Talk:Vikings

Germanic tribe

Vikings are not just Norsemen, they are first and foremost Germanic peoples. This should be added. And they did not "assimilated into the French culture" but of course into the western Franks (West Francia) culture. -- 91.66.15.17 (talk) 01:56, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, no, there was NO people called vikings. It was just the germanic word for pirates, before the latin word pirate started to get assimilated into the germanic language. There were DOCUMENTED vikings which were arabs, and the very first documentation mentioning a viking in the old english language was Philip II, king of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great. Dan Koehl (talk) 08:58, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

A clarification. The Norse of the Viking Age (what many simply refers to as Vikings today), were descendants of North Germanic tribes. In particular the Danes and the Swedes. You might have a point about Franks, can you fix it? RhinoMind (talk) 05:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

The Norsemen did not 'assimilate' into Frankish culture. On the contrary - the reason there is a distinct Scandinavian culture is that the Frankish expansion was stopped at the river Eider in what's today Northern Germany. erik.bramsen.copenhagen 193.169.154.65 (talk) 07:16, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi. I think User:91.66.15.17 is talking about the Normans? That was how I read his comment. But it should of course be clarified what he was referring to exactly. RhinoMind (talk) 10:32, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Were the later Danes any different from the earlier (Saxons, Angles and Jutes = Anglo-Saxons), or just all in the same ongoing process?

Another aspect is that the Saxons, Anglesand the Jutes were of Danish/Germanic tribes on Jutland and todays Holstein (united with Denmark until 1864), whom settled in large parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages and formed the the merged group of Anglo-Saxons that would eventually carve out the first united Kingdom of England. Hedeby that was the centre of the danish Vikings is located in Angeln and a major question is if the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons were any different, just like cousines. It could be seen and just different waves of the same process that wnet on for some hundreds of years? The major difference was rather who should be the boss and who writes the history? The Normans establishing in Normandy is a much different issue. If not a mellenium, because the ability for Ceasar to take Gaul and later most of Great Britain was to prevent Germanic tribes to take over such Celtic areas, where the Celts in fact prefered the Romans. The Danes (Saxons, Anglesand the Jutes) were pushing on Britian already then. It is a accurate quation if there were any difference or just an ongoing process of waves and just different personal management? Zzalpha (talk) 06:01, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@Zzalpha: Hello. Yes, this is very interesting stuff! Yes as you describe it, the Vikings raids and settlements can be viewed as a continuation of the migration period, but they travelled much further than before and their raids and settlements were much larger in scale as well. The Vikings were also different from the Angles and the Saxons. They had different religions, different Gods, different language, different cultures and they were in conflict with each other. The Vikings were neither Jutes nor Danes, as these tribes came before the Vikings and their culture, but the was Jutish and Danish genes in the Vikings no doubt. RhinoMind (talk) 20:45, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I think a problem in this theme is that the labels Angels, Saxons, Juts, Danes, Vikings are made after their existence and they just looked upon themselves as tribes and "business" enterprises/risk investments to use modern terms. The Angels, Saxons, Juts were originally all having the same religion as the Vikings later, but became Christian in England, and were pretty different when the Vikings came from what they were arriving 400-500 years earlier. So are we compared to our 17th century ancestors and especially people in the US are quite different from our ancestors moving there 100 years ago. My grandpa had 6 brothers and sisters and 5 went over and he when later back. But I think they were of the same bloodline, and modern DNA studies would be interesting to see? After the Viking age national states were forming in their area and Southern Jutland Holstein is today Germany and Schleswig is shared by Denmark and Germany since 1919. But the Dukes of Holstein (House of Oldenburg)became the kings of Denmark from 1448 and still is in power, and Holstein was an integrated part of the Danish reign even though Holstein was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Angeln is a specific area and they spoke old Low German and the difference between that and old Danish North Germanic languages were most likely not bigger than they could understand each other. Question is if we can distinguish old Jutes (settled in Kent) being related to Danes or Germans, I think there were no exact definitions in those days? I think the only major difference between the Anglo-Saxons were only arrival time. There were old and new Vikings fighting about power in Alfred the Greats time, and the Celts were there seeing them all arriving in different waves. In fact Ceasar most likely stopped them from taking over Britain and France already 50 BC, that was according to Ceasar the reason of his intervention in France. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzalpha (talk • contribs) 00:51, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

non-literate?

I don't understand this:

• "Although they were generally a non-literate culture that produced no literary legacy, they had an alphabet and described themselves and their world on runestones" If they were an alphabet, then are they not a literary legacy?

IceDragon64 (talk) 21:13, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi. This issue has been debated intensely above. I dont blame you for not reading everything on this very long talk-page though!

Some help: Read the words very very carefully a few times and it will all become clear. Non-literate means that you dont produce any literature. il-literate means that you are not able to write. The Vikings had an alphabet and used them for their runes, but they have not left any literature for future generations. Just runestones and stuff like that, and runestones are not considered literature. Hope this helps you?

RhinoMind (talk) 00:46, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, a few of the runestones have literary inscriptions: the Gripsholm stone is probably the most well known. There are also other surviving poetry that is dated to the Viking era. However, this is nothing specific to Vikings but rather Norse people in general.

Andejons (talk) 16:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Do you have some link or refs to this "Norse poetry"? Sounds very interesting. Besides, it would be great if we could document, that some of the the Vikings runic inscriptions, are viewed as literature. RhinoMind (talk) 18:43, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Old Norse poetry - but beware, as the manuscripts (where it's not stones) are generally much later, & the dates given the actual poetry may be rather speculative. Johnbod (talk) 19:22, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Review and new ratings

Hello everybody. I think it is time for new reviews of this page and perhaps new rankings? A lot have changed and been added since it was last examined. I am not sure if the page will get any better rankings, but a new review would be appropriate nevertheless. Whatever the outcome, the page could greatly benefit from a solid formulation of what needs to be done in order to make it more Wikipedia-like. I am not necessarily thinking content, but more style issues.

However, I dont know much about how to attract qualified users to make reviews, so perhaps some of you had suggestions for how to proceed with this?

Cheers.

RhinoMind (talk) 12:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

• Topic: the use, origin and meaning (etymology) of the word Viking.

Its a good initiative, and I agree that it would be good if the page could be rewritten for new rankings.

The problem though, as I see it, is that the article is not consisting, contrary to the german article its unclear about what, who, or which the article describe. The real vikings, a present misinterpretation, etc. I object very much to be described as descendant to vikings, the sentence the term frequently applied casually to their modern descendants gives a picture to what I mean. Theres no evidence whatsoever that Im a descendant of vikings, while of course Im am a descendant to Norsemen. If noone starts to cleanup from the beginning, with a definition on what the subject for the article is, it will suffer from a major handicap. Dan Koehl (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

This is now on the "to do" list then. The issue has been raised and discussed thoroughly in several previous threads on this talk-page. I advice new readers to dig and read up on this, before commenting on this specific issue here.

The (reffed) info I have put up, is talking from the POV that "Vikings" means "the people of (or originating from) Scandinavia during the Viking Age". This POV/definition can also be equalled to "the Norse people during the Viking Age", to incorporate the broader term Norse. Here Norse mean the people of Scandinavia, without any specific historical era in mind, although it is sometimes limited to the people of Scandinavia originally practising the Norse religion only. Reading a few of the refs and surces that are up now, will make it clear.

Nevertheless it is of course important to discuss, that outside Scandinavia itself, "Vikings" traditionally defines "raiders and settlers originating from Scandinavia". This should be explained in a section dealing with the meaning of the term and name Viking. I think it is up already? As you Dan (and others) have pointed out, "Vikings" has traditionally even been used as a general term for raiders, without regard to their ethnic or geographical origin at all. This should also be explained of course. There are many meanings apparently, depending upon the context and the worldview of specific authors. RhinoMind (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes and no @RhinoMind: (thanks for your efforts to increase the quality of this article), I wouldnt say it has been used even as a general term for raiders, without regard to their ethnic or geographical origin, it was never used for anything else than that until some fifty years ago. And it was until fifty years ago never used as a term for traders. I have argued for that Viking was the old-english translation of the latin word pirate. The word pirate was never used in any literature from this time. And as I have verified elsewhere, Alexander the greats' father, Philippus II of macedonia, was the first to be mentioned as viking, the oldest documentation of the word viking, that I have found in any medevial document. Philippus was of course far away from living, or being born in Scandinavia. But he did commit piracing for some two years, according to the sources. Latin: Piratae= Oldenglish: viking. Dan Koehl (talk) 02:17, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add that an important step for the future of this article could be an effort to globalize the article. Regardless if some british and US people presently believe that vikings were a tribe of people with ancestry from Scandinavia, this is not the case for millions of asian, african and southamericans that user the english language version of Wikipedia. For them the present article invent vikings from Scandinavia, while they would probably benefit much more from a neutral point of view, where the prime sources are given the emphasis describing and explaining who vikings were, rather than a populistic and highly commercialized interpretation since the fifties. I belive all articles should be globalised? Dan Koehl (talk) 20:16, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2014

Georgia Herron and Amber Gurdler have proof that vikings were real ily Georgiaeditalot (talk) 02:59, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 03:17, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The extensiveness of the term 'viking' concerning ethnicity

The subject of defining the term 'viking' is treated in a recent book, "Fibula, Fabula, Fact - Viking Age in Finland" in which the relevance of its appliance to solely Scandinavians is questioned. The book focuses on Finland and it is asked whether or not the Finns of the late Iron Age can be labelled vikings. The same concerns, I suppose, e.g. the Baltic and Finnic peoples inhabiting the Baltic Sea region and largely having a shared cultural sphere with the Scandinavians. Of course, borderline cases raise questions but may therefore be of special interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.33.47.87 (talk) 16:42, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Interesting point. As far as I know the Finnish culture was distinctively different from "the viking culture". And the same applied to the Slavic cultures of the eastern and southern regions of the Baltic sea. Of course cultures also mixed in those days, but I am still confident that many cultural distinctions would have been obvious. Such as language, art work, religion, gods, social structures and even to some degree genetic distinctions (much more so than nowadays). But our knowledge and understanding of the Viking Age is growing and changing day by day. There is so much going on right now. Would love to read the book. RhinoMind (talk) 17:05, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

By the way. How to interpret and use the term "Viking" has been discussed intensely above. And it appears that there is not a singular consensus on its use. RhinoMind (talk) 17:05, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know where was no wiking culture at all. Until 1900, no prime sources ever connected vikings to any ethnical tribe, nation, country or culture. The word means pirate, and pirats may be from just anywehere. As I have stated before, the first documentaion of the use word viking is when it used for the macedonian king Philip II of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the great. Dan Koehl (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yep, had you in mind Dan :-) ...and both then and now, we are all human beings living on a tiny planet. We cannot run from that fact, by putting labels on each other. RhinoMind (talk) 17:19, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Female Vikings?

This article contains almost no information about women in Viking settlements.(Other than a reference to jewelry, as far as I can see.)

I would be interested in learning more, especially about the supposed existence of shield maidens, and the fact that women traveled with their men.

I realize there may not be much information available, but I think at least one section of the article should be devoted to men.Malkee (talk) 06:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)malkeeMalkee (talk) 06:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Female Vikings?

This article contains almost no information about women in Viking settlements.(Other than a reference to jewelry, as far as I can see.)

I would be interested in learning more, especially about the supposed existence of shield maidens, and the fact that women traveled with their men.

I realize there may not be much information available, but I think at least one section of the article should be devoted to women.