Viking influence on placenames is not limited to the Western Isles or the NE. Here in the SW you will find many places names with viking roots. A few very obvious onse of the top of my head are:  Tinwald, Tothorwald, Mouswald which are all similar to the name for the Parliament of the Isle of Man which was an independent viking kindom which challenged the early Scots kings for control of the SW. Sandy Pittendreigh in Dumfries ________________________________ > How much influence did the Vikings have on the speech of the northern Scotsmen? Gvin Wrote: Depends how you define "northern".  Placenames of Norse origin are largely found in the Northern and Wester Isles, and to a limited extent in Caithness.  But in the rest of mainland Scotland (much of which I would count as "northern") there are none, which is pretty clear evidence that there was no significant Viking settlement there. Scots, as spoken in most of eastern mainland Scotland, up to and including Caithness, is well understood as being a variety of Anglian, which is one of the West Germanic languages which are the immediate ancestors of English.  The Vikings, on the other hand, spoke dialects belonging to the North Germanic group. There are points of similarity, but also significant differences, and some of the words occasionally quoted as "proof" that Scots derives from Norse (such as "kirk") can actually be found in both North and West Germanic. Gavin Bell ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ABERDEEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Sandy PITTENDREIGH wrote: > Viking influence on placenames is not limited to the Western Isles or > the NE. Here in the SW you will find many places names with viking > roots. A few very obvious onse of the top of my head are: Tinwald, > Tothorwald, Mouswald which are all similar to the name for the > Parliament of the Isle of Man which was an independent viking kindom > which challenged the early Scots kings for control of the SW. Quite true. My remarks were influenced by the original question referring to Caithness and northern Scotland. Gavin Bell