Vikings Hidden in Declaration.
Our take
Okay, here's a Spoot-style editorial piece responding to the "Vikings Hidden in Declaration" article, adhering to all your specified requirements.
It’s funny, isn’t it? How we build these towering narratives of nationhood, of foundational documents, and then – *squirt* – a tiny, almost imperceptible current of Old Norse washes up on the shore. That's precisely what's delightful about Sophie Hardach’s BBC piece, as highlighted by the original post, and why it's worth a deeper dive. Someone sent it over, calling it a “simple but not actually wrong BBC piece,” and that’s honestly a perfect assessment. The idea that words we take for granted – *liberty*, *pursuit* – might owe a debt to Viking seafaring and linguistic drift is inherently compelling. It throws a wrench in the neat, linear history we often construct. It reminds us that language, like a stubborn clam clinging to a rock, is a survivor, a carrier of echoes from forgotten shores. We’ve always been fascinated by the tenacity of language, as demonstrated in our own look at Helping Save Louisiana French, a project confronting the very real threat of linguistic erasure. And isn’t it fitting that something so stubbornly persistent as a language should have its roots in a culture known for its exploration and resilience?
The core of the argument—that “life” might be linked to Old Norse “líf” — isn't a revolutionary discovery, but the *reminder* is. It’s a quiet rebellion against the expectation that words should have pristine, traceable lineages. Think about it: the very act of borrowing, of linguistic assimilation, is a testament to cultural exchange, to the messy, unpredictable ways humans interact. The Declaration of Independence, a document designed to declare a definitive break from one power, is, in its very vocabulary, a testament to the enduring influence of another. It's a beautiful irony. And this echoes a point we made about the fluidity of language in Blended Spanish. The idea that a language can absorb and transform elements from others, creating something entirely new, is something we’ve always championed. It's not about purity; it's about evolution. It’s the difference between a meticulously curated museum display and a vibrant, ever-shifting ecosystem.
Beyond the specific etymological connections, this whole exercise highlights a broader truth about language learning and the human experience. We often approach language acquisition with a goal of perfect replication, of mastering the "correct" form. But what if the real beauty lies in the deviations, the accidental collisions of cultures and words? What if the most interesting languages aren't the ones that have remained pristine, but the ones that have absorbed and adapted, becoming something richer and more complex in the process? The original post also touches on questions of language acquisition, and how our native tongues shape our perceptions – a query we explored in I got 2 questions about learning a new language. It’s a process of constant negotiation, of finding common ground across vastly different linguistic landscapes. And sometimes, that common ground is surprisingly ancient.
Ultimately, this isn’t just about Vikings and the Declaration of Independence. It's about the radical nature of language itself. It’s a reminder that our grand narratives are built on foundations that are far more porous, more mutable, than we often acknowledge. So, the next time you encounter a seemingly straightforward word, consider the possibilities. Consider the clam, hidden just beneath the surface. Consider the long, winding journey it took to arrive where it is now. What other linguistic ghosts are lurking within the phrases we repeat every day? And further, what happens when our understanding of linguistic history forces us to re-evaluate those foundational narratives? Perhaps the most spooty question of all is this: what other unexpected connections are waiting to be unearthed, just below the surface of everyday language?
I had no intention of doing a Fourth-themed post, but JWB slyly sent me a link to Sophie Hardach’s BBC piece “The Viking word hidden in the Declaration of American Independence,” calling it a “simple but not actually wrong BBC piece on the varied etymologies of the lexemes that ended up in the phrase ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’ with clickbait Viking headline.” Here’s a sample:
Let’s start with the brief phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
“This iconic line is actually a great demonstration of what a mongrel language English is,” says Tom Birkett, a professor of Old English and Old Norse at University College Cork in Ireland.
“Life” is rooted in Old English, a language brought to Britain by Germanic tribes from around AD400-500. “Liberty” and “pursuit” are Latin-rooted, then evolved into French and arrived in Britain with the Norman French conquest in AD1066.
And then there is “happiness”: a word echoing with distant voices telling stories of trolls, battles and seafarers.
“Happiness has an interesting etymology, as it comes from Old Norse happ, meaning ‘fortune’ or ‘good luck’,” says Birkett. “When ’happy’ is first attested in Middle English it means ‘fortunate’, or ‘blessed by good luck’.”
Thanks, JW! And if you’re musically inclined, don’t miss Bill Goldstein’s impassioned paean to Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” which “may actually be Simon’s single greatest work”:
But first, the music. If there’s a sense that the melody, progressions and structure seem more, say, sophisticated, than that of a typical pop song, it’s due to the fact that Simon, in effect, had a noteworthy collaborator in its creation: the composition was based on a chorale by Johann Sebastian Bach (only a songwriting genius like Simon would dare to co-compose with Bach). The simple grace of the restrained arrangement warmly envelops the experience of hearing it, and is highlighted, for me, by the rising strings as you enter the third verse, initiating a whole other¹ part of the song. Normal mortals try to write catchy, quality songs, but legends like Simon, McCartney and Elton John are able to readily create two distinct, brilliant sections and just combine them into the same one. The result here is at once transcendent and, perhaps in its imagery, even hallucinatory. Man, those strings; if you listen to this passage (beginning with “And I dreamed I was dying”) and really focus on them, you may well get chills or tears (or both). Simon, it seems clear, is a master of the secular hymn.
I just wish Goldstein hadn’t felt compelled to include this snotty, ignorant footnote:
¹In how many conversations in your life have you heard someone state some variant of “that’s a whole nother thing”? Nother is, in a word, not a word. Please address anyone you observe saying this, as I annoyingly do, by asking “a whole what thing?” and watch their discomfort grow as it dawns on them that they’re heedlessly using a made-up word. Dear readers, help me rid the world of the scourge of “nother.”
Dear readers, help me rid the world of the scourge of prescriptivism.
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