Foreign words of this kind are, however, not very numerous, and can easily be allowed for.  And, as has been said, our vocabulary admits also of a certain amount of Celtic.  It remains to consider what other sources have helped to form our dialects.  The two most prolific in this respect are Scandinavian and French, which require careful consideration.

It is notorious that the Northern dialect admits Scandinavian words freely; and the same is true, to a lesser degree, of East Midland.  They are rare in Southern, and in the Southern part of West Midland.  The constant invasions of the Danes, and the subjection of England under the rule of three Danish kings, Canute and his two successors, have very materially increased our vocabulary; and it is remarkable that they have perhaps done more for our dialects than for the standard language.  The ascendancy of Danish rule was in the eleventh century; but (with a few exceptions) it was long before words which must really have been introduced at that time began to appear in our literature.  They must certainly have been looked upon, at the first, as being rustic or dialectal.  I have nowhere seen it remarked, and I therefore call attention to the fact, that a certain note of rustic origin still clings to many words of this class; and I would instance such as these:  bawl, bloated, blunder, bungle, clog, clown, clumsy, to cow, to craze, dowdy, dregs, dump, and many more of a like character.  I do not say that such words cannot be employed in serious literature; but they require skillful handling.

For further information, see the chapter on “The Scandinavian Element in English,” in my Principles of English Etymology, Series I.

With regard to dialectal Scandinavian, see the List of English Words, as compared with Icelandic, in my Appendix to Cleasby and Vigfusson’s Icelandic Dictionary.  In this long list, filling 80 columns, the dialectal words are marked with a dagger {+*}.  But the list of these is by no means exhaustive, and it will require a careful search through the pages of the English Dialect Dictionary to do justice to the wealth of this Old Norse element.  There is an excellent article on this subject by Arnold Wall, entitled “A Contribution towards the Study of the Scandinavian element in the English Dialects,” printed in the German periodical entitled Anglia, Neue Folge, Band VIII, 1897.

I now give a list, a mere selection, of some of the more remarkable words of Scandinavian origin that are known to our dialects.  For their various uses and localities, see the English Dialect Dictionary; and for their etymologies, see my Index to Cleasby and Vigfusson.  Many of these words are well approved and forcible, and may perhaps be employed hereafter to reinforce our literary language.