrengje, an-
støyt, anta, antakeleg, antyde, antydning, anvend*, anvende, anvendeleg. Many
of these entries are still in the SUPPLEMENT. The word marked with * was not in-
cluded in the 1993 SUPPLEMENT.
SUPPLEMENT, 66: the same as in 1993, plus: anvendt; minus: ansøke, ansøkning,
antegne.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 23: the same as in 1993, plus: anbydar, an-
erkjenne, angå, anledning, anløp, anslå, anstendigheit, anstrengjande, an-
strengje, anstøyt, anta, antakeleg, antyde, antydning, anvend, anvende, anven-
deleg.
2005 (KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 47: the same as in 2000, plus: antaste.
SUPPLEMENT, 66: the same as in 2000.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 24: the same as in 2000, plus: anløpe.
Words with be-

1993 (AH)
MAIN TEXT, 101: bebuar, bedageleg, bedekkje, bedekning, bedra, bedrag, bedra-
gar, bedrageri, bedragersk, bedrift, bedømme, bedømming, bedøve, bedøving,
befal, befale, befaling, befolkning, befrukte, befrukt(n)ing, begeistra, begeistre,
begeistring, begripe, begripeleg, begynnar, begynne, begynning, behag, be-
hageleg, behald, behaldar, behaldning, behandlar, behandle, behandling, be-
herska, beherske, behov, belaste, belast(n)ing, belegg, beleggje, belysning,
beløp, bemanne, bemanning, beordre, beredskap, berekne, berekning, berykta,
berømt, berøring, besetning, besett, besifre, besifring, besjeling, beskjed,

beskrive, beskriving, beskøyt, beslag, beslagleggje, beslå, bestand, bestemd,
bestemme, bestemming, bestikk (n.), bestikk (m.), bestille, bestråle, bestråling,
bestå, besynderleg, besøk, besøkje, betale, betaling, betene, betening, betenkt,
betennelse, betent, betjening, betjent, beundrar, beundrarinne, beundre, beund-
ring, bevare, bevaring, beverte, bevertning, bevilling, bevis, bevise, bevis(e)leg,
bevisst.
SUPPLEMENT, 245: bearbeide, bebodd, beboelig, beboer, bebreide, bebreidelse,
bebude, bebygge, bebyggelse, bebyrde, bedekke, bedekning, bedervet, bedrift,
bedrøve, bedrøvelig, bedrøvelse, bedugget, bedyre, bedømmelse, bedøvelse,
bedåre, beedige, befare, befatning, beferdet, befeste, befestning, befinne, befip-
pelse, beflitte, befolke, befolkning, befordre, befordring, befrakte, befraktning,
befrakter, befri, befrielse, begavelse, begavet, begi, begivenhet, begjær, be-
gjære, begjæring, begjærlig, begrave, begravelse, begredelig, begrense, be-
grensning, begrep, begripelse, begrunne, begrunnelse, begunstige, begunsti-
gelse, begynnelse, begå, behendig, behjelpelig, behold, beholde, beholdning, be-
høve, bekjempe, bekjenne, bekjennelse, bekjent, bekjentgjøre, bekjentskap,
beklage, beklagelig, bekle, bekledning, bekomme, bekostning, bekranse,
bekrefte, bekreftelse, bekvem, bekvemme, bekymre, bekymring, belage, beleilig,
beleire, belesse, belest, beleven, beliggende, beliggenhet, belivet, belyse, belys-
ning, belære, belønne, belønning, beløp, beløpe, bemektige, bemerke, bemerk-
ning, bemyndige, bemyndigelse, benekte, benevne, benevning, benytte, benåde,
benådning, beordre, beplante, beplantning, beramme, berammmelse, berede,
beredskap, beredt, beredvillig, beregne, beregning, bereist, beretning, berette,
berettige, berettigelse, berike, beriktige, bero, berolige, beruse, berømme,
berømmelig, berømmelse, berømt, berøre, berøve, beråd, besatt, bese, besegle,
beseire, besetning, besette, besettelse, besiktige, besiktigelse, besindig, besin-
dighet, besinne, besitte, besittelse, beskadige, beskaffen, beskatning, beskatte,
beskikke, beskjeden, beskjeftige, beskjeftigelse, beskjære, beskrive, beskrivelse,
beskylde, beskyldning, beskytte, beskyttelse, beslaglegge, beslektet, beslutning,
beslutte, besluttsom, besnære, besparelse, bestalling, bestanddel, bestandig,
bestemmelse, bestige, bestikke, bestikkelse, bestille, bestilling, bestjele, be-
strebe, bestride, bestyre, bestyrer, bestyrerinne, bestøvning, besvare, besva-
relse, besvime, besvimelse, besvær, besværlig, besynderlig, besørge, beta, beta-
gende, betakke, betatt, betegne, betegnelse, betenke, betenkelig, betenkelighet,
betenkning, betids, betinge, betingelse, betjene, betone, betrakte, betraktning,
betrekk, betro, betrodd, betroelse, betryggelse, betuttet, bety, betyde, betydelig,
betydning, bevege, bevegelig, bevegelse, bevendt, beverte, bevertning, bevilge,
bevilling, bevirke, bevisst, bevissthet, bevitne, bevitnelse, bevokte, bevoktning,
bevæpne, beære.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 20: bebuar, bedekkje, bedekning, bedrift, be-
folkning, behald, behaldning, belysning, beløp, beordre, beredskap, berømt, be-
sett, beskrive, beslagleggje, bestille, besynderleg, beverte, bevertning, bevilling.
SUPPLEMENT ONLY, BUT MARKED AS ACCEPTABLE IN NN, 2: befeste (not in-
cluded in the 2000 ed.), bestilling.
2000 (AH, KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 132: the same as in 1993, plus: bebreide, bebreiding, bederva,
bedrøva, bedrøveleg, begjær, begynning, behøve, beklage, beklageleg, bekrefte,
bekymre, bekymring, belage, belyse, benåde, beordring, beskjeden, beskjeden-
heit, bestikke, bestikking, bestilling, bestøve, betakke, betone, betutta, bety, be-
tydeleg, betydning, bevege, bevegelse (i.e. mainly the forms from the 1993 Sup-
196 Erik Simensen
plement, but in NN orthography). Still not included: bedyre, berøre, bestand

(‘strip of woodland’).
SUPPLEMENT, 239: the same as in 1993, minus: befrakte, befrakter, befraktning,
beløp, beråd, bestalling, bestyrerinne; plus: belemre.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 52: bebreide, bebuar, bedekkje, bedekning, bed-
erva, bedrift, bedrøva, bedrøveleg, befolkning, begjær, behald, behalde, behald-
ning, behøve, beklage, beklageleg, bekrefte, bekymre, bekymring, belage, be-
lyse, belysning, benåde, beordre, beredskap, berekne, berekning, berømt, beset-
ning, besett, beskjeden, beskrive, beslagleggje, bestikke, bestikking, bestille,
bestilling, besynderleg, betakke, betene, betone, betutta, bety, betydeleg, betyd-
ning, bevege, bevegelse, beverte, bevertning, bevilling, bevisst, bevisstheit.
SUPPLEMENT ONLY, BUT MARKED AS ACCEPTABLE IN NN (after the adjust-
ment -lig > -leg), 10: bearbeide, begavelse, behjelpelig, beskytte, beskyttelse,
bestandig, betrakte, betraktelig, betraktning, bevendt.
2005 (KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 139: the same as in 2000, plus: begavelse, behjelpeleg, beskytte,
beskyttelse, betrakte, betrakteleg, betraktning.
SUPPLEMENT, 235: the same as in 2000, minus: beedige, belesse, belivet, betids.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 53: the same as in 2000, plus: bedyre.
IN THE SUPPLEMENT ONLY, BUT MARKED AS ACCEPTABLE IN NN, 1: be-
standig.
Words with -else

1993 (AH)
MAIN TEXT, 8: bakkels(e), betennelse, fordøyelse, hakkels(e), røykjelse, spøkjelse,
stiftelse, stivelse.
SUPPLEMENT, 185: aktelse, anelse, anerkjennelse, anmeldelse, anseelse, anset-
telse, anskaffelse, anskuelse, anstrengelse, antakelse, atspredelse, avbrytelse,
avgjørelse, avvikelse, bebreidelse, bebyggelse, bedrøvelse, bedømmelse, bedø-
velse, befippelse, begavelse, begravelse, begripelse, begrunnelse, begunstigelse,
begynnelse, bekjennelse, bekreftelse, bemyndigelse, berettigelse, berømmelse,
besettelse, besiktigelse, besittelse, beskjeftigelse, beskrivelse, beskyttelse, be-
sparelse, bestemmelse, bestikkelse, besvarelse, besvimelse, betegnelse, be-
tingelse, betroelse, betryggelse, bevegelse, bevitnelse, deltakelse, drøftelse, en-
delse, ervervelse, feiltakelse, forargelse, forbannelse, forbauselse, forbindelse,
forbitrelse, forbrytelse, fordøyelse, foreteelse, forjettelse, forkjølelse, forkyn-
nelse, forlatelse, forlengelse, forlovelse, fornemmelse, fornøyelse, forpliktelse,
forsakelse, forseelse, forsendelse, forsinkelse, forskrekkelse, forsnakkelse, for-
ståelse, forsørgelse, fortapelse, fortegnelse, fortsettelse, fortvilelse, foryngelse,
fristelse, følelse, gjengivelse, gjengjeldelse, gjentakelse, gudsdyrkelse, heftelse,
helbredelse, henrettelse, henvendelse, hevelse, hukommelse, iakttakelse, inn-
bydelse, innflytelse, innrømmelse, innsigelse, innskytelse, irettesettelse, kjen-
nelse, kvestelse, ledelse, ledsagelse, lettelse, lidelse, lignelse, meddelelse, min-
nelse, misunnelse, mottakelse, nytelse, omgivelse, omvendelse, oppbyggelse,
oppdragelse, opphisselse, opprinnelse, oppsettelse, oppstandelse, opptuktelse,
overensstemmelse, oversettelse, overskridelse, oversvømmelse, overtalelse,
overtredelse, overveielse, overvinnelse, påtaleunnlatelse, redegjørelse, refselse,
rettelse, rystelse, salvelse, sammensvergelse, selvangivelse, selvantennelse,
selvbeherskelse, selvoppholdelse, siktelse, skapelse, skikkelse, skrivelse, skuf-
felse, splittelse, stavelse, størrelse, svekkelse, takksigelse, tildragelse, tilføyelse,

tillatelse, tilsigelse, tilskyndelse, tilsnikelse, tilstedeværelse, tiltredelse, til-
værelse, tykkelse, understøttelse, undersøkelse, undertrykkelse, unnseelse, ut-
førelse, utsettelse, utskeielse, utsvevelse, uttalelse, varetakelse, vedtakelse, vek-
kelse, velsignelse, vemmelse, verdiforringelse, vielse, villelse, villfarelse,
værelse, ydmykelse, ytelse, ærekrenkelse, øvelse.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 1: fordøyelse.
2000 (AH, KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 17: the same as in 1993, plus: bevegelse, fornøyelse, følelse, hevelse,
prøvelse, salvelse, skikkelse, skuffelse, størrelse.
SUPPLEMENT, 184: the same as in 1993, plus: forferdelse, misligholdelse, prø-
velse; minus: ledsagelse, oppsettelse, tilsigelse, vedtakelse.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 10: the same as in 1993, plus: bevegelse,
fornøyelse, følelse, hevelse, prøvelse, salvelse, skikkelse, skuffelse, størrelse.
SUPPLEMENT ONLY, BUT MARKED AS ACCEPTABLE IN NN, 4: begavelse,
beskyttelse, innflytelse, oppstandelse.
2005 (KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 21: the same as in 2000, plus: begavelse, beskyttelse, innflytelse,
oppstandelse.
SUPPLEMENT, 183: the same as in 2000, minus: skrivelse.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 14: the same as in 2000, plus: begavelse, beskyt-
telse, innflytelse, oppstandelse.
Words with -heit

1993 (AH)
MAIN TEXT, 25: drektigheit, dumheit, fleirspråklegheit, frekkheit, fromheit, frukt-
barheit, godheit, griskheit, grådigheit, gyldigheit, hyppigheit, leilegheit,
lystigheit, mog(e)legheit, myndigheit, nyheit, nøyaktigheit, offentlegheit, tom-
heit, tospråklegheit, travelheit, trøysamheit, verdigheit, ømheit, øverheit.
SUPPLEMENT, 241: aktsomhet, allmennhet, alminnelighet, anstendighet, barm-
hjertighet, begivenhet, bekvemmelighetsflagg, beliggenhet, besindighet, beten-
kelighet, bevissthet, billighet(serstatning, -hensyn), bitterhet, bluferdighet,
blyghet, dumhet, dyktighet, dødelighet, elendighet, enfoldighet, enhet, enighet,
enkelhet, ensomhet, evighet, falskhet, fasthet, feighet, ferdighet, festligheter, fin-
het, forbindtlighet, fordragelighet, forfengelighet, forgjengelighet, fornødenhet,
forsiktighet, forstemthet, frekkhet, frihet, fruktbarhet, fuktighet, fullkommenhet,
gavmildhet, gjenvordighet, gjerrighet, gjestfrihet, godhet, grusomhet, grådighet,
gudfryktighet, gyldighet, hastighet, heftighet, helhet, hemmelighet, herlighet,
hevngjerrighet, holdbarhet, hyppighet, høyhet, håpløshet, kjedeligheter, kjed-
som(melig)het, kjærlighet, klarhet, knapphet, kostbarhet, kristenhet, kyndighet,
kåthet, ledighet, leilighet, letthet, lettsindighet, likegyldighet, likhet, lovkyn-
dighet, lydighet, mangfoldighet, medlidenhet, menighet, mildhet, minnelighet,
mistenksomhet, modenhet, morsomhet, munterhet, myndighet, narraktighet, nid-
kjærhet, norskhet, nyfikenhet, nysgjerrighet, nærhet, nødvendighet, nøyaktighet,
offentlighet, omstendighet, omtenksomhet, oppmerksomhet, oppriktighet,
oppsetsighet, overbærenhet, overhøyhet, personlighet, platthet, redelighet, ren-
het, renslighet, rettferdighet, rettighet, riktighet, romslighet, rådighet, rådløshet,
198 Erik Simensen
rådvillhet, sakkyndighet, saktmodighet, samhørighet, samvittighet, sannhet,

sannsynlighet, sedelighet, seighet, selskapelighet, selvbevissthet, selvfølgelighet,
selvstendighet, sendrektighet, severdighet, sikkerhet, siktbarhet, sindighet,
sjeldenhet, sjenerthet, skjendighet, skjødesløshet, skjønnhet, skrøpelighet, skyl-
dighet, skånsomhet, slapphet, slibrighet, sløvhet, smakløshet, sorgløshet, spar-
som(melig)het, spedalskhet, spenstighet, sprekhet, spydighet, stadighet, stahet,
stedighet, stivhet, stolthet, storhet, stridighet, sunnhet, svakhet, svimmelhet,
særdeleshet, særegenhet, sømmelighet, søvnløshet, takknemlighet, taktløshet,
tankeløshet, taushet, tenksomhet, tetthet, tilbakeholdenhet, tilbøyelighet, tilfel-
dighet, tilfredshet, tilgjorthet, tilhørighet, travelhet, treenighet, trefoldighet,
treghet, treskhet, tretthet, trofasthet, troløshet, troskyldighet, troverdighet,
trygghet, tverrhet, tydelighet, tørrhet, tålmodighet, tålsomhet, tåpelighet,
uavhengighet, uendelighet, uhumskhet, uleilighet, underdanighet, unnfallenhet,
uroligheter, ustøhet, utholdenhet, utidighet, utlendighet, uvitenhet, vaktsomhet,
valgbarhet, vanførhet, vanskelighet, varighet, varsomhet, veldedighet, velgjø-
renhet, veltalenhet, vennlighet, vennskapelighet, verdighet, viderverdighet, vik-
tighet, vilkårlighet, villighet, virkelighet, virksomhet, visshet, vitebegjærlighet,
vitterlighet, vittighet, voldsomhet, ydmykhet, ytterlighet, ærbødighet, ærgjerrig-
het, ærlighet, ødselhet, ømfintlighet, ømhet, øvrighet, åpenhet, årvåkenhet.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 15: dumheit, fleirspråklegheit, frekkheit, frukt-
barheit, godheit, grådigheit, gyldigheit, hyppigheit, leilegheit, mog(e)legheit,
myndigheit, nøyaktigheit, offentlegheit, travelheit, ømheit.
2000 (AH, KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 70: the same as in 1993, plus: anstendigheit, beskjedenheit, bevisst-
heit, bitterheit, dyktigheit, dødelegheit, einigheit, ferdigheit, fordragelegheit,
forlegenheit, forsiktigheit, fortrulegheit, haldbarheit, hemmelegheit, høflegheit,
landflyktigheit, lesbarheit, likegyldigheit, nysgjerrigheit, openheit, pålitelegheit,
reinslegheit, rådigheit, saklegheit, sikkerheit, skjønnheit, slappheit, sluheit, spy-
digheit, stadigheit, staheit, stoltheit, sunnheit, svakheit, svimmelheit, sårbarheit,
sårheit, takknemlegheit, tausheit, tilgjengelegheit, vennlegheit, vennskapeleg-
heit, vittigheit, ytterlegheit, øvrigheit.
Several of these (beskjedenheit, forlegenheit, fortrulegheit, høflegheit, landflyk-
tigheit, lesbarheit, pålitelegheit, saklegheit, sluheit, sårbarheit, sårheit, tilgjenge-
legheit) were not even mentioned in the 1993 Supplement.
SUPPLEMENT, 243: the same as in 1993, plus: høflighet, landflyktighet, lesbarhet,
saklighet, sårbarhet, sårhet, tilgjengelighet; minus: siktbarhet, spedalskhet,
treskhet, vanførhet, vitterlighet.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 48: the same as in 1993, plus: anstendigheit, bit-
terheit, dyktigheit, dødelegheit, einigheit, ferdigheit, fordragelegheit, forsik-
tigheit, haldbarheit, hemmelegheit, høflegheit, likegyldigheit, nysgjerrigheit,
saklegheit, sikkerheit, skjønnheit, slappheit, spydigheit, stadigheit, staheit,
stoltheit, sunnheit, svakheit, svimmelheit, sårbarheit, sårheit, tausheit,
tilgjengelegheit, vennlegheit, vennskapelegheit, verdigheit, verkelegheit, vit-
tigheit, ømfintlegheit, øvrigheit; minus: fleirspråklegheit, moglegheit.
SUPPLEMENT ONLY, BUT MARKED AS ACCEPTABLE IN NN (after adjust-
ments: -het > -heit, -lig > -leg, menig- > meinig-, se- > sjå-,
sjelden- > sjeldan-), 16: enkelhet, forfengelighet, hastighet, kostbarhet, me-
nighet, munterhet, narraktighet, nødvendighet, platthet, riktighet, romslighet,
rådighet, severdighet, sindighet, sjeldenhet, underdanighet.
2005 (KS & AS)

MAIN TEXT, 104: the same as in 2000, plus: alminnelegheit, elskverdigheit, enkel-
heit, forfengelegheit, hastigheit, hurtigheit, innbilskheit, kostbarheit, lovmes-
sigheit, munterheit, nødvendigheit, oppriktigheit, plattheit, romslegheit, sin-
digheit, sjeldanheit, smidigheit, standhaftigheit, særeigenheit, tapperheit, til-
bøyelegheit, tilfredsheit, tydelegheit, tåpelegheit, uhyrlegheit, underdanigheit,
varigheit, viktigheit, vilkårlegheit, villigheit, ærbarheit, ærbødigheit, ærgjerrig-
heit, ærverdigheit.
SUPPLEMENT, 242: the same as in 2000, minus: utlendighet.
MAIN TEXT AND SUPPLEMENT, 48: the same as in 2000.
SUPPLEMENT ONLY, BUT MARKED AS ACCEPTABLE IN NN (after adjust-
ments: -het > -heit, menig- > meinig-, se- > sjå-, valg- > val-), 9:
heftigheit, meinigheit, narraktigheit, nidkjærheit, riktigheit, sjåverdigheit,
særdelesheit, ustadigheit, valbarheit.
Discussion
If we disregard the words not allowed in NN, i.e. those entered only in the Sup-
plement, the words with these affixes fall into two large classes: (1) an “upper
class” of words included only in the main text and thus considered fully accept-
able; and (2) a “lower class” of words included both in the main text and the
Supplement, but in the latter section supplied with NN equivalents (more or
less, depending i.a. on context), suggested alternative phrases and a tilde,
which means that the word in question is acceptable in NN under certain con-
ditions. Even lower in status are those words in the Supplement which are not
entered in the main text. Examples: befeste, bestilling in 1993; bearbeide etc.
in 2000; heftigheit etc. in 2005.
This situation is probably best explained as a reflection of the linguistic
purism which has been part of the NN movement ever since the time of Ivar
Aasen. The rejection of loans from German had mainly two motives. One was
national: these words and word elements were imported, thus marking Norwe-
gian as a partly foreign language, carrying the hallmark of a dependent lan-
guage (i.e. dependent on Danish, which is in turn dependent on German in this
respect). International loanwords of Greek and Latin origin were more readily
accepted because they represented a common European heritage and were not
especially marked as Danish (see Bakken 2008, p. 35). The other motive was
based on considerations internal to Norwegian linguistic structure: these ele-
ments obstructed or ousted the use and development of native derivational
mechanisms, thus curbing the independent growth of the Norwegian language
itself.
This linguistic movement has been a powerful factor in the history of the
Norwegian language all the way from Ivar Aasen to Marius Hægstad, Nikolaus
Gjelsvik, Alexander Seippel and Gustav Indrebø and down to the present. At
the same time it cannot be denied that many of these words were, and still are,
frequently used in spoken language in many dialects. Since NN claims to be an
200 Erik Simensen
adequate written representation of the language of the Norwegian people, it

should accept many of these words in written NN.
Puristic efforts may explain why these words have been treated so different-
ly in NN dictionaries and word lists. The situation has become even more dif-
ficult for language users because the grouping of these words has led to differ-
ences with respect to which related forms are allowed in written NN. Hegge-
lund discussed this problem in an article in Maal og Minne (1985, p. 231). In
the 1993 edition of AH, certain verbs were entered in the main text (e.g. anløpe,
anvise), whereas the corresponding nouns (anløp, anvisning) appeared only in
the Supplement; or vice versa: the noun appeared in the main text (anretning,
anlegg), but the verb only in the Supplement (anrette, anlegge). In the 2000
edition as well, some verbs were entered in the main text (anerkjenne, an-
strengje, anta) while the corresponding nouns appeared only in the Supplement
(anerkjennelse, anstrengelse, antakelse).
In an attempt to remedy this situation, over the years some of the most fre-
quent pairs of words related in this way have been kept together and accepted:
e.g. beskytte and beskyttelse, alminneleg and alminnelegheit, anstendig and an-
stendigheit, etc. In general, the course of the changes between 1993 and 2005
has been such that many words which first appeared only in the Supplement
gradually “advanced” to be accepted in the main text.
As is evident from this survey, most of the changes in acceptance levels
seem to have taken place at the end of the 1990s. There is a smaller difference
in this respect between NB 2001 and 2006 than between NB 1993 and 2001.
Similarly, the differences between the various editions of AH are more numer-
ous and largest between 1993 and 2000, less so between 2000 and 2005. This
is probably a consequence of an important resolution passed by the Language
Council of Norway on February 3, 1999 about general guidelines regulating the
adoption of words imported from German and Danish into official standard
NN.1 This resolution stated that imported words which are widely used in Nor-
wegian dialects should not be excluded from NN word lists and dictionaries –
with some limitations, the most important being the exclusion of nouns ending
in -else and -heit where synonyms in -ing, -nad and -skap, or short forms, are
available (thus: beskriving but not beskrivelse; vørdnad but not anseelse; lik-
skap but not likheit; samvit but not samvittigheit). The distribution of these
words across dialects is an important consideration, as expressly stated in the
resolution. But in addition, I think it is fair to say that some classical NN words
are becoming obsolete and sound rather bookish, e.g. brune for betennelse,
tame for ferdigheit and togn for tausheit. In an intermediate position, so far as
I can judge, are e.g. semje and medvit, for einigheit and bevisstheit, respective-
ly. The latter group does not have such a literary ring. At the same time, NN is
constantly exposed to influence from BM, especially in its lexicon. The con-
cept of ‘the language of the Norwegian people’ (Norw. folkemål) covers a
1
I am indebted to Helge Sandøy for this information.
wider range of usage than before. And the opposition against the anbeheitelse
words sometimes looks like a delayed revenge on language history, as Lars
Vikør once wrote (1983, p. 54).
It has been said that NN has an identity problem: it must not become too
similar to BM, and it cannot alienate itself from its literary tradition. For these
reasons purism is still alive, in various forms and degrees. (In an article from
the year 2000, Kjell Venås gave a historical overview and a balanced evalua-
tion of the different positions.) The adherents of høgnorsk (‘High Norwegian’),
based in the circles of Vestmannalaget (‘The Westerners’ Association’), Ivar
Aasen-sambandet (‘The Ivar Aasen Society’) and Norsk måldyrkingslag (‘The
Norwegian Society for Language Cultivation’), still maintain their views. On
the other hand, the anbeheitelse words are not very productive, although words
with be- and -heit have become somewhat more numerous over the years. As
regards the -heit words, I think their increase is due to the fact that they have
an important function as abstract adjectives. For the -else words, -ing is an old,
well-incorporated and much used alternative. Some affixes are very frequent in
compounds, e.g. betennelse and leiligheit. But on the whole the German loan-
words are so old and deeply rooted in the spoken Norwegian language that they
are now not felt to be foreign (see also Askedal 2005, p. 1601). We have to ac-
cept, I think, that the linguistic instinct, i.e. the feeling for what should be al-
lowed as acceptable NN, has changed in this respect amongst the majority of
Norwegians. I hope that the commission which has recently been appointed to
revise the official NN standard will address this problem and come forward
with more satisfactory solutions.
Conclusion
In the title of this article, I raised a question. What is my answer, then? It seems
to me that the relationship between Low German and Nynorsk is not so strained
as it used to be. The debate has calmed down. At first, I thought of using a dif-
ferent title: from enmity to reconciliation. But the situation is not as simple as
that. Another problem, which is complex and definitely more serious, is the
massive influx of (especially technical) terms and phrases from English which
threatens to dominate entire sectors of Norwegian vocabulary (e.g. in the fields
of the oil industry and finance). But that is a different story.
I do not pretend to have given a full and objective presentation of this special
part of Norwegian language history – if objectivity is at all possible in a matter
of this nature, where I am a participant and a spectator at the same time. Some
readers will find my description subjective and biased, and they may be right,
to some extent. Let me answer by paraphrasing the famous words of Émile
Zola: it is a piece of language history, seen through a temper.2
2
I thank Oddrun Grønvik and James E. Knirk for valuable comments on an earlier version of this
article.
202 Erik Simensen
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Runtid – Riddartid. 2001. (Nytryck 2004.)
77. Per Vikstrand: Gudarnas platser. Förkristna sakrala ortnamn i Mälarlandskapen. 2001.
78. Sigfrid Svensson som folklivsforskare. En minnesskrift i anledning av hundraårsdagen
av hans födelse den 1 juni 1901 under redaktion av Nils-Arvid Bringéus. 2001.
79. Ulla-Britt Kotsinas: Lever Ekenssnacket? Om äldre och nyare Stockholmsslang. 2001.
80. En 1700-talsordlista från Piteå. Utgiven med inledning och kommentarer av Maj Rein-
hammar. 2002.
81. Lennart Larsson: Varifrån kom svenskan? Om den svenska vokabulären i en fyrspråkig
ordbok utgiven i Riga 1705. 2003.
82. Mats Rydén: Botaniska strövtåg. Svenska och engelska. 2003.
83. Carl Göran Andræ: Sverige och den stora flykten från Estland 1943–1944. 2004.
84. Ella Odstedt: Norrländsk folktradition. Uppteckningar i urval och med kommentarer av
Bengt af Klintberg. 2004.
85. Sockenbeskrivningar från Gästrikland 1790–1791. Utg. av Nils-Arvid Bringéus. 2004.
86. Anna Westerberg: Norsjömålet under 150 år. 2004.
87. Språkhistoria och flerspråkighet. Föredragen vid ett internationellt symposium i Upp-
sala 17–19 januari 2003. Utg. av Lennart Elmevik. 2004.
88. Suffixbildungen in alten Ortsnamen. Akten eines internationalen Symposiums in Upp-
sala 14.–16. Mai 2004. Hrsg. von Thorsten Andersson und Eva Nyman. 2004.
89. Maj Reinhammar: Ord för begreppet ’hos’ i äldre svenska och svenska dialekter. 2005.
90. ”Slipp tradisjonene fri – de er våre!” Red. av Bente Alver och Ann Helene Bolstad Skjel-
bred. 2005.
91. Andreas Nordberg: Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning. Kalendrar och kalendariska
riter i det förkristna Norden. 2006.
92. François-Xavier Dillmann: Les magiciens dans l’Islande ancienne. Études sur la repré-
sentation de la magie islandaise et de ses agents dans les sources littéraires norroises.
2006.
93. Festmåltid och vardagsmat. Föredrag vid ett symposium till Anders Salomonssons
minne 3–4 juni 2005. Redigerad av Mats Hellspong. 2006.
94. Nils-Arvid Bringéus: Carl Wilhelm von Sydow som folklorist. 2006.
95. Staffan Fridell: Ortnamn i stilistisk variation. 2006.
96. Kristina Neumüller: Vattensjön och Vattenån. Samband mellan sjönamn och ånamn i
Medelpad. 2007.
97. Nya perspektiv inom nordisk språkhistoria. Föredrag hållna vid ett symposium i Upp-
sala 20–22 januari 2006. Utgivna av Lennart Elmevik. 2007.
98. Masks and Mumming in the Nordic Area. Ed. by Terry Gunnell. 2007
99. Stefan Mähl: geven vnde screven tho deme holme. Variablenlinguistische Unter-
suchungen zur mittelniederdeutschen Schreibsprache in Stockholm. 2008.
100. Carl Renmarck: Plurima Lingvæ Gothicæ Rudera. Utgiven med inledning och kommen-
tarer av Maj Reinhammar. 2008.
101. Karin Wilson: Markusevangeliet i Lars Rangius samiska översättning från 1713. 2008.
102. Tingsprotokoll från Svärdsjö socken åren 1545–1619. Utgivna av Allan Rostvik. 2008.
103. Nils-Arvid Bringéus: Åke Campbell som etnolog. 2008.
104. Kartan i forskningens tjänst. Föredragen vid ett symposium i Uppsala 23–25 november
2006. Utgivna av Lars-Erik Edlund, Anne-Sofie Gräslund och Birgitta Svensson. 2008.
105. Samlade visor. Perspektiv på handskrivna visböcker. Föredrag vid ett symposium på
Svenskt visarkiv 6–7 februari 2008. Utgivna av Gunnar Ternhag. 2008.
106. Folkkultur i fokus. Tretton jubileumsföreläsningar. Redaktör: Maj Reinhammar. 2009.
107. Döden speglad i aktuell kulturforskning. Symposieföredrag utgivna av Anders Gustavs-
son. 2009.
108. Thet Gothlendska Tungomålet. Språkkapitlet i Lars Neogards Gautauminning (1732).
Utgivet med inledning och kommentar av Lars Wollin. 2009.
109. Svenska etnologer och folklorister. Redaktörer: Mats Hellspong och Fredrik Skott. 2010.
110. Thorsten Andersson: Vad och vade. Svensk slåtter-, rågångs- och arealterminologi. 2010.
111. Klas-Göran Selinge: Språket i landskapet. Om runstenar, rågångar och byar. 2010.
112. Probleme der Rekonstruktion untergegangener Wörter aus alten Eigennamen. Akten
eines internationalen Symposiums in Uppsala 7.–9. April 2010. Herausgegeben von Len-
nart Elmevik und Svante Strandberg. 2010.
113. Studier i svenska språkets historia 11. Förhandlingar vid Elfte sammankomsten för
svenska språkets historia i Uppsala 23–24 april 2010. Utgivna av Maj Reinhammar under
medverkan av Lennart Elmevik, Staffan Fridell, Mats Thelander och Henrik Williams.
2010.
114. En medeltida ordspråkssamling på fornsvenska. Utgiven av Inger Lindell. 2011.
115. Rut Boström: Anders Sparrmans brev till Carl von Linné. En kulturhistorisk och språklig
undersökning med naturvetenskapliga inslag. 2011.
116. Studier i dialektologi och sociolingvistik. Föredrag vid Nionde nordiska dialektologkon-
ferensen i Uppsala 18–20 augusti 2010. Utgivna av Lars-Erik Edlund, Lennart Elmevik
och Maj Reinhammar. 2011.
206 Erik Simensen
117. Anders Wepsäläinen: Stalotomterna. En kritisk granskning av forskningsläget rörande en

omdiskuterad fornlämningstyp. 2011.
118. Matti Mörtbergs värmlandsfinska uppteckningar. Sammanställda och kommenterade av
Torbjörn Söder. 2011.
119. Rolf Kjellström: Nybyggarliv i Vilhelmina. 1. Träd och växter som resurs. 2012.
120. Thorsten Andersson: Gamla strand- och önamn i Bråviksbygden. 2012.
121. Contact between Low German and Scandinavian in the Late Middle Ages. 25 Years of
Research. Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr (editors). 2012.
1 3 2
3
The Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture is 121 ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI CXXI
121
a national academy based in Uppsala. According to its statutes, one of
the means by which the Academy is to pursue its object of promoting
research into Swedish folk culture, understood in a broad sense, is by
CONTACT
CONTACTBETWEEN
publishing, in its various series, research findings in areas that it is
charged with fostering. The main series is the Acta Academiae Regiae
Gustavi Adolphi, the first volume of which appeared in 1933. Other
Contact between
between Low
Low German
German and
series include Folklivsskildringar och bygdestudier (Studies of Folk
Contact and
BETWEENLOW
Life and Local History), Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademiens småskrifter
(Short Publications of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy) and
Svenska sagor och sägner (Swedish Folk Tales and Legends).
Scandinavian in
Scandinavian in the
the Late
Late Middle
Middle Ages
Ages
This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at the Uni- 25 Years of Research
LOWGERMAN
versity of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway, in 2010 on the new methods
used in and findings emerging from the last twenty-five years of re- Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr (editors)
GERMANAND
search into contact between Low German and the Scandinavian lan-
guages in the late Middle Ages.
The editor of the various series is the Secretary to the Academy,
ANDSCANDINAVIAN
Associate Professor Maj Reinhammar, maj.reinhammar@agora.se.
SCANDINAVIANININTHE
THELATE
LATEMIDDLE
MIDDLEAGES
Distribution:
Swedish Science Press
AGES
Box 118
SE-751 04 Uppsala ISSN 0065-0897 UPPSALA 2012
E-post: info@ssp.nu ISBN 978-91-85352-97-5

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1 3 2

The editor of the various series is the Secretary to the Academy,

ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI

ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI CXXI

Contact between Low German and

Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien

Printed in Sweden 2012

Lennart Elmevik and Ernst Håkon Jahr: 25 years of research on the

Arnved Nedkvitne: A post-national perspective on the German Hansa

Gro-Renée Rambø: Language contact, communication and change . . . . . 39

Peter Trudgill: Gender reduction in Bergen Norwegian: a North-Sea

Agnete Nesse: Norwegian and German in Bergen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Kurt Braunmüller: Semi-communication and beyond. Some results

Birgit Christensen: A survey of Low German loan words in Danish in

Helena Wistrand: Middle Low German loanwords in medieval

Kurt Braunmüller and Steffen Höder: The history of complex verbs

Ludger Zeevaert: Low German influence and typological change

Erik Simensen: Low German and Nynorsk – a strained relationship?

This volume grew out of an international conference at the University of Agder

Uppsala and Kristiansand, September 2012

Lennart Elmevik Ernst Håkon Jahr

Twenty-five years of research on the

The new start or approach for investigating medieval Low German/Scandi-

One major result of the past 25 years of research: the

According to Wessén, then, the Germans used a morphologically simplified

Ronge (1967, p. 275) expressed the following opinion:

Jahr, Ernst Håkon (ed.), 1995: Nordisk og nedertysk. Språkkontakt og språkutvikling i

A post-national perspective on the German

The Hansa as transmitters of West European economic

The ties which united the Hansa

Scandinavian towns with German settlers as multi-

Post-nationalist historians have wanted to see the Hansa as promoters of

Hansa or state as transmitters of Low German in

from Schleswig-Holstein, but it was pragmatic to have one administrative lan-

Language contact, communication and

History and background

Historical and social preconditions

Language contact – what is it?

According to Milroy, then, an intra-linguistic focus will not be sufficient when

Language contact and language change

linguistic changes occur as a result of contact and communication between

Which solution is chosen depends on different sets of conditions. Simensen

Historical and social preconditions for language contact

in several earlier works, which tended to directly or indirectly present Scandi-

Societal extra-linguistic factors – similarities and differences

country. Language contact is seen as part of this general cultural, economic

Two Norwegian cities – an example

What new insights has the focus on sociolinguistic conditions provided? It

The individual language user – reflections and con-

Linguistic varieties and the individual language user

Language, language user and language use

Middle Low German’s extensive influence on the Scandinavian languages dur-

Language contact and bilingual (multilingual) societies and

Language contact phenomena and situations represent an enormously complex

Le Page, Robert L. & Tabouret-Keller, Andrée, 1985: Acts of identity. Cambridge.

Gender reduction in Bergen Norwegian:

Jahr’s explanation, that is, is couched in terms of the simplification which is

Of course we conventionally divide the dialects of the West Germanic dia-

vegg-en … han ‘wall-the … he’

vegg-en … han ‘wall-the … he’

‘the thin farmer’ ‘the thin farmer’s wife’

Importantly, the effects of this merger can be seen in grammatical as well as

‘The table … it’

de boom… hij ‘the tree … he’