Yorkshire

formerly known as the County of York and “York” comes from the Viking name for the city, Jórvík

It’s no surprise that Old Norse has influenced the English language; particularly in the North where the Vikings dominated for many years!

When I started to learn Norwegian a few years ago, I found some similarities to Yorkshire words and places and thought it would be a good idea to make a blog post out of it!

Yorkshire	Definition	Old Norse	Bokmål
Bairn	Child / Baby	Barn	Barn
Beck	A stream / A brook	Bekkr	Bekk
Berserk	Mad / Angry	Berserkr	Berserk
By	Place names ending in by eg. Grimsby	By	By
Dale	Valley	Dalur	Dal
Fell	A hill / Mountain slope	Fjall	Fjell
Flags	Flat stones used for paving, flooring or roofing	Flaga	Flagger
Flit	To move about / move house eg. Flit about	Flytja	Å flytte
Foss	Waterfall	Fors	Foss
Gate	Street / Way eg. Kirkgate, Briggate	Gata	Gate
Gawp	To stare open mouthed eg. Stop gawping	Gapa	Å gape
Laik / Leck	To play eg. Are you laiking out?	Leika	Å leke
Lig / Ligg	To lie down	Liggja	Å ligge
Lug	Pull or carry, or a knot in the hair	Lugge	Å lugge
Mucky / Muck	Dirty / Manure	Myki	Møkkete
Nay	No	Nei	Nei
Reckon	To think, to consider	Reikna	Regne med
Sillin	Raining heavily eg. It’s sillin it down	Sila	Å sile
Skrike	Scream loudly (related to shriek)	Skrækja	Å skrike
Spell	Splinter of wood in the skin	Spjelke	Spjelke
Tarn	Lake / Pond eg. Malham Tarn	Tjarn	Tjern
Thwaites	eg. Linthwaite	þveit	Tveit