6. The tests of borrowed words.

The similarity between Old English and the language of the Scandinavian invaders makes it at times very difficult to decide whether a given word in Modern English is a native or a borrowed word. Many of the more common words of the two languages were identical. The most reliable test depends upon differences in the development of certain sounds in the North Germanic and West Germanic areas. One of the simplest to recognise is the development of the sound “sk”. In Scandinavian it retained its hard sk sound. Consequently, while native words like ship, shall, fish have sh in Modern English, words borrowed from the Scandinavian are generally still pronounced sk: sky, skin, skill, bask, whisk.