Yes, this is interesting! ‘Wer’ (meaning ‘man’) came from Old High German with the Anglo Saxons 1,500 years ago, and was part of Old English. It then became ‘were’ in Middle English and remains as part of werewolf (‘man wolf’) in modern English.
Well, the vikings reached the east coast of what is now Canada in around the year 1,000, but they were Norwegians, not Danes. They never got any further than New Brunswick, but who knows, if they visited Florida perhaps they would have stayed…
In these dark times it’s great to see the Danes responding to unpleasant orange chauvinism and bigotry with dry humour. It kind of deflates the mafia boss’s self importance.
I’m watching series 7 of a Danish TV programme called Badehotellet at the moment and it struck me that the Danish sense of humour it portrays is very much like the British, full of irony and self-deprecation. If they could buy the UK as well I’d be extremely happy.
No, not off the top of my head. But English is roughly half French/Latin and half German, with some Norse and other influences thrown in. Wer or were sound Germanic, so then a little Wikipedia help filled in the details.