Racamento, rizo, bolina… Nautical Terms of Nordic Origin.

Abstract

During the Viking-age, the Nordic people sailed over oceans and up rives in Europe and beyond. They entered the Mediterranean Ocean, sailed to the Black Sea, up to the Northern Icy Ocean and across the Atlantic Ocean. They went up the Guadalquivir river to Seville in Southern Spain, down the Seine river to Paris and along the Russian rivers to Constantinople. Their knowledge of shipbuilding and navigation enabled them to travel by sea ostensibly without any hindrances. In the period of expansion they travelled widely and settled down in some places e.g. England, Ireland and Northern France. The visitors soon assimilated to the society where they had settled but not without leaving traces in the respective language and culture. Hence, today we find words of Nordic origin in English, Irish and French, especially words related to ship construction and navigation. In this article we deal with loanwords from Old Norse that were borrowed into Spanish via French, words of rigs, sail and mast.

Keywords: rigs and sail, nordic languages, romance languages, Spanish