UKC

‘Marra’ – used mainly in west Cumbria to mean ‘mate’ – is now included in the Collins online dictionary.Marra is defined as “a northern English dialect form of mate”.
“We think the word marra originally came from the north east and the coal miners in the 19th century,” he explained, “and it meant ‘pit pony’.
“Everybody looked after the marra or pit pony, and in west Cumbria the word marra came to mean friend to everyone.”

Eventually the miners called each other marra, and the word spread quickly when they emerged from the mines.

This sounds right as the word is used in the North East and West Cumbrian mining towns but not so much in the rural farming areas between the North East and West Cumbria [SIC]
However, it is believed the original origins of the word stretch back much further.
“In Old Norse mythology there was a spirit of bad dreams called the Marra,” “From that, we get the English word nightmare. However, the symbol of the spirit was a horse.”
There are many other unusual words frequently used by Cumbrians, many of which descend from Old Norse and therefore bear a strong resemblance to Norwegian.

“When we went to school after the war, our west Cumbrian was so strong we could have been taught Norwegian as easily as English.”

Does this interest our Geordie, Norwegian or Cumbrian readers?

In reply to armus: Indeed it does! I've been informed that the Geordy-ism of 'hyem' as in 'Am gaan hyem' (I'm going home) sounds near identical to the Norwegian word for home. A quick google translate search indicates that it is identical, with the Norwegian being 'hjem'.

I've also been told that the word 'clarts' as in muck & mud is also very similar to some Scandinavian word of some sort!

And i think that's all I've got for the time being.

In reply to armus:

Fascinating. Could there also be a link with the sea? Latin Mare, Mer, Mere, sea horse, mare etc etc ??

In reply to armus:

They did a programme ages ago on channel four, when they put some Danish farmers and North-Yorkshire farmers in a pub together. Whilst they were talking farming, they communicated fine.

Y.

In reply to Yrmenlaf: The same used to be true of fishermen from the north-east, Aderdeen etc and Bergan, Stravanger.

In reply to armus:

As a native of the pit villages of County Durham, whose gf is a native of northern Germany, there is an uncanny number of dialect words which would be mutually comprehensible - particularly when spoken while lubricated!


For example, "a fast hadd" is not a million miles from " ein fest Halt"

(for non-native speakers, a translation service is available at very reasonable rates).

JW

In reply to armus:

How about the geordie word for child - 'bairn'?

Norwegian for child is 'barn'

In reply to Gaupa:

There are a lot of geographical terms used in the north of England that have Norse origins: fell/fjell; beck/bekr; force(waterfall)/foss; etc.

As kids we'd be told to "stop laiking around" laik/lekr = play. I think gelt (meaning barren) has Norse origins.

I worked with a Norwegian who said that when he moved to the UK (Northern England) and bought a map of the area, it might as well have been in Norwegian as the names were that similar.

ALC

In reply to Gaupa:


And Swedish.

There are various Scottish words (like bairn, maybe they share them with Geordies - don't know, not lived there) that you can hear echoed in modern Scandinavian. Hus (don't know how you're meant to spell it in Scottish, maybe just house) and hus. Quine and Kvinna. Bairn and barn. Probably Scots who speak Swedish can think of more. Here in Finland, the Swedish speaking side of the police cars have "Polis" written on them which sounds very Glaswegian, but maybe that's more of a coincidence!

In reply to TobyA:

It's probably not surprising that Scots and English share a lot of words with Norse. They are all Germanic languages and as such share a common ancestor.

There are a great many Norse loan-words in Scots Gaelic, which is not surprising considering that the north-west seaboard and especially the islands were ruled by the Norse for hundreds of years. The islands became known as Innse Gall - the 'islands of the foreigners'.

These links may be of interest:
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/freefun/didyouknow/placenames/sca...
http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/gaelic/GaelicNorseintheLandscape.pd...

In reply to armus:


The same applies to Modern Scottish and Scots. Lots of words come directly from Old Norse or many through Old English from Old Norse and many from other various Germanic roots.

Common word used by many Scots. Do you ken what I mean? Aye, I seen that ken? Directly from Old Norse Kenna.

When the British and Scottish goverment at a time was trying to eradicate what it felt was "slang" or corruptions of modern english words was mistaken when many words used in common speech were directly from influence that was not of modern english descent. Someone might be corrected by saying 'Going to not "dae" that ' as dae being slang for do, when in fact dae as a word evolved in our language along side do in modern english.

In reply to TobyA:

Thank you another one. Scots would likely say as in hoose and a time would have been punished for saying house in slang which wasnt the case.

In reply to Yrmenlaf:


not norse but the old counting language is fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_tan_tethera

In reply to TobyA:

Funny enough, this comfused my Norwegain girlfriend when a mate of mine asked if we wanted to pop round to the 'hus' for a coffee.
"how does he know Norwegian??"

>Here in Finland, the Swedish speaking side of the police cars have "Polis" written on them which sounds very Glaswegian, but maybe that's more of a coincidence!

I saw that few times this summer and my girlfriend couldn't understand why I found 'Polis' funny.

One quick hijack; I hope you don't have any friends climbing on Kvaløya this week(?). There's been a fatal accident there involving a non-Norwegian climber. I know you have friends in this part of the world, so I thought I'd better mention it.

In reply to armus:

A professor in my department who grew up in Redcar swears blind that he can understand The Killing without subtitles in spite of not knowing a word of Swedish.

In reply to Gaupa:


Oh dear. But I don't know of anyone who's up there currently. Do you know what route/crag etc.? Hollenderan is one of the most impressive cliffs I've climbed on, and it is big, but it felt sort of ok to "deal with", not least because most of the routes seems to follow cracks through impeccable granite and then there is the bolted descent. But there are of course wilder bits of he island.

In reply to armus:

Another obvious one which is overlooked is "gate" meaning street not a gate as in garden gate. It's common in northern towns.
York - Fishergate
Kendal - Stricklandgate
Carlisle - Botchergate
The Norwegian word for street is gate, the Swedish is gata.
Even Castlegate in Penrith is the street leading to the castle and not a gate in the castle wall.

In reply to armus:

Aberdeen is absolutely full of these. We've even got 'Kirkgate' which would be understandable to any Norwegian/Dane/Swede as 'church street'.

In reply to Madden:

It is not surprising. The North-East was and many other (particularly northern) areas were settled by northmen.

The different accents now are echoes of the language spoken there.

The language links are very interesting.

In reply to armus:

Gate is also used in mining - the main gate would be where the miners go along from the pit bottom towards the face - the outbye is where the coal comes out on the conveyors, just before the lift (I think)

In reply to 999thAndy:
Many Geordies would use 'Ah'm gan yem noo' to indicate his imminent departure from the pub to home* which sounds like it would be understanderable in Oslo.

*possibly via the kebab shop

In reply to armus:

Derby is also full of gates - Friargate, Irongate, Saddlergate. Not really surprising as it was a notable Danish/Norse town at one time.

In reply to 999thAndy:
"Arz garn yam noo" in Cumbria.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

There are the 4 Kirkby towns in the old Westmorland "by" meaning town or settlement, so church town.

Stricklandgate in Kendal is a mixture of Saxon and Norse: gate is Norse and Strickland is a corruption of Stirkland, i.e. land of the stirks or young cattle.

ALC

In reply to armus:
From a mackem perspective...
Whisht for "quiet" as in "Whisht! lads, haad yor gobs" is the same in NE Scotland (Doric or Aberdonian?).

Gadgie also means old bloke in the dialect of Baden in Germany.

Funny stuff language.

In reply to TobyA:
Kirk in Scottish, kyrkan in Sweedish & Kirche in German.

I reckon it's mostly down to the super-highway of the Middle Ages - The North Sea.

In reply to elsewhere:

kirke in danish

In reply to Mikkel:
Does Danish the verb to howk (to hollow)?

To nobody in particular (or possibly to the ladies)...
Hoy ya hamma owa here hinny!

In reply to armus: Hrafn - Raven

In reply to elsewhere:

There is something which could sound similar, with the same sort of meaning, but cant quite explain it in writing.

In reply to armus: I'm sure I've read or watched something about the term marra in west cumbria & they said it was shortened because of all the sailors being known as mariners?

In reply to a lakeland climber: I believe Kirk is a scots word for Church & if you look round the Carlisle area most of the towns that start with Kirk have a church named after a saint?

In reply to Cardi:

I believe lax is a norse word for salmon?

On lewis there's a place called laxdale (situated on a stream i think), plus that method of curing salmon with herbs is called gravadlax or something like that

In reply to Frogger:

Laks is indeed salmon. There's a Loch Laxford - "salmon-fjord" - in Sutherland.

In reply to Frogger:

Lachs in German

In reply to dissonance:


You sure there isnt a connection?

Danish

1= En, but in some Danish dialect its pronounced Yen
2= To
3= Tre

:0)

In reply to armus:

Very many of these come from the hypothetical proto germanic language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_language

Y.

In reply to Yrmenlaf: Jesus man, why did you direct me to that site?
It is understandable, if you apply yourself, but phonetics cannot be fully explained without hearing speech. I did have a go at it but gave up and went to the pub.

In reply to Frogger:

is that where the word Gravadlax comes from?

In reply to Bob Hughes: Yes, gravad as in grave means buried. The salmon used to be buried in sand, now it's buried in salt, sugar etc.

In reply to Adam W.:

In Iceland they have a traditional dish where they first bury and then dig up shark meat. A viking variant of gravadlax clearly!

I found travelling in Norway a bit like a linguistic treasure chest ... "Stikk in cart" (roughly)the telephone box asked me when it wanted me to put a card in. Every time we say stick it in, we're speaking Norse.
Lake, laik - to play - I discovered is Barnsley dialect, and of course the grouse here in Scotland lek when they're courting. There was a most amusing link to an Aberdonian rapper on here not long ago, whose refrain was "Hvor's ma mince?" ... sounded pretty Scando to me.
And - somewhere in the back of my mind is that eggs used to be called eyen in southern English until the word egge from oop North - the former Danelaw - was adopted more generally, this from written sources in about the 15th century. I also recall the suggestion that up to a third of the basic most commonly used words tended to be the more like the Norse form than the Anglo Saxon (although they were so similar that they were kinda mutually intelliigible back in the 9th century, they reckon).

In reply to Richard Baynes: Correction that should have been "far's ma mince" but very like the scando hvor

In reply to armus:

There seems to be a good number of Swedish or Norwegian on here.

I speak swedish, any one else?

In reply to Richard Baynes:
Norse.