Nevertheless the Vikings — Danes and Norwegians — brought words which enriched the language greatly. In northern parts of England the new invaders’ words predominate much more than in the south, exposing the north–south divide; and the accents too, from what linguists tell us — the Yorkshire, the Northumbrian, the Geordie, the Cumbrian — reach back to the sounds of the men in those longships whose peerless shipbuilding crafts enabled them to launch themselves as far as America and into the Mediterranean.
