Antedating of "Viking"

[Mark Mandel]

And that's what happens when I'm just beginning to figure out email on
this Android and don't see the rest of the thread till I've
answered...
Mark

On 3/22/13, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or the OED's researchers just didn't happen across it.
> Mark
>
>
> On 3/20/13, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>> Fascinating, Dave, perhaps the biggest antedating of all time!  The Old
>> English usage was not unknown to OED, since they mention it in the
>> etymology
>> section of the "Viking" entry, but for some reason they did not include
>> OE
>> citations in the entry.  Also interesting is the lack of Middle English
>> or
>> Early Modern occurrences.  I assume some 18th-century scholar decided to
>> revive or naturalize the word.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Dave
>> Wilton [dave at WILTON.NET]
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 10:39 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Viking"
>>
>> I think we can antedate that by about 800 years.
>>
>> From "The Battle of Maldon" in BL Cotton Otho A. xii, probably written
>> not
>> long after the battle itself, which was in 991, lines 25–26a:
>>
>> "Þa stod on stæðe,     stiðlice clypode
>> wicinga ar."
>>
>> (Then there stood on the bank, and fiercely called out
>> a messenger of the vikings.)
>>
>> Ælfric, in his grammar, also glosses the Latin "pirata" as "wicing oððe
>> flotman" (viking or sailor).
>>
>> There are lots of other Old English examples of the word.
>>
>> Of course, it may not have been used much in the intervening centuries,
>> but
>> I suspect that more searching will turn up interdatings.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>> Of
>> Shapiro, Fred
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 8:07 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Antedating of "Viking"
>>
>> Viking (OED 1807)
>>
>> 1795 Thomas Pownall _An Antiquarian Romance_ 75 (Eighteenth Century
>> Collections Online)  These sea-rovers pursued their praedatory
>> enterprizes,
>> each Vik, Vikin, or Vikinger, with one separate band, and in his own
>> fleet.
>>
>> Fred Shapiro
>>
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>

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