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The present article is a summary of the book English: The Language of the Vikings by Joseph E. Emonds and Jan Terje Faarlund. The major claim of the book and of this article is that there are lexical and, above all, syntactic arguments in favor of considering Middle and Modern English as descending from the North Germanic language spoken by the Scandinavian population in the East and North of England prior to the Norman Conquest, rather than from the West Germanic Old English.

The Viking Hypothesis neglects (i) the significant degree of stability from Old to Middle (and even Modern) English grammar and (ii) parallel, but independent, developments not induced by North Germanic in the grammars of continental West Germanic dialects.

The conclusion seems inescapable, if the facts in Emonds & Faarlund are more or less right: Middle English would be the outcome of a shift from West Germanic grammar to an eccentric form of North Germanic grammar.

Emonds & Faarlund have brilliantly demonstrated that the syntax of English owes a great deal to the syntax of Old Norse, and more than has generally been thought. This is genuinely significant. But, from a variationist perspective, the difference of nomenclature—“North Germanic” rather than “West Germanic”—is not.