IN GRATITUDE




PREFACE.


This work aims primarily at giving a list of Scandinavian loanwords
found in Scottish literature. The publications of the Scottish Text
Society and Scotch works published by the Early English Text Society
have been examined. To these have been added a number of other works
to which I had access, principally Middle Scotch. Some words have
been taken from works more recent--"Mansie Wauch" by James Moir,
"Johnnie Gibb" by William Alexander, Isaiah and The Psalms by
P. Hately Waddell--partly to illustrate New Scotch forms, but also
because they help to show the dialectal provenience of loanwords.
Norse elements in the Northern dialects of Lowland Scotch, those of
Caithness and Insular Scotland, are not represented in this work.
My list of loanwords is probably far from complete. A few early
Scottish texts I have not been able to examine. These as well as the
large number of vernacular writings of the last 150 years will have
to be examined before anything like completeness can be arrived at.

I have adopted certain tests of form, meaning, and distribution.
With regard to the test of the form of a word great care must be
exercised. Old Norse and Old Northumbrian have a great many
characteristics in common, and some of these are the very ones in
which Old Northumbrian differs from West Saxon. It has,
consequently, in not a few cases, been difficult to decide whether