Mainland Scandinavian: Loans from Middle Low German

        (Written: 2000; last updated: 24 Mar 2020)

                    (Deutsche Fassung: hier klicken!)

Color key to the words:

red = Modern Swedish, Danish and Norwegian;

blue = Middle Low German (MLG=MLS and/or MDu);

green = Old West or East Norse words displaced;

purple: Middle Scandinavian words.

Other abbreviations: arch. = archaic; dial. = dialectal; emLG = Early Modern Low German; HG = High German; LG = Low German; Nyn. = Nynorsk; ON = Old Norse; OSwed. = Old Swedish.

Introduction and Orientation

Definition of terms:

Middle Low German (MLG)
Means scholars are not certain about whether a loan came from Middle Low Saxon (MLS) or Middle Dutch (MDu). MLG can therefore be taken to mean from either, or both.

Middle Low Saxon (MLS)
Means the Low German dialects spoken in northern Germany and what is now the Netherlands by Hansa merchants etc. which were based on Old Saxon dialects.

Middle Dutch (MDu)
Means the Low German varieties based upon Old Franconian forms spoken by traders from what is now the Netherlands.

Old Norse (ON)
Is used here, rather than the Old- and Middle- Danish/Swedish forms that were actually replaced (unless stated), as instances of Old Norse are much easier to locate and state with certainty.

Modern Low Saxon/Modern Low German (ModLS)
Means today's Low German dialects that have descended from Old Saxon and are used in Northern Germany and the Eastern Netherlands.

Modern Dutch (Du)
Means today's Low Franconian dialects that are used in the Netherlands, Belgium ("Flemish"), and France (Westhoeks Flemish), as well as in protectorates and former colonies of the Netherlands, descended from Old Low Franconian.

Introduction:

The influence of Low Saxon and Dutch on the Scandinavian languages during the late medieval and early modern period was profound. Some commentators have compared it to the huge influence, both at the lexical and structural levels, that Norman French exerted on late Old English following the Norman Conquest. Indeed, this is the only parallel that can be found from the entire history of European languages! During the course of the medieval period, Danish for example borrowed more than 1500 new words, some of which were loaned from Latin, but the great majority came in from Middle Low German. (Not only were there direct loanwords but many loan translations in which the flesh is native, but the soul imported). The changes effected by Middle Low German on the Mainland Nordic languages were especially pronounced in the period c.1300-1400, when the Hansa was at its peak. But MLG influence lasted until 1550 (and to a lesser degree beyond), after which, High German became became the primary language in Northern Germany and began to influence the Mainland Nordic languages. It has been estimated that the total German – thus encompassing both Low and High German – element in the Danish lexicon is as high as 25%. A similar figure presumably applies to Swedish and Norwegian, although Norwegian has been the most puristic of the three. Willy Sanders puts an even higher figure on the MLG influence in Scandinavian: “…jetzt noch 30% des Wortschatzes nd. Herkunft sind.” Karl Wührer estimates the total share of MLG loans in the Mainland Scandinavian languages to be as high as 50-66%, but this is surely an overestimate. It also says nothing about the frequency of such loanwords. Other scholars are rather more conservative in their estimates. Most MLG words are found in guild laws and legal documents – the fewest are to be found in proverbs and folksongs, i.e. forms closest to the spoken language. That being said, many MLG loans belong to the most common words in the Mainland Scandinavian languages and the history of the Scandinavian languages simply cannot be studied without a detailed consideration of the MLG element. No Nordicist can afford to neglect this area. As Torsten Dahlberg put it (p.194):

“Fast auf allen Gebieten der Nordistik spürt oder ahnt man direkt oder indirekt das niederdeutsche Substrat. In Skandinavien können wir an dem Niederdeutschen nie vorbeikommen”.

Another way to appreciate the magnitude of the effect of MLG on the Nordic languages is to consider what it gave to the societies of the speakers. In other words, its cultural impact. This inpact was tremendous and lasting, effectively dragging the Nordic countries into the mainstream of European cultural life. As H. Bach remarks about Danish (p.527):

“…eins steht völlig klar: die Einwirkung des mnd. war die wichtigste Voraussetzung für die Einbeziehung des Dänischen in das gesamteuropäische Kulturmuster.”

A detailed discussion of the social, historical, legal, cultural and literary impact of MLG on the Nordic languages is beyond the scope of this article, but the interested reader can get a small taste of it by noting the MLG loans from cultural and social life provided in this article. It is generally accepted that the political, sociological and linguistic conditions in Sweden and Denmark-Norway were overall quite similar during the peak of the Hansa influence, thus allowing the largescale uptake of MLG language and culture across the board.

In the early and mid 1100s the Hansa trade town of Lübeck was rising to prominence on the Baltic coast. Along with other Hansa towns, Lübeck allowed the Hanseatic League to dominate trade across Scandinavia and the Baltic for the next three centuries. Colonies of Low German speaking merchants, craftsmen and officials settled in numbers in many major Nordic towns, such as Oslo, Bergen, Visby, Stockholm, Malmö, Söderköping, Kalmar and Copenhagen. (Visby in Gotland was the first centre of Low German expansion and part of a German eastward colonization, being already in the 12^th century an almost entirely German town). It is worth noting at this point that the place of language contact – and hence language mixing – was not the national language areas in general but the large trade and traffic areas, i.e. the major towns.

Many aristocratic families from what is now Northern Germany settled in Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia, and these often held prominent positions and hence had the chance to influence the literary language of all three nations to quite a degree. Due to the prestige and power of these artisans, tradesmen and courtiers their spoken and written Middle Low German enjoyed a special prestigious position in medieval Scandinavian society. The polite and courtly speech of the Scandinavian courts (from which there were such loans as riddari, knapi, gígja, hæverskr, lên and hertogi), as well as the terminology of merchants, craftsmen and officials was a for several centuries mainly Middle Low German, and this language left a considerable and lasting lexical legacy in the native languages before it expired as a spoken language in Scandinavia. These immigrants brought with them many loanwords for professions, offices and tools, and the language of the Danish guilds was, for example, full of German terms until the 1800s. Legal and official documents from the Nordic trade-centres of the late medieval and early modern period are loaded with Middle Low German loans and expressions, that is, when they are not written in Low German itself. Germans in Scandinavian towns dominated on account of special rights granted them and influenced political life to such an extent that their presence was eventually decisive in bringing about the pan-Nordic Union of Kalmar in 1397. Albrekt of Mecklenburg, a German-born king, came to the Swedish throne in 1364 and MLG reached its greatest influence during his reign. Stockholm was jointly founded by Germans and Swedes. Furthermore, the first mayor of Stockholm was from the area of today's Northern Germany and during the 1350s the stadslag of Magnus Eriksson had to be passed (among other things) in order to legislate against not more than half of the town officials being of "German" birth! With the advent of printing in the 1400s some of the earliest works printed in Denmark are two Danish chronicles called Rimkrønicken and Den Danske Krønike. These were already known from older MLG versions. The language of Lübeck, the town which represented the central power hub of the Hansa, acted as a kind of normative influence on written MLG, and this variety of MLG is likely to have been especially influential on the Scandinavian languages.

Most words that came in were naturally enough connected with trade and commerce or the nobility. Before 1300 we find fals, herbergi, skraddari, skúta, treya, danz, par, slekt, spital, æra, akta, prófa, klókr, opinberr, ærligr. Already in 1277 Magnus Lagabøter had put the titles barrún and riddari into official use.

The Hanseatic domination of early modern northern European trade was not merely confined to the north Atlantic but spread to the Baltic Rim as well, with numbers of merchants and trade organisations establishing themselves in Poland, Russia, Finland and the Baltic countries. Languages of the region such as Finnish, Karelian, Estonian, Livonian and Latvian also received a number of Low Germanic loans as a result of this intercourse. In later times when Nordic nations thrived in the Baltic trade, still more Low German loans were introduced into these languages from their Scandinavian neighbours.

The result of Low German domination of Nordic trade, economy, handicrafts, shipping, mining, and to some extent, local government and the court, was an unparalleled influx of loanwords and productive morphological elements from the high-prestige Low German varieties. Only now is modern international English contributing a comparable number of loanwords to the Mainland Scandinavian languages, or exerting a similar kind of structural influence. Most substantial among the areas for loans from the Low German were shipping, fishing and navigation, trade and economy, local administration, housebuilding and -keeping, handicrafts and religious activities, but many terms pertaining to the court and polite society were also borrowed, as well as military terminology and many general and now everyday verbs, adjectives and adverbs. In some cases the loanwords were indispensible in naming professions, objects and concepts for which the Scandinavian language speakers had no equivalents – i.e. they had been introduced by the German speakers. Literally thousands of MLG loans and words derived from MLG loaned elements entered into the Mainland Scandinavian languages, and many native Scandinavian words were displaced. The lower prestige Scandinavian elements of the population who wanted to do business with the German immigrants, the main wielders of power at the time, were obliged to learn the foreigners’ language – or at least enough to get by. Nordic merchants probably mixed in MLG words into their speech in order to be better understood by their Hansa counterparts. This partial learning of the immigrants’ tongue paved the way for hundreds of their everyday words to enter the Scandinavian languages.

During the late Middle Ages MLG was closer to the Scandinavian languages in terms of syntax, conjugation and pronunication than is the case between modern High German and Scandinavian.

Around the period 1325-1425, the Danish written language was in danger of being replaced as a written language for letters and official documents by MLG. The nobility, the clergy, the chancellry and the court were the primary users of written communication, and especially in Denmark and southern Sweden MLG was close to becoming the accepted, standard written language. Even the internal correspondance of the officials was partly in MLG.

MLG affected almost all spheres of the Mainland Scandinavian lexicon (in Einar Haugen’s words: personal names, titles [herr, fru and frøken began as titles for the nobility, but eventually reached their way down to ordinary citizens], curses, devices and equipment, weapons, musical instruments, weights and measures, trade, courtly and refined behaviour, mining, animals, food, weather, illness, laws, administration and education), but the examples given below of words current in modern Danish (unless stated otherwise) indicate the main spheres of influence. The areas most borrowing took place were in trade and professions, house and home, food, clothing, warfare, shipping, local administration and the courtly life. Many of these words are loan-translations (i.e. Low German elements are translated directly into their Scandinavian etymological and semantic equivalents – often using word-forming elements borrowed from MLG), for example MLG hantwerk becomes håndværk “craft, trade” and unwetenheit becomes uvidenhed “ignorance”. Many of these loans are now among the most everyday words in the Mainland Scandinavian languages:

1. Trade and professions: arbejd “work”, bager "baker", bytte “exchange”, bødker “cooper”, børs “stock exchange”, bøssemager "gunsmith", fisker "fisherman", fragt "freight", garver “tanner”, gesäll (Swed.) “journeyman”, glasmästre “glazer”, handel “trade”, handle "to trade", handskemager "glover", håndværk "handicraft", håndværker “craftsman, workman”, høker “shopkeeper; huckster”, isenkræmmer "ironmonger", klejnsmed "locksmith", kræmmer “shopkeeper”, krögare (Swed.) “innkeeper, restauranteur”, kunstner "artist", købe "to buy", købmand "merchant", køgemester “master cook”, köpenskap (Swed.) “trade”, lærling “apprentice”, maler “painter”, murer “mason”, pels "pelt, hide", portner “porter; janitor”, pund "pound", præst "priest", regne "calculate; consider", regning "calculation", regningskab (now regnskab) "accounts", rente "interest, dividend", sadelmager "saddler", skomager "cobbler" (replaced suder), skrædder "tailor", slagter "butcher" (replaced kødmanger), snedker “joiner”, told “customs, duty”, tømmermand "ship-wright", udgift "expenditure", vare "product, article", værkmester “foreman”, værksted "workshop", værktøj “tool”.

(Some in this category have disappeared or are seldom encountered because the trade, profession or occupation is obsolete, e.g. bægermager “cup maker”, fyrbøder “stoker”, hjulmager “wheelwright”, pottemager “potter”, buntmager “furrier”, kedelflikker “tinker”, skoflikker “cobbler”, klokkeguder “clock caster”, plåtslagare (Swed.) “plate smith”, slutter “gaoler”, spillemand “minstrel”, stratenrøver “highwayman”, væbner “weaponsmith”).

2. Tools and implements: bolt “bolt”, fork “pitchfork”, fusthammer “hammer for horseshoes”, høvl “plane”, knibtang “pincers”, skrue “screw”, fyrtøj “tinderbox”.

3. Court and nobility: eventyr "adventure, fairy tale", frøken "young woman, Miss", fyrste "prince", greve "count, earl", herre "lord" (now "gentleman"), hertug "duke" (replaced native jarl), hof "court", hofmester "steward" (now "waiter"), hovmod "pride", jagt “hunting”, jomfru "noble young lady" (now "virgin"), junker "nobleman", kejser “emperor”, krone "crown", ridder "knight", slot "castle, palace", væbner "squire", ære “honour, glory”, ærlighed "honour".

4. Government, law and church: almisse “alms”, bann “excommunication”, borger "citizen", borgmester "burgomaster", burskap (Swed.) “freedom”, domherre "judge" (now dommer), embedsmand "goverment offical" (cf. English loan from Swedish ombudsman), forbud “ban”, fordel "advantage", forhør “inquiry; interrogation”, fuldmagt "authority", kansler “chancellor”, kætter “heretic”, lægmand “layman”, magt "power", mester “master”, nåde “grace; mercy”, oldermand "alderman", pant “lien”, pave “pope”, pinse “Whitsun”, påske “Easter”, regere "rule", rådhus “town hall”, rådmand "alderman", sprog “language”, straf “punishment”, told "duty, customs", trykkeri “printing works”, tugthus “prison”, tvist “dispute”, vægter “watchman”.

5. Military: afdelning “unit, detachment”, anfalde “attack”, angreb “attack”, armborst “crossbow”, befaling “command”, befalla (Swed.) “order, command”, bøsse “gun”, erobre "conquer", fane "banner, standard", fejde "feud; war", flag “flag”, fodgænger "infantryman" (now "pedestrian"), gevær "gun, rifle", harnesk “armour”, høvedsmand "captain", kamp "battle", krig "war", krudt “gunpowder”, kunskapare (Swed.) “scout”, magt “power”, nederlag "defeat", orlog "naval battle", overfalde “attack, assault”, panser "armour", plyndre "plunder", rejse (with the meaning) "campaign", trommeslager “drummer”.

6. Shipping, fishing and navigation*: agter "astern", bådsmand "boatswain", dok “dock”, dørk “floor”, fartøj "vessel", fiskeri “fishing”, flag "flag", fok “foresail, jib”, fribytter “freebooter, buccaneer”, gast “hand”, haj "shark", kaj "quay", klyver “jib”, kyst "coast", lods “pilot”, malstrøm "whirlpool, maelstrom", mandskab "crew", matros “sailor”, roder (Swed.) “rudder”, ræling “gunwale”, skipper “skipper”, stuva “stow”, styrbord "starboard", styrmand "first mate; helmsman", sælhund "seal", tackla (Swed.) “rig”.

7. Relationships etc.: fadder “godparent”, formynder “guardian”, fætter “cousin”, gemal “consort”, oldefar “great-grandfather”, oldemor “great-grandmother”, pebersvend “bachelor”, slægt “kindred, relations”, svoger “brother-in-law”, til ægte “have someone’s hand in marriage”, ægteskab “marriage”.

8. Food: bakelse (Swed.) “pastry, cake”, brændevin “aquavit”, fennikel “fennel”, frokost “breakfast” (Dan.: lunch), frugt “fruit”, gaffel “fork”, husgeråd “kitchen utensils”, ingefær “ginger”, koge “cook; boil”, koldskål “cold buttermilk dish”, kop “cup”, krus “mug, tankard”, krydderi “spice”, køkken “kitchen”, medvurst “mettwurst”, mynte “mint”, måltid “meal”, mørbrad “tenderloin”, peber “pepper”, persille “parsley”, postej “pie”, senap “mustard”, skinke “ham”, smag “taste”, smage “(to) taste”, spæk “blubber, fat”, suppe “soup”, sylte “brawn”, tallerken “plate”, tallrik (Swed.) “plate”, vaffel “waffle”.

9. Clothes: bukser “trousers”, dragt “dress, clothes”, ficka (Swed.) “pocket”, kappe “cloak, coat”, mössa (Swed.) “cap”, rock (Swed.) “coat”, skørt “skirt, petticoat”, strømpe “stocking, sock”, støvle “boot”.

10. Buildings, house and home: bädd (Swed.) “bed”, bænk “bench”, disk “counter”, fönster (Swed.) “window”, gemak “apartment”, herberg “shelter; hostel”, kammer “chamber”, kuffert “trunk”, kælder “cellar”, køkken “kitchen”, lampe “lamp”, mur “wall”, skab “cupboard”, skorsten “chimney”, spejl “mirror”, sæbe “soap”, tegl “tile, brick”, trappe “stairs”, tæppe “carpet”.

11. Medical: brok “hernia”, feber “fever”, gigt “gout”, krank “ill”, kramp “cramp”, pokker “pox”, stær “cataract”, svulst “tumour”.

12. Misc: angst “anxiety”, anledning “ocassion, cause”, art “type”, digt “poem”, fiol “violin”, fløjte “flute”, forhold “conditions, relations, circumstances”, frygt “fear”, gunst “favour; mercy”, klokke “clock; bell”, kunst “art”, lykke “happiness; good fortune”, pligt “duty, obligation”, rygte “reputation; rumour”, slange “snake; hose”, iver “zeal, fervour”, fare “danger”, herkomst “origin, descent”, äventyr (Swed.) “adventure”, hovmod “pride, arrogance”, högfärd (Swed.) “pride, vanity, conceit”, bihang (Swed.) “appendix”, bilaga (Swed.) “enclosure, attachment”, uppförande (Swed.) “building; behaviour, conduct”, taske “bag”, lægmand “layman”, vandel “morals, good conduct”, videnskab “knowledge, science”, vemod “sadness, melancholy”, vilkår “conditions”.

13. Common and auxilary verbs: anføre “lead; state, quote”, anholde “arrest, apprehend”, anmelde “announce; subscribe”, anvende "use", arbejde "work", begribe "comprehend", begynde "begin", behøve “need”, berette “tell, narrate”, beskrive “describe”, bestemme "decide", betale "pay", betyde "mean", blive "become", bringe "bring", bruge "use", digte "compose, write, write poetry", erfare "experience", erhålla (Swed.) “obtain, receive”, fatte "comprehend", fordærve “spoil, corrupt”, forekomme "appear", forklare "explain", foreslå "suggest", forfatte “write, compose”, forlade “leave, abandon; forgive”, formå “be able to, be capable of”, fornøje “gratify, please”, forsage “renounce, give up”, forstå "understand", fortjene “deserve”, forsvinde "disappear", fortsætte “continue”, fortælle "tell, narrate", frukta (Swed.) “fear, dread”, fråga (Swed.) “ask”, føle "feel", förgäta (Swed.) “forget”, gælde “apply”, håbe "hope", klage "complain", koge "boil, cook", købe "buy", kæmpe "fight", lære "learn", mene "mean, intend", male "paint", opdage "discover", ordne "arrange", oversætte "translate", overveje "consider, comtemplate", pleje "be in the habit of", prate "chat" (now only "talk nonsense"), prøve "try", redde "save, rescue", rejse "travel", regne "estimate, reckon (with)", råbe “shout, cry out”, samle "collect", ske “happen”, skildre "describe", skrive “write”, slute "finish", smage "taste", snakke "talk, chat", spille "play", stille "put, place", straffe “punish”, støtte "support", tilgive “forgive, pardon”, trække "draw, pull", tænke “think”, undersøge "investigate", undgå "avoid", undkomme “escape”, undskylde "excuse", vandre “”walk, wander”, vare "last", øve "practice".

14. Common adjectives: alvorlig "serious", bange "afraid", berømt “famous”, billig "cheap", bra (Swed./Nor.) “good, excellent; well”/ brav (Dan.) “good, worthy”, dejlig "pleasant", dygtig "capable", egentlig "real; proper", elendig “wretched, miserable”, endelig "final", enig “united, agreed”, enkel "simple; single", evig “eternal”, falsk "false", fin “fine”, flink "clever", fri "free", frisk "fresh, healthy", fremmed "foreign, strange", from "pious", færdig "ready", forsigtig "cautious", gemen "public", grov “coarse”, hemmelig "secret", hændig "practical", herlig "splendid", høvisk "courteous", høflig "courteous", klar “clear; ready”, klejn “tiny; delicate”, klog "wise", kort "short", krank "sick", læsbar “readible”, middelmådig "mediocre", mulig "possible", rar "nice, kind", rask "quick", rund “round”, skøn "pretty", smal “narrow”, smuk “fair, beautiful”, stille “still, quiet”, stolt "proud", svag "weak", tapper "brave", tilfreds "satisfied", underdanig “submissive, subservient”, ædel “noble”, ægte "genuine", ærlig “honest”, åbenbar "public, manifest".

15. Common adverbs, prepositions and conjuctions: alene “only, solely”, allerede “already”, blott (Swed.) “merely, only”, bra (Swed./Nor.) “well, excellently; very, awfully” / bravt (Dan.) “stoutly, well”, dog "however, yet", emellertid "however" (Swed.), forbi "past", ganske "quite; very", jo "yes indeed, certainly", likväl (Swed.), likevel (Nor.) "all the same, nevertheless", men "but", måske “perhaps, maybe” (Dan.) nemlig "namely, that is", overalt "everywhere", redan "already" (Swed.), samt "and also, plus", sikker "certainly", straks "immediately", sådan "such", temmelig "rather", tilsammen "in all, altogether", trods "despite", ur "from, of" (Swed.), vældig "awfully, very", øvrig "the rest, what's left".

(*note: there are many specialised loans for shipping and types of fish which are not included in the main lists below.)

Vibeke Winge points out interestingly enough that Danish words for artisans, goods and tools are by and large from MLG.

For about 300 years (approx. 1250-1550) Middle Low German was the language of prestige, close to the speakers’ own languages, from which Scandinavian speakers augmented their own because it was the fashion to do so, rather than from any real necessity (in some cases, however, they had no equivalent words in their own languages). Germans formed the intellectually and economically leading class, so making MLG the “feine Sprache” and one to be imitated. The Scandinavian citizen in his appearance and language tried to make the “fineness” of the German higher class his own. As Dahlberg puts it “Niederdeutsch wurde Modesache”. This factor no doubt eased considerably the passage of MLG words into Mainland Scandinavian. The non-clergy upper class and the middle classes used MLG as their favoured second language, as the royal family, the nobility, the merchants and the craftsmen were either German or had close ties with German-speakers. Otto Höfler is of the view that this language contact went on at a high level as in many cases the gender of MLG nouns is retained with their borrowing into Middle Scandinavian. Despite the men of the Hansa representing practical people – merchants, administrators, law-makers, shipwrights, sailors – there is no doubt they represented not only a higher material but also a higher intellectual culture than the native culture.

In the course of this process of borrowing, many Scandinavian arveord (words from the common Nordic stock), such as are in most cases still present in Modern Icelandic, developed direct competitors. Loans from MLG (lånord in the table below) considerably enriched the vocabularies of the mainland Scandinavian languages, and examples are to be found of word pairs which are roughly synonymous (and therefore competitive) in the modern languages from both native and borrowed sources, for example (Norwegian Bokmål unless stated):

Arveord	Lånord	ON (OSwed.)	Meaning
ale opp	opdra	ala upp	raise, bring up
allesteds	overalt	allsstaðr	everywhere
andlet; anlete (Swed.)	ansikt	andliti; andlite	face
bardage (arch.)	kamp	bardagi	battle
berg	klippe	bjarg	rock, mountain
besk	bitter		bitter
bjuda (Swed.)	befalla	biuþa	offer
borg	slot	borg	castle, fortress
borge	betala	borga, greiða	pay, defray
bot	vederlag	bót	recompense
bratt	steil; plutselig	brattr	steep; sudden
brygge	kai	bryggja	wharf
budskap	beskjed	boðskapr	message
bølgje; bölja (Swed.)	våg (arch., dial.); våg	bylgja; (OSwed.) bylghi	wave
börja (Swed.); byrje (Nyn.)	begynna; begynne	(OSwed.) byria, børia; (ON) byrja	begin
djerv	dristig	djarfr	brave
dugelig	flink	duglegr	capable, clever
dyrd (Swed., arch.)	ära	(OSwed.) dyrth	honour
eie	besitte	eiga	to own
ende	slutt	endi	end
ende	slutte	enda	to end
fager	skjønn, smukk	fagr	pretty, fine
fattigdom	armod	fátækr-	poverty
ferd	reise	ferð	journey
frende (arch.)	slektning	frændi	relative
gagn	fordel	gagn	benefit, gain
gave	skjenk	gjöf	gift
genast (Swed.)	strax	(OSwed.) genast	immediately
glad	fro	glaðr	cheerful, joyous
gjemme	bevare	gøyma	store, keep
glömma (Swed.)	förgäta	(OSwed.) gløma	forget
grein	fag	grein	branch, subject
grein	regnskab	grein	account
gripe	fange	grípa	grasp, grip
gälda (Swed.)	betala	(OSwed.) giælda	pay
heder	ære	heiðr	honour
hænde (Dan.), hende (Nor.)	ske	henda	happen, occur
hest	hingst	hestr	horse
hird	hof	hirð	court, retinue
hjelpe	støtte	hjálpa	to help
hjälpa (Swed.)	bistå	(OSwed.) hiælpa	to help
hug	sinn	hugr	mind
huske	erinde	hugsa	to remember
ild	fyr	eldr	fire
jorde	begrave	jarða	to inter
kjenne	føle	kenna	to feel
kjensle	følelse	kensl	feeling
kjære	klage	kæra	to complain
kledning	drakt	klæðnaðr	clothing, garb
kvede	dikt	kvæði	poem
kvide	angst	kviði	pain, anxiety, fear
leik	spill	leikr	play
leike	spille	leika	to play
lott	del	hlutr	lot, share
love	berømme	lofa	praise
lønnlig	hemmelig	leyniligr	secret
lød	farge	litr	hue, colour
makt	vald	máttr, veldi	power
meget	veldig	mjök	much, very, a lot
miskunnelig	barmhjertig	miskunnsamr	merciful
mista, tapa (Swed.)	förlora	(OSwed.) mista; tapa, tappa	to lose
morgenmat	frokost	morgunmatr	breakfast
mål; tungomål (Swed.)	språk	mál	language, speech
möta (Swed.)	drabba	(OSwed.) møta	meet
nytte	anvende, bruke	nýta	use
nåde	gunst	náðr	favour
ran	rov	rán	plunder, robbery
rane	røve, plyndre	ræna	to rob, plunder
redd	bange	hræddr	afraid
reddes	frykte	hræðast	to be frightened (of)
redsel	frykt	hræðsla	fear
rolig	stille	rólegr	quiet, calm
rope	skrike	hrópa	to shout
røyne (Nyn.)	erfare	reyna	to experience
røyne (Nyn.)	forsøke, prøve	reyna	to test, try
røynsle	erfarenhet	reynd	experience
sann	ekte	sannr	true
sanne	prøve	sanna	to verify, confirm
sende	skikke	senda	to send
si fra	berette	segja frá	to narrate, tell
si fra	fortelle	segja frá	to narrate, tell
si til	underrette	segja til	to give an account
skifte	dele	skipta	divide
skire	døpe	skíra	to baptise
skjønne	begripe, forstå	skynja	to grasp, comprehend
skydevåben (Dan.)	bøsse, gevær	(ON) skotvopn	firearm, rifle
skytevåpen	gevær	skotvopn	firearm, rifle
skär (Swed.)	klar	?	clear, pure
sorg (Swed.)	bekymmer	(OSwed.) sorgh	grief, care
spörja (Swed.)	fråga	(OSwed.) spyria	to ask
sted	plass	staðr	place
strand	kyst	strönd	coast, beach
strid	krig	stríð	war
styrka (Swed.)	bevisa	(OSwed.) styrkia	prove, attest
støe	støtte	stoða	to support
sveinn	knape	sveinn	squire, lad
svik	fals	svik	false, deceitful
svikte	bedra	svíkja	to deceive
syde	koke	sjóða	to boil
syssel	len	sýsla	administrative district
sømd	æra	?	honour
säng (Swed.)	bädd	(OSwed.) sæng, siang	bed
tala (Swed.)	prata	tala	speak, talk
tale	snakke	tala	talk, chat
telle	rekne	telja	count
dra(ge)	trekke	draga	pull, draw
turve (Nyn.); tarva (Swed.)	behøve; behöva	þarfa; (OSwed.) þarva	to need to
trygge	borge	tryggja	guarantee, secure
useier	nederlag	ósigur	defeat
vedgå	erkjenne (HG loan)	viðganga < ganga við	admit, acknowledge
veide	jage	veiða	to hunt
veik	svak	veikr	weak
velde	makt	veldi	power
verk	smerte	verkr	pain, ache
vindöga (arch., dial.); vindue (Dan.)	fönster	vindauga	window
vettug	klok	vitr	wise, sage
vorde	bli	verða	to become
vrang	falsk	rangr	false, incorrect
vård (Swed.)	vakt	(OSwed.) varþer	care, charge, guard
ætt	herkomst	ætterni	descent, lineage
ætt	slekt	ætt	kin, family

In some cases, the native Scandinavian word acquired a different or more narrow meaning, such as with syde "seethe, boil, fizz", which used to denote the wider-meaning "cook" now taken by MLG loan koke. Danish lød, once a general term meaning "colour", now denotes the narrower "hue, complexion" and has been largely replaced by loaned farve "colour; paint, dye" (In Norwegian, lød still denotes "colour", alongside commoner farge). In other cases, the native word survived but became marginalised or less used than the loanword, e.g. in Norwegian, the case of the loaned trekke and the native dra (in Danish, drage has in almost all cases been replaced by trække). Native Scandinavian mål, which used to mean “language” (cf. ON mál), has largely come to mean the narrower “dialect” (cf. though Swedish tungomål “language” from Old Swed. tungo mal). Also in Swedish native arvode (from Old Swed. arvoþe) has narrowed in meaning from “work” to “remuneration for work done”, presumably under the influence of MLG-derived arbete. Some further examples, now from Danish, will illustrate the weaker position of some native words against MLG import (near-)synomyns: Danish fager (cf. English fair) is now considered poetic and archaic, having been marginalised by the preferred and synonymous MLG import smuk (fager is also poetic in Norwegian); ræd is still in use but MLG import bange is definitely commoner (in Norwegian, however, the reverse is true); brat is also still in use, but both its meanings are more commonly covered by the MLG imports stejl for "steep" and pludselig for "sudden". Leika “play” was replaced by spille (< MLG spelen) when denoting playing music or acting.

In most cases, however, the old Nordic words simply fell out of use in Mainland Scandinavian, and loans from MLG (some of which could also be seen as unncessary) replaced them. Dahlberg makes a pertinent point in this connection:

“Auf diese Weise sind leider viele einheimische, gut brauchbare Wörter verlorengegangen.” (p.196)

In the mainland languages, native vorde (Old Danish warthæ, Old Swedish varþa, cf. ON verða, German werden) has as good as been ousted by the MLG derived form bli(ve)/bliva (although vorde still survives in poetic and biblical usage). In Danish, the loaned forms arbejde "work" and men "but" ousted Old Danish ærvæthæ "work, labour" (cf. ON erfiði) and æn "but, and" (cf. ON en), as well as use of uden/utan “except”. Older Danish børje (cf. Swedish börja (which is still the preferred choice in that language), Nynorsk byrje) gradually lost the struggle against loaned begynde, while the same fate was suffered by older anlæte “face” to ansigt (anlete still exists in Swedish though alongside ansikte), øbe/öpa "cry, shout" to råbe/ropa (a Nordic word whose meaning has been influenced by the MLG cognate ropen) and MLG import skrige, older røne “try, experience” fell to prøve (cf. Norwegian røyne though) and genest fell to MLG import straks (genast still exists in Swedish though - alongside strax), in Swedish older má fell to måste, Scandinavian ván “hope” was ousted by MLG hope (Danish håb, Swedish hopp), as was vónast by hopast, frjáls by fri, everðeligr by evig and samþykkiliga by endrægteliga, while common verbs of motion ganga and standa both lost out to MLG forms gân and stân, resulting in modern gå and stå. Furthermore, þarf fell to behóf “need”, gøyma and varðveita to bevara “preserve”, sanna and prófa to bevisa “show, demonstrate”, skipta to býta “change, swap”, lutr to deil “part”, vitr to klókr “wise”, giäf (Old Swed.) to gava, máttr and veldi to makt “might, power”, háttr to máti “custom; manner”, hyggja and ætla to meina “intend”, ætla to akta (MLG achten), kenna “teach” and nema “learn” to læra “learn; teach” (MLG lêren), (in Denmark) kenna lost meaning of “feel” to følæ (MLG vôlen), løyfi to orlof “leave”, stríð to krig “war”, ætt to slekt “lineage”, hyggia, ætla and hugsa to þenkia “think”. Furthermore, in Danish we can note the loss of neita to MLG-derived nægte, nytja to bruge, rædd to bange and reyna (ODan. rønæ) to forsøge. Social changes led to such words as bygd, træl, kone and rise becoming antiquated in Danish, although in modern times they have been partly revived due to Norwegian influence. Peter Skautrup notes some further words that were lost in Danish in the early modern period (1350-1500): bukser “trousers” replaced brog, dog “however” replaced tho, straks “immediately” replaced thegær, and sådan “such” replaced slig.

When a choice still exists and there are two forms to choose from, the Low German loan generally tends to take precedence. Some otherwise obsolete Norse forms, however, still survive and are used preferentially in Norwegian Nynorsk. There are far too many in Nynorsk to give here.

Following the MLG model in late medieval Swedish the k-sound was reproduced in writing as ch, and this can still be seen in och “and”, cf. Danish og. In Danish of the same period [sk] was written sch-, e.g. Schanning “Skåne”.

In some cases words were borrowed differently or provided different inspiration in the respective recipient languages. So, for example, Danish loaned MLG merschûm “meerschaum” as merskum, whereas Swedish rather loan-translated it as sjöskum. Similarly, Danish loaned MLG schadenfroh (cf. German Schadenfreude) as skadefro, whereas Swedish loan-translated as skadeglad. In other cases one language borrowed a word which was never taken up in another. The classic example is Swedish fönster “window” where Danish still uses the Nordic word vindue. Other well-known examples are Swedish bädd versus Danish seng, Swedish börja versus Danish begynde, Swedish fråga versus Danish spørge, Swedish förgäta versus Danish glemme, Swedish ficka versus Danish lomme, Danish føle versus Swedish känna, Swedish hustru versus Danish kone, Swedish rita versus Danish tegne, Swedish skicka versus Danish sende, and Swedish äta versus Danish spise. More examples are given in the table below:

MLG-derived word	Native Nordic equivalent	Meaning
Swedish	Danish
anspråk	krav, fordring	claim
belåten	mæt	satisfied, full
bittida	tidlig	early
bädd	seng	bed
drabba	træffe	hit, strike, befall
ficka	lomme	pocket
flod	elv	river
fort	rask, hurtigt	fast, quickly
fråga	spørge	ask
fönster	vindue	window
förgäta	glemme	forget
förlora	miste, tabe	lose
förlust	tab	loss
förstöra	ødelægge	destroy, wreck
hustru	kone	wife
hyra	leje	rent, hire
inrymma	inholde	contain, include
lärjunge	lærling	apprentice
ort	sted	place, locality
rita	tegne	draw
skicka	sende	send, dispatch
stad	by	town
tillhopa	helt, helt og aldeles	altogether, in all
umbära	undvære	do/go without
upprepa	gentage	repeat
uppsåt	forsæt (also from MLG)	intent, purpose
även	også, ligeledes	also, too
***	***	***
Danish	Swedish
altid	jämt	always
bange	rädd	afraid
begynde	börje	begin
forfærdelig	hemsk	awful
forkert	orätt, vrång	wrong, incorrect
forlade	lämna	leave
fornøden	---	necessary, needful
forskel	skillnad	difference
føle	känna	feel, perceive, know
hvordan	hur	how
kundskab	kännedom	knowledge
men	utan	but
måske	kanske, kanhända (ske and hända also from MLG)	perhaps
nøle	tveka	hesitate
omtrent	omkring	around, about
rejse (køre is Nordic however)	åka	go, drive, travel
slem	elak	bad, nasty
smuk	fager, vacker	pretty, fair
spise	äta	eat
straks	genast	immediately
sådan	dylik	such
tænke	tycka	think
undertiden	ibland, stundom	sometimes
undervejs	---	underway, in motion
undskylde	ursäkta	excuse
årsag	skäl (orsak also exists in Swedish)	reason, cause

The average speaker in Bergen, Oslo, Copenhagen or Stockholm could not help learning enough Middle Low German to be tempted to colour their speech and writing with them. The German settlers enjoyed the economic and social advantage and it was natural for the locals to use a kind of Mischsprache for their communication needs. The settlers from northern Germany put down their roots not only in the commercial centres but in all towns in Norway and their higher status meant that they did not need to learn the complexities of the Norse language.

This settlement resulted in a large expansion of the vocabulary for everyday things, as well as more abstract concepts, and the developing urban dialects were strongly characterised by Low German loans. The influence of Middle Low German on the later development of the Scandinavian languages was succinctly described by the Norwegian Nordicist Didrik Arup Seip when he remarked:

"Two Norwegians cannot in our day carry on a conversation of 2-3 minutes without using Low German loanwords...of course without knowing that they are doing so."

This statement applies in equal measure to Swedish, and perhaps even in slightly greater measure to Danish.

As we would expect, it would be reasonable to suppose that because of its geographical proximity, as well as closer political and trading ties, Denmark was the initial borrower of most of these terms. It is at any rate unlikely to have received many terms later than Swedish, and in fact probably transmitted not a few items into Swedish and Norwegian, rather than MLG itself being the donor language. There are only a few cases, however, for which it can be proven by linguistic methods that MLG words came into Swedish via Danish. The most typical Danicism in phonology – the weakening of intial stops k, p and t – has only left small traces in Swedish (one therefore concludes that the transmission into Swedish was overwhelmingly direct). Both Swedish and Danish opened the door in Norwegian to MLG words and they had already borrowed many words, especially in the written language. Because all three languages took up much the same MLG words and word-forming elements, it in some respects brought the three languages closer together.

According to some Swedish linguists up to 75% of the modern Swedish vocabulary derives from MLG or MLG-mediated words. (But this figure is clearly absurd – the actual percentage must be much lower, probably 25-30%). Most of such words came into Old Swedish in the 12^th-14^th centuries. In fact it is difficult to arrive at a reliable figure, but there can be no doubt that MLG loans, words inspired by them or words made form originally MLG elements are among the most common in the language.

In many cases the loans were for new concepts, e.g. borgmeistari and radman – these were institutions not previously in existence in Scandinavia. New professions or offices were imported that bore the name of the owner or actor, e.g. skómakari, bartskærer, bøssemager, maler, pladeslager, mægler, portner, tolk. Even the word handel “trade” is itself of MLG origin. Furthermore in connection with their notable seafaring prowess the Low German seamen and traders brought with them such loans as galei, jakt, kogge, mers and mast.

Some MLG words were importated to express negative or destructive elements in society, e.g. skalkar “rogue”, rövare “robber, thief” and bödel “hangman”.

To describe animals there were also new words such as bæver, falk “falcon”, flädermus (Swed.) “bat”, hingst “stallion”, kamel, lærke “lark”, løve “lion”, näktergal (Swed.) “nightingale”, panter, rotte “rat”, sköldpadda “tortoise, turtle”, vagtel “quail”. These words often eventually rendered the native terms – if such existed – obsolete.

Swedish took in most loans after 1350, where we find such everyday words as bädd, frukost, rock, språk, släkt, fri, from, klar, klen, smal, arbeta, bliva, bruka, lära, smaka, sådan. Other loans from MLG are falskhet (valschheit), frihet (vrîheit), and ärlighet (êrlikheit). Of words made on Danish or Swedish soil but formed using MLG elements we could mention such words as benægte, begagna, benägen, forfremme, forsinke, förbrylla, undeselig and undvære (loaned into Swedish as umbära).

Many common, everyday words which make up a speaker of modern Scandinavian’s basic vocabulary were brought in during this period of Hansa domination when MLG when the prestige language, e.g. nouns such as arbete “work” bevis “proof, evidence”, bukse “trousers”, fel “error” förstånd “reason, intelligence”, kopp “cup”, papir “paper”, skrin “box”, støvler “boots”, tröja “sweater”, tvivel “doubt”, vilkor “conditions” verbs such as bevisa “prove, show”, forklare “explain”, forlike “reconcile”, mene “mean, intend”, prøve “test” and skaffe “procure”, adjectives such as falsk “false”, fin “fine”, främmande “foreign”, färdig “ready, done”, klok “wise”, möjlig “possible” svag “weak”, adverbs such as altid “always”, bittida “early”, blott “only”, ganske “quite”, straks “immediately” and även “also”, and conjunctions such as jo “yes; oh” and men “but”. We could also mention some common expressions that came into Mainland Scandinavian from MLG: dit og dat “one thing and another” (dit un dat), få i sigte “to sight” (sichte), göra klart “make clear; prepare”, klappet og klart “ready, all set” (klapp un klar), med rätta “rightly, justly” and till godo “to the good, in credit”, til rette “in order, to rights” (to rechte). We can also note that the plural of Swedish stad “town” is städer, which is due to MLG influence (in Old Swedish it would be stathir).

A word frequency study by Martin Gellerstam of 6,000 of the most common Swedish words shows that 24.1% of these are from German and for 30.3% of the words, German was the medium of borrowing. And yet to a modern speaker of Scandinavian the low and high German element in their languages now appear as if they were there from the beginnings of the language. As Gellerstam puts it:

“Vem tycker idag att de lågtyska lånen språk, arbete, lära, fråga är något annat än gamla hederliga svenska ord?”.

Dierecks and Braunmüller, quoting Moberg, make the point of how easy it was for words of MLG origin to enter the Swedish language and quickly become adopted:

“Die Anpassung der mittelniederdeutschen Lehnwörter an das altschwedische Flexionssystem konnte im allgemeinen ohne größere Schwierigkeiten geschehen. Aufgrund der ähnlichen Struktur und oft verwandten Wortbildungsmuster konnten viele Substantive, Adjektive und Verben relativ einfach an entsprechende einheimische Wortgruppen anschließen.” (p.23)

Another point worth bearing in mind is how the mutual loaning into the Nordic languages meant all three languages more closely approached each other in terms of vocabulary, something which no doubt eased communication between Scandinavian speakers and continues to do so today.

It is just at the end of the middle ages that the modern Scandinavian languages were taking shape and precisely during and by the end of the this period of MLG influence that modern Scandinavian languages as we know them were coming into being. MLG had much to do with their modernisation and the present form. As Marquardsen says of Danish:

“Diese moderne Form, die sich während der zweiten Hälfte des 14. und im 15. Jahrhundert herausbildete, weicht so wesentlich von der Sprache der vorhergehenden Period ab, dass innerhalb des Zeitraums von 1350-1500 eine durchgreifende Veränderung der Dänischen Sprache zu constatieren ist.” (p.405-406).

Borrowed Affixes

German-derived prefixes and suffixes play a major role in the modern Scandinavian languages.

Scandinavian speakers were adept at resolving Middle Low German forms into their own sound and inflexional systems, and many affixes borrowed from Middle Low German later became productive in the formation of native Scandinavian words on home soil. Middle Low Saxon and Middle Dutch thus had an effect at a morphological level, as well as a lexical one. Indeed the fact that such word-forming elements were borrowed and made so productive serves to stress just what an extraordinary influence MLG exerted on the Mainland Scandinavian languages (it is true to say, however, that the language was already in the process of simplification before contact with MLG – but this language contact accelerated and intensified the change). Native abstract suffixes which were common to North and West Germanic -dom, -inge and -skap were revitalized and the vocabulary enriched owing to masses of MLG imports in -schap, -inge, -en(t) and -nisse which become productive elements in the borrowing languages (with -nisse becoming -else in Scandinavian), e.g. broderskap, betalning, bedrövelse. Furthermore, the elements -hed/-het, -inde/-inne and -ske/-ska which appeared in the 1300s were better suited to the creation of new words than the native affixes, some of which were weakened by syncope and the reduction of unstressed syllables, meaning there were fewer options for word-formation based on native Scandinavian elements. The imported elements thus fulfilled a need. The suffix -hed becomes completely common in Danish during the 1400s. The native intensifying prefix for-/för- was reactivated by MLG vor- (and later by High German) – new words coined from native resources with this prefix are legion, for example, forarbejde “prepare, process”, forbedret “improved”, fortabe “forfeit”, forskyde “displace”, forøde “waste, squander”, forglemme “forget” (ODan. forglømæ based on MLG vorgeten), forbryde “forfeit” (ODan. forbrytæ based on MLG vorbrêken). MLG -ent is still very productive in Swedish forming nouns in -ende and -ande, e.g. letande “searching”, vetande “knowledge, learning”. The adjective suffixes -agtig/-aktig (equivalent to HG -haftig), -bar, -dan, -vortes/-vörtes were borrowed after around 1400. Native suffix -sk became -isk from a MLG model, while -ugh became -ig (see below).

Kurt Braunmüller makes the point that the loaning of word-forming elements from MLG changed the nature of the Scandinavian languages, making them less Nordic in character and bringing them closer to West Germanic:

“Ein Ergebnis dieses intensiven Sprachkontakts war – wie gezeigt – z.B. die typologische Annäherung des Skandinavischen an das Mnd./Westgermanische auf den Gebieten der Morphologie und besonders der Wortbildung.” (p.159).

H. Bach makes the interesting observation that these borrowed affixes became so productive with both loaned and native lexical elements that the Scandinavian languages have in the course of time developed a large number of words which now have direct parallels in modern High German, which separately created the same words using the same affixes and lexical material. There are far too many to examine here, but a few examples will suffice to clarify the point: forandring <> Veränderung, forfalske <> verfälschen, fordragelig <> verträglich, indgang <> Eingang, udgang <> Ausgang, udsætte <> aussetzen, opgang <> Aufgang, overenstemmende <> übereinstimmend, medarbejder <> Mitarbeiter, modstand <> Widerstand, tilflugt <> Zuflucht, tilstand <> Zustand, tillade <> zulassen, undergang <> Untergang, understøtte <> unterstützen.

What follows is a list of the main affix loans, illustrated with examples from all three modern languages (many of these will be familiar to readers who know German):

Nordic affix	Affix (MLS)	Modern examples	Meaning
an- (late 1300s)	an-	anbefale, anklage, angrepp	recommend, accuse, attack
be- (since 1350)	be-, bi-	bidrage, behandle, betænke, beslut	contribute, treat, consider, decision
bi- (Swed.)	bi-	bifalla, bistå	assent, support
fore-	vor-	forekomst, foretrække, foredrag	occurrence, lecture/address
för- (Swed.)	vor-	försiktig, fördöma	cautious/careful, condemn
om-	um-	omgive, omstendighet, omkreds	surround, circumstance, circumference
over-	over-	overbevise, overhøre, oversætte	convince, interrogate, translate
över- (Swed.)	over-	övermod, översätta	arrogance/pride, translate
un-/und- (since around 1400)	unt-	undgå, undskylde, unnvære	escape/evade, excuse, do or go without
-aktig (Swed. post-1450, Nor.); -agtig (Dan.)	-achtich	varaktig, karlaktig, lögnaktig, dåraktig, småaktig, byagtig, livagtig, nøjagtig	enduring, manly, lying, foolish/silly,petty, urban, lifelike, precise
-ande (c.1400 in Swed.), -ende (Dan., Nor.)	-ent	inflytande, forehavende, udseende	influence, enterprise, appearance
-bar (1500s in Swed.)	-bâr	brukbar, frugtbar, kostbar, holdbar, strafbar, stridbar, åbenbar	usable, costly/precious, durable/tenable, punishable
-dan (Dan.)	-dân(ne)	sådan, ligesådan, hvordan, ligedan	so, thus, similar, how, similar
-else (many orig. in –nisse)	-sel	skapelse, overdrivelse, spøgelse	shape/creation, exaggeration, spectre
-are (Swed.), -er (Dan., Nor.)	-êre	borgare, jägare, bæger, maler, lærer	citizen, hunter, beaker, painter, teacher
-eri (pre-1400 in Dan.)	-erîe	fiskeri, bedrageri, tyveri, skriveri, slagteri	fishery, fraud, theft, abattoir
-(er)ska (Swed.) -ske (Dan.) (pre-1400)	-ersche	tvätterska, studentska, syerske, husholderske	laundress, student, seamstress, housekeeper
-het (Swed. pre-1375; Nor.), -hed (Dan.)	-heit, -hêt	nyhed, storhet, flertydighet, rigtighed	novelty, greatness, ambiguity, correctness/truth
-häftig (Swed. post-1450), -heftig (Nor) -haftig (Dan)	-heftich	mandhaftig, standhaftig	mannish, firm
-inna (Swed.) -inde (Dan.) (pre-1400) -inne (Nor.)	-inne, -in	furstinna, hertuginde, grevinde, gudinna	princess, duchess, countess, goddess
-isk (loaned or influenced)	-isch	høvisk, upprorisk, jordisk	courteous, rebellious, earthly/wordly
-liken -ligen (Swed.)	-liken	troligen, skäligen,	very likely, rather; reasonably,
-mager (Dan.) -maker (Nor.) -makare (Swed.)	-maker	hattemager, skomager, urmaker	hatter, cobbler, watchmaker
-näre (Swed.), -ner (Dan., Nor.)	-(e)nêre	kunstner, gartner, väpnare	artist, gardener, squire
-skap (Swed., Nor.) -skab (Dan.)	-schap	vennskap, landskab, ekteskap, borgerskab	friendship, landscape, marriage
-slager (Dan.)	-släger	blikkenslager, plattenslager	tinsmith, con man

Not all of these affixes are productive in the modern languages. Some like an-, be-/bi-, fore-/för-, -ska and und-/unn- are no longer productive as word forming elements, while om- and over-/över- are active elements. The following suffixes used to form adjectives, agent nouns and abstract nouns are still very productive: -aktig/-agtig, -bar (also from HG influence), -else, -er, -hed/-het, -ig/-lig. Productive adjectival endings in the past were -et, -sk, -som (agtsom, arbejdsom, beslutsom) and -vorn (drillevorn, sladdervorn, slingrevorn). Most of these suffixes could be used with both native and loaned words. –else becomes much used with word material of native Scandinavian origin. Old Scandinavian was relatively poor in word-forming elements for abstract concepts, whereas MLG provided such elements in abundance.

Niels Åge Nielsen’s Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog (3^rd ed. 1976) contained no less than 283 words with the MLG-derived prefix be-. A large dictionary of Danish will contain many more.

Although -ing was productive and native to the Old Scandinavian dialects, this noun-forming suffix was greatly expanded in terms of use and scope owing to MLG influence, in which the suffix was highly productive (it is also native to the West Germanic languages cf. Eng. -ing, Dutch -ing, German -ung). Since -ing had a direct native equivalent in Old Swedish (Danish, Norse), it could easily be loaned in or form new words without further ado. In Swedish and Norwegian (especially Nynorsk), -ing has been replaced by variant -ning. This element often denoted an activity or person.

The same ease of adoption cannot be ascribed to another MLG noun-forming suffix, -nisse (cf. Eng. -ness, German -nis), which as stated in the table above, has been transformed into -else in the modern Scandinavian languages, from association with a small group of words in the languages which originally had this ending (e.g. Old Danish døpælsæ from Old Saxon dopilsi). Thus MLG vengenisse becomes fängelse “prison”, begencnisse becomes begängelse “cremation”, bedrovenisse becomes bedrøvelse “sorrow, grief” and schickenisse becomes skickelse “decree”. Initially only appearing in loanwords, it later quickly became productive in the formation of new compounds made from native Danish words, e.g. hændelse “event, occurrence”, styrelse “control, governance”, lignelse “likeness”, tilhørelse “belonging”, skikkelse “form; character”, velsignelse “blessing” and fristelse “temptation” etc. This suffix became far more productive in the Scandinavian languages than did the corresponding element -ilsi in German. However, according to Norwegian linguists Didrik Arup Seip and Olav Næs this ending in -else is native and found in south-east Norwegian as early as 1150, i.e. before it was used to domesticate words from MLG. It has to be said that Seip and Næs are in a minority in this belief.

The prefix be- first appeared in Norwegian in 1376 (behalda) – bytala was already known in Swedish from 1370. Bitala appeared in Norwegian before 1400, beating off competition from the native terms gjalda, greiða and reiða.

The prefix und- was related to ON undan meaning that words such as undfly were supported by native fly undan.

The suffix -heit is found in Norwegian as early as 1353. It was already productive in Danish and Swedish for making abstract words (e.g. falskhet, frihet, ärlighet, gudelighed, vanvittighed, retighed, vitterlighed, barmhjertighed, with wârheit and swârheit providing the models for sandhed and tunghed), and in Norwegian it become the most productive suffix for turning adjectives into nouns, so making it difficult for scholars to decide whether a word was borrowed or formed on home soil. So, for example, in Middle Danish, witscap “knowledge” could be a native construct as both wit + -skap are found in the language. But the word is thought to be loaned in its entirety from MLG witscap. This element -hed competed with native -lek and -ned and as good as ousted them from Danish (-nad is somewhat common in Swedish and Norwegian however).

The suffixes -dom and -skap were rare, however they are found in small number of words, e.g. vennskap, borgerskap, hedendom, trældom.

The affixes ge- and er- appeared late (around 1550 and the late 1500s respectively) and were probably more due to the influence of High German than Low German.

In the 1400s -eri appeared in Norwegian and was used for a range of professions and business institutions (thus denoting activity or place of activity) e.g. skriveri, as well as forming words with derogatory meanings such as ketteri, røveri, svineri, tiggeri, snobberi. It is also still productive in Danish and Swedish (e.g. avguderi “heathendom”, baktalari “slander”). Another important suffix is represented by nouns ending in -er and denoting “doer/agent”, e.g. borger, lærer.

The other main affixes are detailed in the lists below. Mention also needs to be made of MLG influence on the use of the native adjective and adverbial ending, -lig (-ig). Although this element is common Germanic (cf. ON -ligr, -legr, OE -lîc, OHG -lîh, Goth. -leiks, ODan. -likær, OSwed. -lîker), its present popularity and widespread usage in word-formation has a great deal to owe to MLG influence, through the suffix -lîk. Niels Åge Nielsen (see booklist) makes the point in his Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog:

"De Nord. adj. (og adv.) på -lig er for en stor dels vedkommende lånt fra el. påvirket af de modsv. former mnty. -lîk, nty. -lik, ty. -lich." (P.261; he then procedes to give a list of examples of native words in -lig and those which have been loaned from, or influenced by, MLG). Indeed, the nominalizing suffix -leikr almost disappeared in Danish, and fell togther with the adjectival ending -lig (but cf. Norwegian kjærleik, Swedish kärlek).

Similar observations regarding Swedish -ig are made by Bertil Molde (see booklist below):

"Att -ig dominerar som avledningselement för adjektivbildning (blodig, stenig) beror också i hög grad på inflytande från lågtyskan." (p.78)

The influence of MLG adjectival suffix -ich was to render native nouns in -ogh to change form to -ig (an easy change), words in -ig were activated and became productive due to MLG influence.

Direct loans, however, are, for example, Middle Swedish ävigh “eternal”, pliktligh “bound, obliged” and värdigh “worthy” from MLG êwich, pliktigh and werdich.

Forms in -ug from a native Swedish adjectival suffix are still, however, found in some northern Swedish dialects e.g. nyttug “useful”, stenug “stony”, tokug “silly”.

Diminutives -ken, -ke and -lín (cf. German -chen, -lein) as a rule only exist in direct loans from MLG, e.g. frøken “Miss”, tallerken “plate”, nellike “clove”, sønneke “lad, sonny”, hønnike “pullet”.

H. Bach mentions lykke, klog and smuk as probable Modewörter, and points out that these words are MLG imports in High German as well.

Middle Low German had a slighter effect on syntax and such morphological aspects as nominal inflexional endings, although most scholars do agree that that MLG influence is behind the general levelling of the Scandinavian inflexional system and the more analytic (relying on word order to convey meaning), rather than synthetic (case-endings bear the grammatical information) structure of Scandinavian syntax which developed over the period in question, meaning that by the 1500s the Mainland Scandinavian languages had developed into the language stage we have now. (The most intense period of language contact appears to have been 1300s and 1400s, and the Nordic languages were most influenced during this period of high intensity). As Lars S. Vikør puts it (p.41): “The influence from Low German may have been even more profound…it may have stimulated the morphological simplification of [Mainland] Scandinavian.” That having been said, inflexional levelling and increasingly analytical syntax has occurred in all the Germanic languages to a greater (e.g. English) or lesser (e.g. German) extent, regardless of the nature of language contacts. Some commentators have argued that these features were the result of Low German users being unable to speak Scandinavian correctly and so a grammatically-simplified Mischsprache arose - which is a defensible viewpoint. (This view is especially prominent among Swedish scholars). The real nature of such a mixed language first becomes clear when the number of loanwords has reached such an extent that a direct effect on the grammatical structure of the native language is visible. Many of the MLG words did not fit easily into the Scandinavian case system and this leads to the alternative view, i.e. that the loanwords themselves were the cause of the loss of the classic case system. Keith Boden presents a counter-argument to the Mischsprache theory, pointing out that Hanseatic Germans, as the speakers of the prestige language, would have no motivation to learn Scandinavian until the decline of the Hansa and the resurrgence of the Scandinavian kingdoms. Therefore improper learning by Low German speakers cannot account for the MLG influence on the Scandinavian form system. Whatever the cause, however, it seems likely, as argued above, that MLG contact both accelerated and helped determine the direction of these already existing processes in the Mainland Scandinavian languages.

In summary of the above, worth repeating here are comments made by Bertil Molde concerning the relative ease with which MLG loans could be assimilated into the native Scandinavian phonological, morphological and lexical systems:

"Detta lågtyska språk hade på vissa viktiga punkter stora likheter med svenskan (och danskan). Det hade t.ex. inte högtyskans diftonger, och den s.k. högtyska ljudskridningen (dvs. övergangen av t.ex. äldre /p/ till /f/) hade inte genomförts i lågtyskan. Detta gjorde att lågtyskan hade ordformer som sten, hûs, ôge, tunge, dragen, gripen (motsvarande högtyskans Stein, Haus, Auge, Zunge, tragen, greifen) dvs. former som uttals- och stavningsmässigt låg mycket nära svenskans. Sådana likheter mellan lågtyskan och den medeltida svenskan var av avgörande betydelse för möjligheterna för svenskan att ta emot lån från lågtyskan. Dessa lån kom att bli av väldig omfattning, och de finns inom praktiskt taget alla områden." (p.77)

and further:

"Deres allmänna struktur (i fråga om ljud, stavning, böjning) låg redan från början så nära strukturen hos inhemska ord att assimilations processen gick snabbt." (p.79)

To those listed by Molde, we might add such MLG forms as open, tam, eten, riden, vören, varen, leggen, setten, gôt and dôt (cf. the close Swedish words öppen, tam, äta, rida, föra, fara, lägga, sätta, god and död). Compare these with the rather more distant High German offen, zahm, essen, reiten, führen, fahren, liegen, setzen, gut and tot.

This closeness in vocabulary and sounds of the language is given by Moberg as one important reason why MLG did not become the language of the Scandinavian nations despite being so well ingrained. The Scandinavian languages were close enough to MLG for it not to seem very alien and due to the loaning of new, productive affixes, speakers of Scandinavian were quite easily able to form new words based on either native or loaned elements as the need arose. The natives did not feel they were learning and using a language so different from their own. The fact that elements with no independent meaning could be loaned from one language to another and form productive word classes indicates the in some respects closeness of MLG and the late medieval Scandinavian languages.

Furthermore, a class of bilingual speakers which arose from intermarrying between the natives and the Low German immigrants would have intensified the influence of MLG on the less prestigious Scandinavian languages and is another reason why MLG came to impact on Scandinavian in the way that it did. Moberg mentions a Helmik van Nörden who kept the records for Stockholm’s rådstuga at the close of the 1400s. Helmik does not hesitate to use words with originally Low German endings affixed to native bases, e.g. sanhet, thunghet for MLG wârheit and swârheit. He switches effortlessly between native läkiare “doctor”and import arst, between native vindögha “window” and import fenster, and between native anlite “face” and import ansikt.

Gradually as the power of the Hanseatic League declined in the 1400s, and the New World was discovered, so did the influence of Middle Low German on the Nordic tongues. (However, as Ahldén demonstrates in his article, MLG loans into Scandinavian continued in far smaller numbers into the 1800s). It is unlikely that many Scandinavians developed a full command of MLG. This partial bilingualism gradually faded, the Germans were assimilated and soon spoke a Scandinavian coloured by LG.

At the same time, the advent of printing, and later the Luther Bible, brought a new High German influence to bear. Indeed, the many MLG loans in the Mainland Scandinavian languages eased the passage for these High German loans or models to begin arriving in force from the middle of the 1500s. The 1526 Swedish New Testament was aimed at the town dwellers and eschewed older native words and expressions such as found in the Vadestena Bible with the aim of being clear and easily understandable for its intended audience, who were by now users of a considerable number of Low German loanwords. So we find words such as fråga instead of native spörja, begynna instead of native börja, behaga and behaglig instead of native thäkkias and thäkkelig, måste instead of måtte, ansikte instead of anlete. Not only the Bible but many psalms and songs were based on German models.

By 1540 the chancellery of the Danish king had made the switch to High German. The Lutheran Reformation in particular, opened the way for a flood of High German lexical items and syntactical influence. Many of the men of the Swedish Reformation had been schooled in Germany. High German as a source of loans and other linguistic features, which was still very influential up until 1945, will be considered in a separate article. It is as well to point out here, however, that MLG loans and words based on MLG loaned elements have never been as much the object of the language purists’ energies as the later High German imports – indeed many could barely identify MLG words to be such, so ingrained were they in the language.

MLG would have been reflected in speech before writing, so our knowledge of its exact route is limited. One of the greatest controversies in this field is whether the loans in Swedish came in via Danish, or directly from MLG. For a small number of words, e.g. bagare, the forms in Swedish indicate that they have passed through Danish first. But for the great majority of the words in Swedish the jury is still out until more detailed studies are made. This controversial but important issue cannot be considered any further here.

Whatever their route, MLG-derived words are attested even in rural Swedish dialects by the late 1500s and studies by Lennart Elmevik have shown that the dialects have been penetrated by LG to a far higher extent than previously believed.

By 1600 the MLG loans were so well assimilated that few suspected such words were of foreign origin (unlike many later High German loans that were purged from the languages). Nowadays only linguists among Scandinavian speakers recognize that such words are of MLG origin.

When Esaias Tegnér the Elder (1782-1846) in the poem Språken (1817) described Swedish as “Ärans och hjältarnas språk!”, he presumably was not aware of the irony that the three nouns in his sentence are all descended from MLG!! (êre, helt, sprâke).

**

*NOTE: these lists can only give some of the more common, important or else interesting MLG loans. There are thousands and whole books have been written detailing them. Deliberately excluded are some specialised registers, especially in the field of fishing and shipping, but also quite a few terms about the natural world. All the words in the lists, as far as I know, are still current in all or at least one of the Mainland Scandinavian languages - and the lists give the modern forms of these, along with their current meanings. Loans into Icelandic and Faroese from MLG are a separate and more complex issue and will be treated later. However a few general remarks about the uptake of Low German loans into these insular Nordic languages is appropriate now.

Icelandic and Faroese received far fewer direct loans from Middle Low German mainly owing to their remote location and trade agreements with Norway, and later, Denmark. Most loans into these North Atlantic languages therefore were taken up indirectly with Norwegian or Danish (especially the latter) acting as an intermediary. There were fewer loans into Icelandic compared to the mainland, but those that existed were used with vigour in the learned written language until the 1600s when the tide began to turn against them. Such loans (as well as those that were entirely Mainland Scandinavian in origin) were increasingly frowned upon as corruptive and unncessary. This feeling gradually increased and culminated last century in the hreintungustefna (policy of linguistic purism) which still defines the criteria concerning the adoption of foreign words into Icelandic. Many Low German loans through Danish as well as pure Danish words have been ejected in favour of native constructs and most of the productive word-forming elements loaned from the original imports have been cleansed from the written language. The result is a purer but rather different Icelandic from that of the 1600s and before. A similar principle guides some of the more ardent adherents of Norwegian Nynorsk, who want to see Low German "interference" minimised. The situation with Faroese is rather more complicated, as the language is still subjected to considerable Danish influence. There has been a movement for a less mixed language there too, but the impetus has been weaker. Consequently the Low German lexical influence in Faroese (mostly through Danish) is more noticeable, but still not nearly so important as the corresponding effect on the Mainland Scandinavian languages.

A few words in the lists below are element loan-translations (e.g. domkyrka from MLG dôm and (originally) ON kirkja), but these have been included as important or interesting words).

Middle Low German forms use circumflexes as a diacritic to indicate long vowels because using macrons was impossible in an HTML text.

In many cases, supposedly Middle-Low-German-derived words in Scandinavian seem more closely related to the corresponding ModLS forms than to the corresponding MLG forms as we know them from written sources. This is especially obvious where front vowels (represented by the letters y, ö/ø and ä/æ/e) correspond to front vowels in ModLS (ü/üü, ö/öö, ä/ää e/ee) while corresponding to what are represented as back vowels in Middle Low German writing (u/û, o/ô, a/â). Other MLG loans in Scandinavian are more similar to their ModLS cognates than to the written MLG ones in other ways. This may be an indication that such loans came from spoken Low Saxon dialects in which vowel fronting (umlauting) and other changes had already taken place, while this was not yet reflected in the more or less standardized and assumedly rather conservative written language at the time. Also, in some cases comparisons between the Scandinavian forms and the ModLS forms reveals that there was more than one MLG donor dialect. For example, the Swedish word sedel is related to ModLS Zedel, while the Danish equivalent seddel is related to the ModLS variant Zeddel. For this reason ModLS and, where deemed necessary, Modern Dutch (Du) cognates are added for comparison. This is limited to actual cognates, i.e. to directly corresponding words. It does not mean that closely related words do not exist. A cognate may or may not have the same meaning as that of the loanwords in Scandinavian.

ModLS has many dialects and so far no standard dialect and standard orthography. ModLS forms are here provided in a North Saxon dialect of Germany in conventional German-based orthographies. A long vowel is represented by a single letter if it is in an open syllable (e.g., Damen 'ladies') and by a double letter if it is in a closed syllable (e.g., Daam 'lady') or anywhere before two or more consonant letters (e.g., Paaschen 'Easter'). Long /i/ is always written as ie . German-based spelling distinguishes long vowels from diphthongs only optionally by a small hook (ogonek) underneath e and ö to mark monophthong long vowels. However, this is rarely utilized. Instead of placing a hook we underline a letter that represents a long vowel; e.g., beden [be:dn] ~ [bE:dn] 'to request', 'to pray' vs. beden [bEIdn] ~ [baIdn] 'to offer', Kööm [kø:m] 'caraway' vs. kööm [kœIm] ~ [kOIm] 'came', Toon [to:n] 'tone' vs. Book [bouk] ~ [bauk] 'book'. An apostrophe following a consonant indicates that, where an older -e has been dropped, "superlength" or "drawl tone" applies: the consonant does not undergo the usual devoicing, and the preceding vowel or diphthong is extra long.

* note: a number of possible MLG loans appear in my article on High German loans in the Scandinavian languages

1 - NOUNS

(Dates given for first appearance in Swedish).

*All loans assumed to be Middle Low Saxon (MLS) unless given otherwise.

Swedish	Danish	English	MLS	Old Norse	Mod LS or Du
------	bødker	cooper	bödiker
------	forskel	difference	vorschel	munr	Verscheel, Verschääl
------	forsæt	intention, purpose	vorsat	mál, ætlan	Vörsatt (decision, plan)
------	fætter	cousin	vedder	frændi	Vedder
------	kok	cook	koch
------	køgemester	master cook	kôkenmester
------	maler	painter			Maler
------	optog	procession, paegeant	optoch		---
	pebersvend	bachelor
------	taske	bag	tasche		Tasch
------	tæppe	carpet	teppet
------	udtog	abstract, summary	ûttoch		Uttog
adel	adel	nobility	adel		Adel
akt	agt	document, record; act	âcht	rit; lög	Akt(e); akte (Du)
allvar	alvor	earnestness	alwâr	alvara (loan from MLG)	(alwaar 'whereas' (Du))
amma	amme	nurse	amme		Amm
amt (1620)	amt	county	ambacht, ammecht		Amt
andakt (c.1620)	andagt	devotion, prayers	andacht	bænir	Andacht
andel	andel	share, portion	andêl	hlútr	Andeel
andrake	andrik	drake	anderik	andarsteggr	---
anfall	anfald	attack	anval, aneval	áhlaup	Anfall
angrepp	angreb	attack	angrepe	áhlaup	Angreep
anhang (1527)	anhang	supplement	anhang		Anhang
ankomst	ankomst	arrival	ankumpst	koma, kváma	Ankumst
anrop	anråb	challenge	anrop	áskoran	Anroop (call)
ansikte	ansigt	face	ansichte	andlit
anskri	anskrig	cry, scream	anschrî	óp, öskr	---
anslag	anslag	impact; estimate; allowance	anslach	ætlan	Anslag, Anslach
anspråk	------	claim, demand	ansprake	kröf	Anspraak
anstöt	anstød	offence	anstôt	afbrot	Anstoot
antal	antal	number	antal	tala	aantal (Du)
antal	antal	number, figure	antal	tal	Antall, Antaal
arbete	arbejde	work, labour	arbeit	erfiði	Arbeid
armod	armod	poverty	armôt, armôde	fátækð	Armood
art	art	kind, sort	art	tigund, kyn	Aard, Aart, Oort
avdelning	afdeling	division	afdêlinge	deild	afdeling (Du)
avlösning	afløsning	relief	aflosinge
bagare	bager	baker	bakker		Backer
bedrift	bedrift	achievement, exploit; enterprise	bedrif	afrek, dáð	Bedriev, Bedrief
bedrövelse	bedrøvelse	sorrow, grief	bedrôvenisse
befallning	befalning	order, command			Befehl
befordring	befordring	conveyance
begrepp	begreb	idea, concept	begrîp, begrêp		Begreep
begär	begær	desire, craving	beger	þrá, lyst	Begehr
behag	behag	pleasure, satisfaction	behach	lyst, ánægja	Behaag, Behaach, Behagen
behov	behov	need	behôf	þorf	behoef (Du)
behov	behov	requirement, need	behôf	þörf, nauðr	---
behåll	behold	keeping, preservation, retention	beholt	geymsla, varðveizla	---
bekymmer	bekymring	worry, concern, anxiety	bekumberinge	áhyggja
belevenhet	------	good breeding, fine manners	belewtheit	kurteisi	---
belopp	beløb	amount	belôp		beloop (Du)
beläte	billede	image, picture	bilde, belde	mynd	Bild; beeld (Du)
beråd	beråd	doubt, hesitation, uncertainty	berât	tvímæli, tvísýni	---
besked	besked	message	beschêd	boð	Bescheed
beslag	beslag	fittings, mountings	beslach		Beslag, Beslach
beslut	beslutning	decision, resolution	beslut	ákvæði	Beslutt
bestyr	(bestyrelse)	work, business, management	bestür	verk, stjórn, viðskipti	Bestüür
bestånd	bestand	stock, number	bestant	birgðir	Bestand
beställning	bestilling	order
besättning	besættelse	occupation	besettinge	hernám	bezetting (Du)
betryck	betryk	distress, need	bedruck	nauð	---
bevillning	bevilling	grant, appropriation	bewillinge	veiting	---
bevis	bevis	proof, evidence	bewîs	sannindi	Bewies
bevåg (c.1540)	------	responsibility, authority	bewach	ábyrgð	---
bihang	------	appendage, appendix	bîhank	viðauki
bilaga	bilag	enclosure, supplement, insert	bilage		Bi(e)lage, Bi(e)laag'
bild	billede	image, picture	bilde, belde	mynd	Bild; beeld (Du)
bisittare	bisidder	assessor, observer	bisitter		Bisitter
bislag	bislag	porch	bislach		Bislag, Bislach
blick (c.1593)	blik	look, gaze	blick	ásyn
borgare	borger	citizen	borgere		Börger
borgmästare	borgmester	burgomaster	borgermêster		Börgermeester
bovete	boghvede	buckwheat	bôkwête		Bookweten
brännvin	brændevin	brandy, gin	bernewîn		Brandwien
bukt	bugt	bay, gulf	bucht	vík	Bucht
bult	bolt	bolt	bolte		Bult, Bült
burskap	borgerskab	franchise; citizens	bûrschap	borgarlýðr
byxa	bukse	trousers, breeches	buxe		Büx(e), Bux(e)
bålverk	bolværk	rampart, bulwark	bolwerk (MLG)		Bollwark bolwerk (Du)
båtsman	bådsmand	boatswain	bôtsman	bátsmaðr	Bootsmann
bädd	-------	bed	bedde	rúm, sæng	Bedd, Bett
bägare	bæger	baker	beker	bakari	Backer, Bäcker
bäver	bæver	beaver	bever	bjórr	Bever, Bewer
bödel	bøddel	executioner, hangman	bodel, boddel		Bödel, Bodel
börs	børs	purse, fund	börs (LG), burse (MLG)	fjárfundr, sjóðr	Börs(e) ('purse', 'stock exchange')
bössa	bøsse	gun; cashbox	busse		Büss(e), bus
?	bøssemager	gunsmith	?	------
del	del	part, fraction	dêl, deil	hlutr	Deel
dikt	digt	poem	dichte	kvæði
docka	dok	dock	MDu dok, MLG docke
domherre (1640) (now domare)	domherre (now dommer)	judge	dômherre	dómsmaðr	Doomherr
domkyrka	domkirke	cathedral	dôm (MLG) + kirkja (ON)	dómkirkja	Dookark
dop	dåb	baptism	dope
drake	drage	dragon	drake	dreki	Drake
dryckenskap	drukkenskab	drunkenness	drunkenschap	drykkjuskapr
dräkt	dragt	dress, garb	dracht	umbúningr, klæði	Dracht
dunder	dunder	thunder, rumble	dunner
dust	dyst	fight, clash, tussle	dust, diest	bardagi
däck (c.1690)	dæk	deck	dek (LG or Du)
döp	dåb	baptism	dôpe	skírn	Dööp
ebb (1787)	ebbe	low tide, ebb	ebbe (Du)	fjarra	Ebb; eb(be) (Du)
egendom	ejendom	property	êgendôm (MLG)	eign	Egendoom
egendom	ejendom	property, estate	egendom	eign, bú	Egendom
elände	-------	misery	ellende	aumleikr	Elend
endräkt	endragt	harmony, concord	eindracht	samræði, samhljóðan	Eendracht
-eri	-eri	(suffix forming nomen agentis)	-erîe		-eree, -erie
fack	fag	line, trade; subject	vak (MLG)		Fack
fadder	fadder	godparent	vadder
falk	falk	falcon, hawk	valke	haukr, fálki	Falk(e)
fals	fals	deceit, falsehood	vals	lygi	falsch 'wrong'
falskhet	falskhed	falsness, duplicity	valschheit		Falschheit
fana	fane	banner, standard	vane	merki	Faan, Fahn
fara	fare	danger	vâre	hætta	Faar, Fahr
fartyg	fartøj	vessel, ship	fartüg (MLG)	skip	Faartüüg, Fahrtüüg
feber (c.1533)	feber	fever	feber		Fever, Fewer
fejda	fejde	feud, strife, war	veide	stríð, ófriðr	Fede, Feed'
fel (c.1520)	fejl	mistake, error	feil, fegel	villr	Feel
fett	fedt	fat, lard, grease	fett (MLG)	feitr	Fett
ficka	-----	pocket	ficke		Fick
fiol	fiol	violin	viole
flagg (1605)	flag	flag	flagge (MLG) or vlag (Du)		Flagg(e)
flykt	flugt	escape, flight	vlucht, vlücht	flótti	Flucht, Flücht
flöjt	fløjte	flute	flöite
fogde	foged	sheriff, bailiff	voget	sýslumaðr	Voogt
fotfolk	fodfolk	infantry	vôtvolk	fótgönguherr
fotgängare	fodgænger	infantryman (now "pedestrian")	vôtgenger	fótgöngumaðr
frakt (1524)	fragt	freight	vracht	farmr	Fracht
fru	frue	lady; Mrs	vrouwe	kona	Fru, Fro
frukost	frokost	breakfast (Dan. ="lunch")	vrôkost		Fru(h)kost Frö(h)kost
frukt	frugt	fruit	vrucht		Frucht
fruktan	frygt	fear, dread	vruchte	hræzla, ótti	Forcht, Furcht
fröken (1560)	frøken	young lady; Miss	vrouwekin, vrouken
fukt	fugt	damp, moisture	vucht
fullmakt	fuldmagt	authority	vulmacht	yfirskipan	Vullmacht Vollmacht
fullmäktig	fuldmægtig	principal, delegate	vulmechtich	forstjóri	Vullmacht
furste	fyrste	prince	vorste, vurste	vísir
furstinna	fyrsteinde	princess	vorstinne	dróttning	Förstin
fyr	fyr	fire	vûr, vuer	eldr	Füür
fält	felt	sphere; field	velt		Feld
fängelse	fængsel	prison; imprisonment	vengnisse	fangelsi
färg	farve	colour, hue	varwe, varve	litr	Farv(e)
fästning (c.1630)	fæstning	fortress	vesteninge
föga (falla till föga)	føje (falde til føje)	cause, ground, reason (yield, submit)	vôge (in de vôge fallen)	örsok
fönster (ousted OSwed. vindögha)	------	window	vinster, venster	gluggr	Finster, Fenster
förakt	foragt	contempt, disdain	voracht		---
förbud	forbud	ban, prohibition	vorbot
förbund	forbund	union, league, federation	vorbunt	lag, samfélag	Verbund
fördel	fordel	advantage	vordêl	gagn	Fördeel
fördrag	------	lecture, address, delivery	vordrach		verdrag (Du)
förekomst	forekomst	occurence, incidence	vorkumpst		---
föreståndare	forstander	principal, director	vorstender	forstjóri	---
förfall	forfald	decay, decline	vorval	niðrfall	Verfall
förfång	------	detriment; prejudice	vorvank		---
förgift	forgift	poison	vorgift	eitr	---
förgängelse	(forgængelighed)	corruption	vorgenknis	spilling	---
förhänge	forhæng	curtain, drape; veil	vorhenge	tjald	Vörhäng
förhör	forhør	interrogation	(vorhören)
förköp	forkøb	pre-emption	vorkôp		Verkoop
förlopp	forløb	lapse; course of events	vorlop
förlov	forlov	permission, leave	vorlôf	leyfi	Verlööv, Verlööf
förlust	------	loss, damage	vorlust	tapan, skaði	Verlust
förnuft	fornuft	sense, reason	vornuft	skynsemd
förräder	forræder	traitor	vorrêder	svikamaðr	Verrader, Verräder
förstånd	forstand	intellect, brains, reason	vorstant	vitsmunr, skynsemd, samvizka	Verstand
förtret	fortræd	annoyance, vexation, harm	vordrêt	skapraun; skaði	Verdreet
gaffel	gaffel	fork	gaffel(e)		Gaffel
garvare	garver	tanner	garwer, gerwer (LG)	sútari	Garver
gemål (c.1565)	gemal	consort, spouse	gemâl	maki
gesäll	gesel	journeyman	geselle		Gesell(e)
gevär (1620)	gevær	rifle, gun	gewêre		Geweer, Gewehr
gikt (c.1578)	gigt	gout	gicht, jicht		Gicht, Jicht
greve	greve	count, earl	greve, grave	jarl	Graaf Greef
grevinna	grevinde	countess	grevinne	greifinna	(Gräfin)
gräns	grænse	border, boundary	grense, grenitze	merki	Grenz(e), Grenß(e)
gunst	gunst	favour, grace	gunst	náð	Gunst
gåva	gave	gift, present	gâve	gjöf; giäf (Old Swed.)	Gaav', Gave
-gängare	-gænger	-walker, -goer	-genger, -ginger	fótgöngmaðr	-gänger
haj (1674)	haj	shark	haai		Hai
handel	handel	trade, commerce	handel
handske	handske	glove	hantschô, hantsche	hanzki	Handsch(e)
handskmakare	handskemager	glover
hantwerk (1540)	håndværk	handicraft, trade	hantwerk	iðn	Handwark; handwerk (Du)
hast	hast	haste, hurry	hast	skynding, skyndir	Hast
helgon (pl.)	helgen	saint	thie hêlagon (OSax.)
herre	herre	gentleman; Mr	hêrre (MLG)	maðr, karlmaðr	Herr
herrskap	herskab	master and mistress	hêrschop, hêrschap		Herrschup(p) Herrschop(p)
hertig	hertug	duke	hertoch, hertich	hertoga	Hertog, Hertoch
hertiginna	hertuginde	duchess	hertochinne
hingst	hingst	stallion	hinxt, hingest	hestr	Hingst
hjälte	helt	hero	helt	hetja	Held
hjältinna	heltinde	heroine
hopp	håb	hope, expectation	hôpe (MLG)	ván	hoop (Du)
hov	hof	court, noble society	hof	hirð	Hoff
högmod	hovmod	pride, arrogance	hogmôt
husgeråd	husgeråd	household utensils	hûsgerât
husman	husmand	smallholder	hûsman	smábóndi
hustru	hustru	(house)wife	hûsvrouwe	húsfreyja	Huusfru, Huusfro
hytt (1842)	hytte	cabin	hütt, hütte (LG)		Hütt
häkte	hægte	custody, jail	hechte	varðhald	hecht; haft (Du)
härbärge	herberg	shelter, lodging	herberge	gisting	Harbarg; herberg (Du)
härkomst	herkomst	origin, lineage	herkumpst	ætterni	Herkumst, Herkomst
höft (c.1538)	------	hip	hûfte	mjöðm	Hüft(e)
högfärd	------	pride, vanity	hôchvart	hégómadýrð	---
högmod	hovmod	pride, arrogance	hogemôt, homôt	dramb	Hoogmood Hoochmoot
högmod	højmod