in form with their Scand. cognates and have consequently been
considered loan-words. See §23.


20. O.E. _ā_ AND O.N. _ÆI_. HOW FAR WE CAN DETERMINE
SUCH WORDS TO BE OF NATIVE OR OF NORSE ORIGIN.

Certain Eng. dialect words in _ē_ corresponding to O.E. _ā_
have been considered Scand. loanwords. We have, however, seen that
in the north O.E. _ā_ > _ē_ just as did O.N. _æi_ (_ei)_. How
many of these words are genuine English and how many are loanwords
becomes, then, rather uncertain. Wall argues that the Norse words
were always in M.E. spelled with a diphthong, while the genuine
English words were spelled with an _a_--thus _bain_, _baisk_ from
O.N. _bæinn_, _bæiskr_, but _hame_, _stane_, _hale_ from O.E.
_hām_, _stān_, _hāl_. If this were always the case we
should have here a safe test. It is, however, a fact that in
Scottish texts at least, no such consistency exists with regards to
these words. The following variant spellings will show this: _hame_,
_haim_, _haym_; _stain_, _stane_, _stayne_; _hal_, _hale, hail_,
_hayle_; _lak_, _lake_, _laik_, _layk_; _blake_, _blaik_, _blayk_,
etc., etc. There is, however, another way in which to determine
which of such words are loanwords and which are not. In Southern
Scotland in D. 33, and in Northwestern England (D. 31), O.N. _æi_
and O.E. _ā_ did not coincide, but have been kept distinct down
to the present time (see Ellis's word-lists and Luik, 220, 221). In
these two dialects O.E. _ā_ developed to an _i_-fracture (see
§16.2), while O.N. _æi_ never went beyond the _e_-stage, and remains
an _e_-vowel in the modern dialects. Here, then, we have a perfectly
safe test for a large number of words. Those that have in D. 31 and