1345: kaiser Aug 17, 2018

Even though the Norse were never colonized by the Romans, there was still linguistic influence that the Romans had on the West and North Germanic tribes. In the early centuries of the Dark Ages in Europe, Latin—or recognizable variants thereof—was still spoken in former provinces of Rome. The Norse people were in close contact with some of these peoples, most notably creating the Normans: French speakers descended from Vikings. This is how the title ‘Kaiser’ is the Germanic title for an emperor (and not ‘König’) has roots in Old Norse—‘ keisari’—but comes from the Latin ‘Caesar’, with related words in Middle English and Dutch too.

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