Antedating of "Viking"

[Amy West]

What really needs to be done is that the ety needs to be revised to
reflect the current accepted theory that it's from a Gmc verb "vikja"
meaning to alternate turns at rowing. This is in Eldar Heide's article
"Viking-'rower shifting'? An etymological contribution", Arkiv for
nordisk filologi, 120, pp. 41-54, 2005. I think that's been mentioned in
their etymology column/blog, but it's not part of the ety in the OED
yet. . .

---Amy West

On 3/21/13 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> Date:    Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:28:03 +0000
> From:    "Shapiro, Fred"<fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Viking"
>
> I e-mailed John Simpson, the chief editor of the OED, about the "Viking" entry.  His response was that he believed the logic of the OED first edition was that the modern word "Viking" is a loan from Scandinavian and distinct from the Old English "wiking."  He thought it likely that the same logic would be followed when the entry is revised.  This seems to square with Amy's comment about "vikingr."
>
> Fred Shapiro

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