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True meaning of the word viking

I would say ALL prime sources from Widsith until some 50 years ago, only mention Viking as translation for the latin word Pirat. Since then, it has been misused, which only leads to confusion, and is an intellectual dead alley. Nothing good will come out from misusing medevial terms like that, and its much more imortant that Wikipedia clear this out for visitors, rather than taking part of a myth. I link to Swedens Statens historiska museum – (Museum of National Antiquities) http://historiska.se/upptack-historien/artikel/vilka-var-vikingarna/ which with a google translation from swedish reads "The word viking is mentioned on a few runestones from the period and usually seems to mean some "pirate". It was not the name of a people or group. The vast majority of people did not call themselves so, but lived a peaceful farm life."

In reality the word is only mentioned on six runestones in Sweden, five as name on persons, and on one single stone in the entire country, Assurs stone as noun, and then contrary to what many people wold believe, because Assur was a guard AGAINST vikings. Even a child can understand that a guard against vikings, is not a viking, and should not be referred to as such. Dan Koehl (talk) 17:54, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Already the intro in the article Vikings, is completely false, claimg vikings were traders. Vikings, as any pirate, can not be labelled as tradesmen, (or any civil profession) because tradesmen doesnt perform piracy: Egil Skallagrimsson: Björn var farmaður mikill, var stundum í víking, en stundum í kaupferðum; Björn var hinn gervilegasti maður. (english: Björn was a great traveller; sometimes as viking, sometimes as tradesman.) Anyone could shift activity, from trade to piracy, but this doesnt mean that the terms suddenly change meaning, a viking was a viking WHEN he was on viking, and he was atradesman, when he was trading, and a shepherd, when he was herding sheep, and a baker, when ha was baking bred commercially. The term vikin was a time limeited term, for a spcific activity, piracy, nothing else.


Vikings, as any pirate, could origin from anywhere: The first documented use of the word viking is made by Orosius, written in latin, and translated into old english. There is to read about Alexander the Great´s father, Philip II of Macedonia: Philippus vero post longam obsidionem, ut pecuniam quam obsidendo exhauserat, praedando repararet, piraticam adgressus est. translated into: ac he scipa gegaderade, and i vicingas wurdon. In this time the word pirat was not used in the english language, the latin piraticam was directly translated to vicingus.

Sagas from Iceland mention arabic pirates who attack ships owned by northmen, and those pirates are referred to as vikings.

Vikings, as any pirate, can never be used as a label for someone who is not viking, like a scandinavian who defend his land against viking raids, or a king who chases away vikings from his land: Harald I of Norway At last, Harald was forced to make an expedition to the West, to clear the islands and the Scottish mainland of some Vikings who tried to hide there.. (the original text says in english translation:

King Harald heard that the vikings, who were in the West sea in winter, plundered far and wide in the middle part of Norway; and therefore every summer he made an expedition to search the isles and out-skerries (1) on the coast. Wheresoever the vikings heard of him they all took to flight, and most of them out into the open ocean. At last the king grew weary of this work, and therefore one summer he sailed with his fleet right out into the West sea. First he came to Hjaltland (Shetland), and he slew all the vikings who could not save themselves by flight. Then King Harald sailed southwards, to the Orkney Islands, and cleared them all of vikings. Thereafter he proceeded to the Sudreys (Hebrides), plundered there, and slew many vikings who formerly had had men-at-arms under them.

-King Harald would never agree that he was a viking-king, he was, like probably 99% of scandinavians were, fighting vikings.

Dan Koehl (talk) 18:02, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Isn't it already in the article? "Viking" is an ambiguous term in the modern understanding of the word, and it is already explained in the article as is. RhinoMind (talk) 20:31, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

"Ombudsman" from Old Norse?

In the "Literature and Language" section, the word "ombudsman" is included with the list of English words stemming from Old Norse. The word is Swedish, which indeed has Old Norse roots, but the use of the word in English is much more modern. Merriam Webster states 1959 as the time for the first documented use in English. Remove? PikeWake (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I am sure Webster was reffering to the modern use and meaning of this word. Originally it means "a representative" and you can read more about it if you click and go to the Ombudsman page. We could make a note of that here in the article perhaps?
That being said, it wouldn't do any harm if some sources on the history of the use of "ombudsman" in the English language was dug up. But that information should first and foremost go in the Ombudsman article, not here. RhinoMind (talk) 20:04, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
The word first entered use in Sweden in the 1800s. The first recorded use in English is from 1959. The Swedish word is derived from the Old Norse umboth (commissioner) and mathr (man). It ultimately traces back to the Proto-Germanic ambhi (around), bheudh (to make aware), and maðr (man). There is no evidence it was ever used as one word in Old Norse. Information can be found at Merriam-Webster as well as other online etymology pages. Zaereth (talk) 20:20, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Just click and read the Origins and etymology on the Ombudsman page. Please. RhinoMind (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
If there is any problem with reliable references and sources, it should certainly be raised on the Ombudsman page, not here. RhinoMind (talk) 20:56, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't use Wikipedia as a reference. I love etymology and the study of the English language. However, in my opinion, unless there is a particular reason why a certain word's history should be explained (for example moose), then there is no need to discuss it at all. An encyclopedia is about things, not words. (Dictionaries are about words.) I don't know of any particular "controversy" surrounding this word. Far more interesting are those without any origin, such as "bird" or "dog" Zaereth (talk) 21:21, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Hi. As I said, if there is a problem with the Ombudsman article and the information there, raise it on that page, not here. If there is wrong information on that page, I think it should be changed, don't you?
Many pages on Wikipedia have an etymology-section and so does the Ombudsman article. And that is a great idea with a broad consensus. And then there is the Wiktionary as well. This TalkPage is not the right place to discuss if there should be etymology-sections or a Wiktionary. RhinoMind (talk) 00:35, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable, but since I don't watch that page (nor have ever been to it) I'm not likely to care. If someone asks a question and I can answer it and provide sources, I will, in the hopes it may help them go fix whatever it was that was bugging them. If you would like to repeat the same thing to me again, you can. Zaereth (talk) 02:29, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

I can easily imagine how this issue could develop into a time-consuming editorial discussion. I don't think it is worth any of our time really. If the "ombudsman" word continue to be controversial, let us replace it by the word "Window" instead. That is my suggestion of saving us all time and still keep the article interesting with solid information. (PS. if you are interested see this list which is also ref'ed in the article List of English words of Old Norse origin) RhinoMind (talk) 21:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear. I am fully aware of the etymology of “ombudsman”, but the etymology is not the issue here. In an article about Vikings, Old Norse words that have remained in the English language since the time of the Vikings are relevant. However, I can’t see how more modern loans from Swedish, like “ombudsman” or “smorgasbord,” have anything to do with the Vikings. I agree that “window” would be a much better example. PikeWake (talk) 12:29, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Hi. I don't agree with neither of you guys on the correct understanding of the etymology of "ombudsman", but I'm relieved we could short-cut the quarrels and find a working substitution, instead of cropping the article. I have inserted "window" now with a wiktionary link. RhinoMind (talk) 20:42, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Runestones

There is no mention of the distribution of the Runestones of the vikings. I would suggest adding this to the article somewhere around the subject of Runestones. 'The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: Denmark has 250 runestones, Norway has 50 while Iceland has none.Sweden has as many as between 1,700 and 2,500 depending on definition. The Swedish district of Uppland has the highest concentration with as many as 1,196 inscriptions in stone, whereas Södermanland is second with 391' Pipboy900 (talk) 19:40, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Pipboy. What we need to add this information are reliable sources. (Please follow the link I provided to see what Wikipedia means by that.) You seem very knowledgeable, so if you have access to such sources and would be so kind as to list them here, perhaps someone can make the changes you want. Zaereth (talk) 20:04, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
I object, rune stones were made by Norsemen, which is the correct term for the group of Scandinavian people who made rune stones. Not one single rune stones is documented as done by a wiking. Its like separating what the nazis did, and what the germans did. You wouldnt just submit a lot of things just ordinairy germn, ito the article about nazists? And therefore, since there is an article about Norsemen and norse people, that is the natural place to write about their culture, and such parts of it, like runestones. Dan Koehl (talk) 20:15, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
If what you're saying is true (either through OR or sources that say no sources exist)then in my experience a request for sources is usually the end of it. (By the way, any other analogy...) Zaereth (talk) 20:34, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
@Pipboy900: Hi. Yes that is an important piece of information and is well worth elaborating on. An editor recently deleted a paragraph in the Runestones-section dealing with this issue because the stated reference didn't contain the information it was supposed to, according to that editor. I have reinstalled the paragraph with a "citation needed" tag now. The information is true and important, but it would be a great help if someone could provide a workable reference. I don't have the time for this, nor an available library of Viking books, but it is an important task nonetheless. Maybe you could help out on this? RhinoMind (talk) 21:09, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Blogs

I see that some of the information you gathered for this article are from blogs. Are these blogs written by scholarly authors? Brynlauren23 (talk) 18:57, 28 November 2017 (UTC)Brynlauren23

Please be more specific. Only then can someone look into it and make proper changes if needed. RhinoMind (talk) 22:31, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

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Location of Viken

"Various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken (or Víkin in Old Norse), meaning "a person from Viken"." The southeastern part of Viken is Bohuslän which now belongs to Sweden, so it might be good to have that added for a clearer geographic location. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.228.252.54 (talk) 01:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi. I think it would require an improvement of the Viken article first. With solid references and hopefully a map showing the extent of the now defunkt Viken district. At present it is unclear what exactly Viken covered. When this basic issue is solved we can make proper changes in this article. All-in-all though, I find it a very very small issue. But if you really feel it is important, then just go ahead with the project by all means. RhinoMind (talk) 03:48, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
And good contemporary references to show this idea has current academic traction - I've never seen any. Johnbod (talk) 14:46, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
King Philip II of Macedon had no affilation to Viken at all, neither the arabic pirates defined as vikings, in the story of Sigurd the Crusader. This is old, uninteresting remains of some old guys playing with words in front of their house-fire 50 years ago, and those sticky rests of pseudoscience still gives the article viking an obfuscated character, far away from the clear, describing encyclopedia. Its time to take a step forward with this article. Please... Dan Koehl (talk) 21:56, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

The Vikings didn't reach the Americas

The Vikings didn't reach the Americas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.71.32 (talk) 22:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

The Greenland Saga describes the establishment of the Norse settlements in Greenland and Vinland (Newfoundland). There is plenty of archaeological evidence to support it. Mediatech492 (talk) 12:21, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Viking in what perspective?

I think we should be aware of that the concept of "Viking" appeared in a non-governmental (no nation or national army) very different legal situation (no standardised law, no police, no formalised education system) and to a large extent very similar to the Wilde west in US in the late 1800ies.

Is a Cowboy an agricultural worker or a gunman? Is a Viking in trade or robbery?

Reading the Njáls saga gives a very good hint on how Scandinavian societies were appearing, managed and under what conditions the "Viking" appeared. It is a very good action novel.

The Viking world is where there is no government and no nation, everything is something like a business project where someone makes a suggestion and others joins. Even law is handled as business damages to be covered if you fail in handling the situation (by force or money). And this is seen as quite normal if you do enforce you rights (gather enough support for you and your project). This means that having the right friends and being rich/physical powerful (able to rent friends with weapons) helps life a lot. If you are poor it is a job opportunity. If you are rich and powerful enough you could even put up armed trading posts like Birka, Hedeby, Kungahälla where you controlled and earned more money (silver in weight) by running it. But still it is no government or nation, it has no institutions. As in business today many business topics tend to make rich people richer. And the business project varies from small to huge and some even including the exploit of huge lands like the Danelaw or taking over a government like in Kievan Rus'. Still they are business projects with the aim to gain money (or private land)

When there are no governments there are no nations or nationalities, only different projects (bands of people). Talks like "Oeselians / Estonian / Finnic Vikings" is a combination of something 1000 years ago and concepts the last 300 years, in fact nonsense. People at the Viking time saw only other people with other business project than themselves and if they spoke Norse, Slavic or Finish language at home was not of anyone’s concern. Everyone spoke the languages that worked in each situation. It was a communications issue rather than a group issue. As we see in Kievan Rus' they just didn't care.

What was another world was the Christian world of governments, and that was what the church was selling to the business people of the Viking age and eventually enlisted them all in. We all became subjects of governmental nations. Constantine the Great constructed a church as the institutional fundament of governmental nations (the Roman world lacked before and Rome were before a huge constant business enterprise). The end of the Viking age was the end of the Wilde west character of the appearance of life. When Christian institutions were being fixed points in peoples life, there were no more Vikings. The parallels to the Wilde west are very clear and it ended when the US institutions took control over the society and the common man.

Being on Viking is being active participating in a business project of that time in that society, it was not belonging to a nation or an army but just being part of a business project. Large and strong enough the project could do about anything and be seen as absolutely normal. If nobody can get you by force, nobody could.

Vikings could impossibly be brutal. Because on the other hand what the Nazi Germany and especially the SS and Himmler (them all admiring Vikings) was not possible concepts for a Viking because there was no government and no nations and the SS-tails was not even possible to think of. But robbery and killing to rob was a normal business project opportunity if you were strong enough to get away with it. So the main drive for revenge is to make it unprofitable by to much costs. Not very different to merchant projects with any kind of incomes and costs.

Living in a world based on only a huge number of projects it forms very different perspectives on the daily life than the perspectives we have in very well organised governmental sociaties. We can't describe Vikings from our experiences. Without this understanding the environment of the Viking concept, it is totally impossible to understand the drive and the thoughts of the "Vikings" and what a Viking was.

Very typical is the story about Great Heathen Army 865 the Danelaw with Guthrum and the Anglo-Saxons with Alfred the Great, it was a business conflict between Danes/Germans and Danes/Germans of different generations. Angeln=England is today in Germany on the border to Denmark. The Anglo-Saxons came 400 years earlier from today Denmark and Holstein, as the Great Heathen Army did, absolutely no difference in family/cultural roots. The main difference was that in 865 the Anglo-Saxons with Alfred the Great were institutionalised (in the Catholic church) in a governmental nation Sussex. Alfred the Great being there for the honour (political power), as they got in the end. But the Great Heathen Army with Guthrum was not, they were on a business enterprise, there for the money (private land possessions) as they got in the end from the project. But Cnut the Great did the same thing and he was a king of a governmental nation, conquering another nation, not on a business project as Guthrum.

So huge parts of the discussion are completely invalid and the article should make larger concerns of the perspectives of a Viking than it does.

--Zzalpha (talk) 03:57, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

No clue what you're driving at, but you seem to make a lot of presumptions. The term "Viking" as it is used today differs from the word as it was used in antiquity, because, like all language, the meanings of words change over time. ("Gear", for example, originally meant "habits or mannerisms" in Old English. By Middle English it came to mean "arms, supplies, or goods carried by a person". During the Industrial Revolution it came to mean "any internal workings of a machine". It was only in the last century it came to mean "a wheel with interlocking teeth".) No encyclopedia or dictionary has ever been able to control the changing language; if they did we'd still be speaking Old English today.
Governments existed during the Viking age and even amongst the Vikings (both versions). Anywhere you have more than two people in a group a hierarchy (literally: rank in governance) will form. Even (and especially)) in businesses, someone will be the boss and others will follow.
Every government is a business organization. Why do you think so many people spent so much time and effort conquering England? To change their religion? No, it was because England was one of the only places in Europe with abundant stores of tin, which in ancient times was a very valuable resource. Governance can be as small as those found in a single household, to the ancient city-states, to full-blown empires. The concept of a country-government is really one from the Middle Ages, and you could say that the Viking as raiders (from the era defined as the Viking Age) were just a little behind the times. (A wise man once said, "You must judge a man by the standards of his time, not ours." (or something like that) --Mark Twain) And even on a pirate ship, someone had to maintain order and discipline, find funds and provisions, and keep everything from descending into chaos. So if you're saying that Vikings are defined by being the only true anarchists, or just businessmen without any leadership, this would be quite mistaken. (Oh and by the way, "cowboy" then and today means "someone who drives cattle across the open range to deliver from ranch to market".)
At any rate, this article is based on reliable sources, not original research. We don't add our own theories to the article, we rely on reliable sources to do that. If you have any that support whatever point you're trying to make, please feel free to present them here. Zaereth (talk) 05:49, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
I am driving at Vikings is in general a concept of just business opportunities and private business enterprises. and not much else.
* Because there wasn’t much else in Scandinavia to do at the time.
* Because it is essential to understand the Viking concept, or should this Vikings article be one of tails?
* Because it is a very interesting study object to understand the world of today

1.) No, there were no governments in Scandinavia before Christianity, we need to understand Viking perspectives

You write there have been business projects in all history. Yes, but definitely not governmental institutionalised governments everywhere in the past. Rather rare empires being institutionalised governmental bodies. As we rather read the Bible than other very old texts the Jewish institutionalised governmental body with religious integration make us believe it was the common thing. But in a Roman perspective the Jews were exceptional?
There were only larger and smaller business projects (including controlling land and people), there were no tax or institutions, in the Norse societies in Scandinavia, Baltic and Russia. However there were in Kievan Rus', that was a Greek Christian governmental institutionalised state. But from a Viking perspective it was just a factor of private business opportunity, to rule Kievan Rus' offered to them, and Vikings saw it as a business enterprise body and nothing else. It is important.
Vikings did not conquer they were running business with no institutional concept. Institutional in the sense that there is a meaning of it self to keep governmental functions running, like police, courts, tax etc, as a framework for business. No Vikings before becoming baptised saw any need for such frameworks, rather as hinders of business, like some US politicians today (with kind of romanitic Wild west business views). Most of us find such US politicians dangerous because most of us trust the institutions, Vikings didn't (until they got baptised and that menat accepting the institutions, and they did not suddenly becoming religious).
The really interesting part to study of the Viking phenomena is that there were no (Viking/Norse) state, government or institutions at the beginning and it ended when it got it.

2.) What I am driving at is that what "Viking" means, is not an issue of languages but dependent on perspectives.

  • From an Catholic institutionalised British small state meeting the Vikings in the years 800-1000 it could definitely be seen as an invasion from another nation "The Vikings".
  • But from a Scandinavian Norse local view there was no institutional government or nation so the first view is impossible. Not being a state, nation or government, a national conquest is logically impossible. Also impossible to talk about things like Finnish Vikings, because everything was just “business adventures” and people in general. There were no nations in their world. Concepts of “national” evil that we have seen the last 1000 years and especially among the Nazis are logic impossibilities in mind for a Viking. The often today (in 18000ies national romantic terms) referred view in the name of the local English meeting the “Vikings”, is from a Vikings perspective impossible and an outside perspective incorrect view.
The word Viking in Scandinavia 1200 years ago was used as “To go in Viking” meaning “participating in a business adventure away from home”. From a Norse view the word those going on a "Viking" train is a business adventure group among other groups of people. "Vikings" as nations of rulers in Scandinavia is a pure national romantic invention of the 1800ies. Issues as robbery and killing was completely different concepts in Norse right (the Thing (assembly) and in Catholic courts Roman law, enforcing it was also completely different when there were no governmental force. (read Njáls saga to get a feeling for it). And the phenomena "Viking" ceased to exist when Scandinavia started to get controlled by institutional governments. The package sold by the Catholic Church to rich powerful "Vikings" was, if you embrace the Catholic church and its institutions we support you as the ruler, the King, and we rule together with common power.
The question is in an English Wikipedia page, ‘’Should Vikings be described in the view of monks in Lindisfarne 793 or from a the perspective of those who came to Lindisfarne 793?’’ Is the article there to make the reader understand the feeling of the monks in Lindisfarne 793 or understand what drove those who came to Lindisfarne 793? Trying to explain the drive behind what the after-world see as “Vikings” and how it ended as mysteriously as it came.
  • They stayed and are still there being a huge part of the genetic roots (DNA) of the British nation.
  • In contrast to Cnut the Greats conquest that lasted 25 years and left about nothing for the future.
That in fact the entire project of the Great Heathen Army 865 was completely successful, they fulfilled all objectives. The objectives were to get private land (for farming) and money as a business adventure away from home, a true “Viking trip”. The Great Heathen Army 865 was not in England as a nation on conquest of a number of other nations.
And it is not remarkable that the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum came quite easy and for the circumstances smooth because Alfred and Guthrum had different objectives and they could be unified as soon as Alfred could accept they Danes were there to stay and Guthrum when it was obvious the Viking business concept was successful and could not be expanded anymore. The initial opportunity for enlarge the business concept ceased to exist. Both parties were content. The basic reason for its smoothness and success was that the Great Heathen Army 865 was no conquest but a business enterprise. Not realizing that there entire view of Vikings will be completely twisted.
This articles title should be Viking and not Vikings because Viking is a concept of being on a business enterprise way from home by a Norse and not a name of a nation. Even though from a the view of the monks of Lindisfarne 793 they were. But the concept of Viking should not be made from outside in an English Wikipedia article despite the view of the monks of Lindisfarne 793 were English of that day.

3.) The Anglo Saxons were Danes/Germans, the same thing.

I think it is also important to see that there are no ethnic difference between Anglo Saxons and the Danes, Angeln=England and Hedeby is like Suffolk and Norfolk and 400 years. In fact the only difference was that the Anglo Saxons were governmentally institutionalised and the Danes of the Great Heathen Army 865 were not. What from a initial view of them and us, became a unity. The people in East England and South West England today are not different? It is not even an issue of absorbing another nation. It was from the point of mutual acceptance (the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum) the same. The cousine from Denmark came late, and then everything continued as usual?
Note that it is remembered as the Great Heathen Army 865 and not as the Danish invasion, because the Danes did not invade themselves and the only distinguishing factor was Christianity, not in a religious view but in an institutional perspective? Certainly from a Anglo Saxon regarded as a huge robbery band that in the end accepted the Christian intuitions and became subjects, like any. Guthrums baptism did not have a religious context, only he accepted the institutions of government of the Catholic church, the Pope in the end decided who to be king. Guthrum as the leader of the business enterprise got what they were there for land, they stayed, became subjects.
It is in our completely institutionalised world hard to see the perspectives of the past.

4.) The importance of the Church as the fundament of governmental institutions.

There are articles of Christianity as a religion in Wikipedia.
But Christianity as an institutionalised governmental paradigm (that the Catholic and Greek Church was selling for Kings rule) is for people today by far more important than the religion. ‘’It is the fundament of all sovereign states in the world today. Governing by institutions and law.’’
The concept had its roots like the Christian God in the Jewish culture, the factor that made the Jewish nation to exist and survive 2000 years of diaspora. But what the Byzantine Empire with Constantine the Great did was taking it over and making it a fundamental instrument for governing the empire and organizing governmental institutions.
The Roman Empire was governed as a huge stack of business projects of exploitation of conquered lands getting out of steam about year 300. Exactly the same concept as the Great Heathen Army 865. There were no easy targets left and there was a need for something else to hold the empire up in a political view. So the Christian governmental institutional concept was created at the First Council of Nicaea and the pact of government (King/Emperor) and Church, defining them both, have ruled the world for 1700 years.
The issue of Islam was that it was impossible to make a Christian confession to God without confessing to the Emperor in Constantinople, by the confession becoming an Imperial subject. So to cut the Imperial rule they have to invent a variant. In Islam’s case quite a radical different variant on the same concept. And supporting local rulers rather than the Emperor, also being more or less non-“Episcopal” in a concept of independence, oppose theocracy (that was the name of the game in Constantinople). The Roman Catholics were more subtile distinguished themselves from the Greek Orthodox Church in minor differences in the Creed. And similar differences distinguished the Lutherans and the Anglicans towards the Roman Catholics. It looks like religion but it is all politics and who are in control of the governmental institutions of a state. Making it much easier for us to understand international politics today.
The Vikings are very interesting in the sense they in fact did not have a state, government or institutions. The Norse society was organised like a huge stack of business enterprises. Land is fixed property and so the business enterprises of land are kind of permanent business projects.
With the Vikings we can very clearly study a society with or without state, government or institutions and the process of introducing them and the huge change. In England with the Great Heathen Army 865 we can study the process in quick terms. In Kievan Rus' we can study the perspective of treating a state with governmental institutions (and a Church) from a pure business enterprise view.
And with Cnut the Great we can study about the same thing as the Great Heathen Army 865 based on completely different objectives and fundaments.
And the Henry VIIIs Anglican church project is in the same theme. It give us very clear picture of a situation when Rome/the Pope becomes political obsolete, an obstacle for the political ambitions (mainly the control over the business project of North America in competition with Philip II of Spain and Spain (where the divorce theme becomes obvious bollocks)). How the governmental baring paradigm of the Catholic Church of Alfred the great becomes obsolete, in a moment of completely different perspectives, and how the Church reinvents itself.
I think the aspects of Vikings as an issue of non-institutionalised sociaties and institutionalised is far more important than the view of the monks of Lindisfarne 793.

5.) The Viking business in the east was much larger

The basic trade of Arabic Silver coins from Arabic Persia over Gotland island in the Baltic sea was most likely by far much bigger in business volume than anything else attributed to the Vikings, and continued for ages.
Pirates in the Mediterranean sea made trade (of silver) difficult to the east during the Viking era so the trade took the northern route over Gotland. The trade was to supply the West European kingdoms (France) with silver to coin. The Mongol invasion of Europe and unrest in the Russian Steppe making travelling by ship to the Caspian sea too dangerous, ended the trade, the business opportunity ceased.
Silver in weight was the general trading currency of the Viking age. Gotland Museum fornsalen is full of silver treasures of Arabic coins and so is the Swedish History Museum Gold room. This because there were no banks in the Viking age, but to dig possessions into the ground for safety. And when the owner died nobody knew where. Visby was a prime silver trade hub until about year 1100. (Private use of Metal detectors are strongly forbidden in Sweden and especially in the Gotland island.)
The Swedish Vikings (Swedes (Germanic tribe)) were going over Russians floods to the south Caspian sea to the Arabic Persia to trade goods for silver, goods they brought from home or got on the way, to get silver from the Arabic Persians (mined in Northern Persia at that time). From there they went to Visby in Gotland that was the huge trading hub of Arabic silver coins. From the west came Danes and Western Europeans with goods the Swedes needed home and bought in Visby for the silver. The silver ended up in Western Europe. And it is no coincidence that Ingvar the Far-Travelled ended up in Persia and Armenia because it was the general trade route (even though it sounds far away).
I think in general Viking articles tends to talk about the spectacular appearances like the tails in Icelandic sagas (stories by the fire wood in the Viking age written down 200 years later) and the experiences from outside like in England or adventures in Constantinople and the Varangian Guard paid in gold (that is rare in Swedish soil). The Icelandic Vikings were quite few, but with the Icelandic sagas (one of few inside documentations of Vikings) and the importance of America they got a larger share of the concept of Vikings today. And it is true that not much is left in the East today, but traces in the ground. But still the Viking trade in the east was the main Viking business theatre.
I think an article of the Vikings should focus on the volume of activities and not on the spectacular stories and the Arabic trade to Persia should have a far larger part of the Wikipedia article of Vikings. The trade of Arabic silver is also most likely the main contact of Norse and Wester Europeans during the Viking age and not robbery Viking trains. But people tend to write home about the specular rather than the common.
I think what is the common concept is what should be describes mainly in a Wikipedia article .

--Zzalpha (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

  • I largely disagree with what you are proposing, although many of your points have some merit. Wikipedia's coverage of vikings cannot fit in this one article. This article is a brief overview on the subject only. Yes there could be more written about trade, that is in Trade during the Viking Age. I disagree that there were no government institutions in Scandinavia prior to Christianity. For example; the Alþingi predates the Christianization of Iceland by almost a hundred years. It is recorded how the parliamentary format was changed to allow for the new faith. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 16:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)~
  • Disagree. Not one single Viking is mentioned in prime sources as traveling in the east, and the words "Viking business in the east" are totally fabricated, they don't reflect any kind of supporting text in the sources. The people who traded in the east, which you refer to, was the Norsemen. Dan Koehl (talk) 13:06, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Egil's saga, chapter 36: "Björn og Þórólfur [...] fóru um sumarið í víking í Austurveg". [1] Andejons (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 September 2018

Facilitated by advanced sailing and navigational skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Following extended phases of (primarily sea- or river-borne) exploration, expansion and settlement, Viking (Norse) communities and polities were established

Third word from the end should probably be politics, not polities. Could also be policies. I don't think the Vikings were considered "polite", haha. Rayray7488 (talk) 17:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Rayray7488 I have investigated, it is not a typo of politics. Maybe the vikings were polite but it's not that either.
Polities is a rarely used word, plural of polity meaning "An organized society; a state as a political entity."
I have changed the word to 'governments' which is a more easily understandable modern word with a similar meaning. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 17:33, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Polities is not an antique word nor particularly obscure. We even have an article: Polity. Rmhermen (talk) 05:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Viking childhood

Doesn't fit alone as an orphan, would be better in the Vikings article. It's out of context by itself. RafaelS1979 (talk) 23:06, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

@RafaelS1979: It would IMHO be better to merge Viking childhood into Norsemen. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 23:18, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Could be a good idea also, I just think Viking childhood should be incorporated to a greater article to be relevant. RafaelS1979 (talk) 23:49, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree that if this is going to be merged, merging into Norsemen makes more sense. That said, this article could easily developed as a great standalone article. The subject is clearly notable, as indicated by extensive, dedicated scholarly research like Carol J. Clover, ‘The Politics of Scarcity: Notes on the Sex Ratio in Early Scandinavia’, Scandinavian Studies, 60 (1988), 147–88 (on infanticide); Sally Crawford, Childhood in Anglo-Saxon England (Stroud: Sutton, 1999); Susanne Thedéen, 'Who's that Girl? The Cultural Construction of Girlhood and the Transition to Womanhood in Viking Age Gotland', Childhood in the Past: An International Journal, 1 (2009), 78-93; the work of Deirdre McAlister (https://nuim.academia.edu/DeirdreMcAlister); etc. So I suggest this article be allowed to grow and develop :-) Alarichall (talk) 08:13, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello. This topic should be discussed on the Viking Childhood TalkPage, not here.

I don't think the proposer suggest to merge under the common title "Viking childhood", but intends to merge the Viking childhood page into this one? RhinoMind (talk) 15:27, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Ah, yes. thanks for the reference. It is a weird procedure, but well... there it is. RhinoMind (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
I think the idea is to post it at the larger article to entice more replies than the more obscure article ... but I could be wrong. Zaereth (talk) 19:05, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
It is simply because it's this article that would be affected by the additional content being added. Although as it's over 11,000 words already I don't feel like we should be adding more. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 19:10, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

It looks like we can remove the merge suggestion. It's been here for a long time and has garnered little support. I'll do it now. Alarichall (talk) 16:23, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Have noticed many links to Vikings changed to Norsemen all over. Although I agree the term Norsemen would be preferred in my view..... I am very concerned with the link change due to a POV of a term. I am very disappointed to see people change a link from a huge main article with hundreds of scholarly sources for research purposes to an article that barely scratches the surface of the main article. I would have no real problem if people had changed it like [Vikings|Norsemen]..but to link to the inferior Norse article just because of a term preference is disheartening to say the least and a grave disservice to our readers. So should there be a talk about a name change/merger? Do we need to review incoming links to make sure we our leading our readers to the right article with all the info and sources dispite the title of the page? --Moxy (talk) 04:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

@Moxy: There has been a lot of talk on the subject, at Talk:North_Germanic_peoples#Requested_move_1_September_2018 and Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Norsemen and Talk:Norsemen/Archive 1#Requested_move_14_July_2018. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 08:40, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Non of those address the issue of link swap. Will just go around and fix the last round of link changes.--Moxy (talk) 11:31, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
The NPOV noticeboard thread most certainly does. Johnbod (talk) 16:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it has been a recurring issue, also raised here on this TalkPage many times. The link swaps though has not been addressed as far as I know. The whole issue seems to stem from political controversies in Sweden. Sweden has a problematic history with nazism and the extreme right, both are widely celebrated ideologies, even today. Some of these groups cherish the violence and brutality of the Vikings, and this in turn has "ostracized" the very word and term Viking in popular Swedish culture. Anyway, Swedish political problems should not be used to influence Wikipedian entries such as this for example. Self-evidently I would say. RhinoMind (talk) 15:58, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Actually I don't think that's the background at all, as far as Krakkos is concerned. He sees the world through a solely ethno-linguistic lense, and has a fairly long history of fiddling with categories, articles and links to direct an incredibly wide of articles to inappropriate ethno-linguistic ones. It's not that he doesn't like "Vikings" or "Norsemen", it's that he wants everything to go to his new North Germanic peoples. How that fits in with far-right politics in Sweden or anywhere else is not for me to say. But he has been just as much of a nuisance at "Iranian" and "Indo-European" topics. Johnbod (talk) 16:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
When trash talking me in front of other editors, the honorable thing to do would be to add a notification. That being said, there is considerable overlap between the article Norsemen and this one. Much of the article Norsemen is merely a fork of the other names section in this article, while most of this article is not about Vikings (seafarers, warriors, pirates etc.) at all, but rather about the culture and history of all Norse (North Germanic) people of the Viking Age. Krakkos (talk) 14:05, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I instead suspect it's because popular medieval historians on YouTube have been debunking misconceptions about vikings. Specifically I found these somewhat recent videos where they argue that "viking" is reserved for the Norsemen/Scandinavians that are partaking in a raid: (Lindybeige [2] - 310k views), (History with Hilbert [3] - 160k views), (Overly Sarcastic Productions [4] - 170k views), (Metatron [5] - 120k views), (Skallagrim [6] - 1.5m views). I doubt that these creators are particularly influenced by contemporary Swedish politics. Skoskav~enwiki (talk) 21:31, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Although I agree with you that Norseman is a better term then Vikings...you keep saying the term Vikings is for only raiders.....this is simply incorrect. Vikings were mainly farmers that occasionally went on raids and even settled some lands and cultivated that land. Would be like calling all members of Roman barbarian societies warriors.--Moxy (talk) 00:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
I must admit that I have a difficult time parsing your disagreement, but I suspect that's because we define "viking" very differently. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that Viking is mostly a synonym for Norseman (a group living in Scandinavia). I am instead saying that a viking is a Norseman as they are performing a raid, and when they are finished with the raid they resume a life of, say, farming, and is now called a farmer.
My main gripe with this wiki article is that it seems inconsistent in defining vikings. The introduction says "Vikings were Norse seafarers, [...], who raided and traded," as if "viking" was an occupation/activity of the Norsemen, but then goes on to talk about topics such as viking language, viking farming, viking sports, etc. as if "viking" was an ethnic group. I think that those topics seem to better fit the Norsemen wiki article. As for my sources for thinking this way, these were brought up by the user Jerry Stockton and I on Talk:History_of_Greenland#Vikings_as_farmers_and_settlers Skoskav~enwiki (talk) 07:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Sources like Youtube and Myth Busters are not very reliable sources, and often require debunking of their own. (For example, Myth Busters did an episode where the "proved" the tale of Archimedes burning up enemy ships with mirrors was impossible, but countless myth busters in the past, including Comte de Buffon in 1747, showed that is was indeed possible and relatively simple.) People tend to view these things with only a modern reference to what is or is not socially acceptable, forgetting that our standards of today didn't really exist back then, nor theirs now. Without understanding the world they lived in, as a point of reference, it's impossible to understand them. (This is often a huge problem in understanding history, as an example, figuring out the ancient metallurgy of Japanese swordsmithing, because we tend to impose our own ideals onto other cultures and times as a point of reference when those ideals didn't exist there and then.)
The brutal "raider" idea of the Vikings is really something that most of northern Europe was engaged in until the Middle Ages. It was really no different from the warring city-states of southern Europe --no more brutal than the Greeks invading Troy or the Romans in Judea-- just without the cities. The movement of "civilization" to the north occurred due to a new innovation that didn't exist back in Roman times: the growing and storing of hay. This allowed the raising of cattle, which allowed cities and eventually countries to form up in the cold of the north. The Viking raiders of the medieval era were sort of like last hold-outs of a time that had faded away. Not "primitives" (as they would say in Middle English), but not quite up to the times of medieval standards either. Something like people dressing up like cowboys and robbing trains via horseback would be today. I've heard some compare them to the Spanish conquistadors, except the Viking conquerors were now faced with an overwhelming, united force that prevented them from lingering.
Language is a funny thing, though, and we don't refer to all Spaniards as Conquistadors, but perhaps that's because Conquistadors never invaded England. Vikings did invade England and had a huge effect on the language, which is likely why they were so romanticized in England later on, just as cowboys and the Old West (a profession and era that lasted about 30 years) is so romanticized in the US even today. "Viking" however did become synonymous with "Norsemen", and we just have to deal with that. It may change in the future, possibly due to things like Youtube, and when those changes become commonplace in the language we can adapt, but we should not try to usher those changes ourselves. Zaereth (talk) 00:53, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
"Sources like Youtube and Myth Busters are not very reliable sources"
Sure, but much like Wikipedia it depends greatly on how the statements made relate to their sources. Note that I was not using these YouTube videos as sources, but merely pointing out where this controversy might have gotten its recent popularity due to their convincing arguments. Skoskav~enwiki (talk) 08:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
The Víkingur were raiders and explorers from Scandinavia. The people themselves were Norsemen. The terms are not equivalent. What has happened is that over time the English language has expanded the term vikings to include all aspects of the Norse people, even though it originally referred to a one profession. This is an accurate reflection of how the term is used in English, even though it is largely incorrect. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 10:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
That seems like a reasonable description for why the Vikings article covers all aspects of the peoples. However, what would seem to follow from keeping with this definition is that both the Norsemen and Vikings articles would be covering the same topics. Norsemen then becomes redundant, and would be removed or merged into Vikings. Skoskav~enwiki (talk) 17:04, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Not exactly. English uses "the term vikings to include all aspects of the Norse people" outside Scandinavia, but less frequently to describe them on home ground. This is not entirely unreasonable, as Norse/Viking expansion began with raids and invasions, and remained pretty violent for a long time. So the terms are not exactly the same, even in English. Nobody talks about "Viking literature" for example. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
I think Johnbod's description is very apt. That's pretty much the way I've always understood it to mean when I was growing up. We don't usually hear of Viking literature, with the exception of a few runic writings here or there. However, we do often hear of Viking mythology, which was based upon, and probably the closest thing to the Proto-Germanic mythologies. With the exception of some druidic cults here or there, this was the primary religion is England, and much of northern Europe, for a very long time. The only real records we have of it are the Eddas, which were not written by a Scandinavian at all, but a Christian scholar apparently interviewing a Viking king. (Interestingly, in the very beginning of the Prose Edda he tries to tie everything to both the Christian religion and the Trojan War.)
I was always fascinated by them when I was a kid, even though my ancestors were Welsh (the Natives of England, who were driven across the mountains onto a reservation). Their prowess as warriors was legendary. Their effect on the language was enormous. (There were literally thousands upon thousands of Scandinavian settlements in pre-Middle Age England. We often only hear about the Angles, the Franks, the Brits, the Romans and the Saxons, but more than half of the most common words we use everyday are Scandinavian; those languages are even more identical to English (thus easier to parse through) than English and French. Even many of our holidays, including Christmas, are filled with Viking traditions, such as singing carols around the yule log, exchanging gifts, or getting up early to find gifts left by "elves".) I think we do a disservice by trying to downplay the brutality, horrors and atrocities of the past, especially if they seem shameful now like slavery is to the US, because that really delivers an idealized view of history but gives none of the learning points. At the same time, amongst all of the violence, people did still lead their everyday lives too, which is something we should also show, because it wasn't all death and destruction. Zaereth (talk) 00:11, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I wasn't sure if your reply was directed towards Frayæ or me, @Johnbod:. If it was towards me, then I apologize for this late reply. Regardless, you make a reasonable point about the "viking" term's use in modern English. I do however have a few issues with that:
1. I don't consider this article to adequately explain that it's going to be using this modern extended definition. The introduction does say "The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age." - but that sentence alone seems too vague for an implicitly chosen definition for the rest of the article. Further down in the introduction it is stated that "[...] the term frequently applied casually to their modern descendants and the inhabitants of modern Scandinavia [...]," but this definition of the term is not applied in the article, even though it seems equally vague (swap "commonly" with "frequently").
2. You say that the term "vikings" in English "includes all aspects of the Norse people outside Scandinavia," but the quote I pulled from the article's introduction above explicitly includes the inhabitants of Viking home communities, which often are inside Scandinavia. This article also goes on at length about e.g. runestones and burial sites inside Scandinavia. If I understood your definition and the article's correctly, they seem incompatible.
3. I am unable to find a definition online that matches your definition. Some sources I could find only define vikings as Norse/Scandinavian seafaring warriors/raiders,[7][8][9] while some include a secondary or tertiary definition as the very broad "Scandinavian,"[10][11][12] and then Wiktionary[13] has a tertiary colloquial definition that equates them to "Norseman," which goes back to my earlier query as to whether the Norsemen article currently is redundant, and should be merged into the Viking article. Skoskav~enwiki (talk) 20:01, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
"Vikings" and "Norsemen" are not synonyms. "Viking" is not an ethnic term. "To go viking" was to go on sea raids. Norsemen, among themselves, used the phrase "to go viking", meaning to go on sea raids. Other ehtnic groups besides norsemen were also sea raiders and used the exact same boats, living in very similar villages / societies. Example: North germans and Oeselians. The entire article is horribly un-scientific right now, mixing ethnic "norse" topics with topics about "sea raiders in northern europe". Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
So the question becomes - does "viking" as a word nowadays only mean northern sea pirates who were ethnic norsemen? In that case it differs from what norsemen themselves thought. "Vikingr fra Esthland" was a common occurrence in the Heimskringla sagas for example. There is no proof of any Norse inhabitat in Estonia from those times. If "Vikings" can only be Norse, then should there be another article about sea pirates in northern europe? On what basis were the Oeselians not "vikings", if the ethnic norsemen themselves referred to them as "vikingr"? Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
How many times do we have to go round this? In modern English, as the article explains, "Vikings" can be an ethnic term. Whether the Anglo-Saxons or Irish etc had strong views on the ethnic composition of the people massacring them is unclear. One suspects the Viking groups themselves did not adhere as rigidly to racial or ethno-linguistic purity within a band as some modern people seem to think - certainly the evidence from archaeology is that they mixed pretty rapidly with the natives of the British Isles. Johnbod (talk) 16:37, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Are you able to link scientific sources which claim that "Vikings" specifically *needs* to be an ethnic term? Who said that? Especially when there's conflicting proof. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:05, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Blomsterhagens: Nor is there any proof of there having been ethnic Estonian people living on the islands off the coast of present day Estonia, all that is known is that those islands had a majority Swedish population from the earliest medieaval records to around 1940. Making it more probable that references talking about "vikings" on Ösel and Dagö refer to Scandinavians than to Estonians. Which is why your attempts to add Estonia/Estonians to the article have been reverted... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 16:44, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
First off, there's ample proof that people living on Ösel were Finnic people. If the heimskringla mentions "vikingr fra esthland" and there's no proof of Norse habitat on Ösel but ample proof of Finnic habitat on Ösel, the burden of proof lies on you if you want to remove them from the article. You then mention Estonian Swedes. I myself am an Estonian Swede. Estonian Swedes came to Estonia a couple centuries after the end of the Viking era. Third - I have already been in contact with a professional researcher on Viking history on this and they agreed with the claim that Oeselians should be mentioned. She also sent me two sources on this, which I have not yet had time to process. Source 1 ; Source 2. Drawing ethnic borders around only Norse people like there's some sort of a special right to half a millenium of Northern European history is just horribly ignorant and unfair. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:05, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
To add: You are basically claiming that Oeselians were Norse. This claim has no proof and in general is a fringe / unsupported view among scholars. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Things like this have of course nothing whatsoever to do with being "fair". We go by what the majority of reliable sources say, and opinions that differ from the mainstream view are given whatever weight they deserve, which can range from a short mention to not being mentioned at all, since WP:NPOV says that articles should include "... fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" (my emphasis). With "proportionately" and "significant" being very important, since it means that if the opinions you want to add to the article are expressed only by a small minority of scholars you can't expect them to be included at all. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 17:28, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
What you just wrote supports mentioning Oeselians in its full extent. There is a general consensus on Oeselians being Finnic people. I would invite you to add a single line of proof about Oeselians being Norse. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
To add: There is no widespread view among scholars that Vikings were only Norse, excluding other ethnic groups. You are claiming that there is a consensus on something where there isn't. Norsemen were the predominant ethnic group among what today are Vikings, not the only / singular one. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:48, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Your link to a search for "oeselians" on Google Scholar isn't proof for there being "a general consensus on Oeselians being Finnic people", it's just a random collection of links to papers and what-have-you mentioning the word "oeselians"... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 18:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
If you believe Oeselians were Norse, which is a fringe view, you should be able to show a source claiming that. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:07, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

This is merely a repeat of an earlier attempt by one user to push a WP:FRINGE viewpoint back in May, 2018. (See the section on this page "Oeselians/Estonian/Finnic vikings") above. The user makes broad claims of evidence to support his opinion, but has so far proven incapable of offering anything substantial. Mediatech492 (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Are you capable of refuting any of the claims made above? There's nothing fringe about sourced material. What's "fringe" is the claim that Oeselians were Norse. And the sourced material on viking ethnicities has been referenced a couple lines above. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:07, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Ok, I will. There is nothing in the sources you cited above which supports your claims. In fact, sources you provided, like this one say exacly the opposite of what you're saying. This is called the fallacy of false attribution. You have a number of other logical fallacies in your reasoning as well, including but not limited to etymological fallacy, fallacy of division, appeal to authority, false equivalence, historical fallacy, Inflation of conflict, incomplete comparison, inconsistent comparison, kettle logic, and onus probandi. Zaereth (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I concur with Zaereth above. Not one of the "sources" cited by Blomsterhagens qualify was WP:RS. No more refutation is required. Mediatech492 (talk) 21:09, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't know who you guys are arguing with. So the Danish archaeologists are wrong and you know better? :

Årbog for Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, Århus 2012:

"The aim of this article is to take a critical look at the term “Vikings”, both as it was used in the time now referred to as the Viking Age, and as it is used today. It will also examine the degree to which Scandinavian activity during the Viking Age can justify this name being given to the epoch.

With regard to the term “Vikings”, it is pointed out that, from the term’s earliest known occurrence in Anglo-Saxon glossaries around AD 600 up until some point in time around 1300 when it seems to disappear from the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian languages, with Icelandic as a possible exception, it was unequivocally used in reference to pirates. In this respect it had no ethnic or geographic connotations but could, in Anglo-Saxon or Norse sources, be used in reference to anyone who behaved as a pirate, anywhere: Israelites crossing the Red Sea, Muslims encountering Norwegian crusaders in the Mediterranean, Caucasian pirates, Estonian and Baltic pirates in the Baltic Sea. Accordingly, a “Viking” was, in the earliest sources, not yet synonymous with a Scandinavian.

Furthermore, those who have attempted to derive an etymology for the word have omitted to take into consideration that at an early stage – in the first centuries AD – it was borrowed into Slavonic with the meaning: hero and warrior. Consequently, these attempts were unsuccessful.

After having disappeared as a living word, it subsequently emerged from obscurity when Danish and Swedish historians began to compete with respect to creating the most glorious past for their respective countries and, in the process, became aware of the Icelandic sagas as a possible source. However, these historians no longer understood Old Icelandic and had to have the texts translated. The year 1633 saw the first major translation into Danish of Snorri’s Heimskringla. It is apparent from this that the translator was convinced his readers would not know what a “Viking” was. Consequently, explanatory additions were inserted at virtually all its occurrences. These clearly demonstrate that, for the translator, the word still meant pirate and was, as yet, still not synonymous with a Scandinavian.

A “Viking” first became a Scandinavian with the advent of Romanticism, primarily thanks to the two Swedish poets Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783-1847), with the poem Vikingen, and Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846), with his new version of the Old Norse Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna. With the publication of these two works “Viking” became for the first time a household word and was now used exclusively in reference to Scandinavians; with this meaning it rapidly spread to other languages. Around the middle of the 19th century the word also began to be used in this sense by archaeologists and historians.

Soon the word “Viking” also became linked with the term for a period, the Viking Age, a period which was characterised by increasing Scandinavian activity outside Scandinavia. As the archaeological evidence could not, at that time, yet be dated with any precision, it was the evidence from written sources with respect to attacks on monasteries in the British Isles towards the end of the 8th century AD which, just as is still the case, came to mark the beginning of the Viking Age. While the written sources are today more or less the same as they were in the 19th century, the archaeological record continues to expand rapidly and the potential for dating is constantly being refined. As a consequence, we now know that Scandinavians were active both in the British Isles to the west and along the East European rivers long before the attacks on the above-mentioned monasteries.

Although the activities of Scandinavians in the east have never played a major role in general Viking studies, it is perhaps there that they had their most radical consequences for posterity.

Dendrochronological dates now show that Scandinavians settled at Staraja Ladoga around AD 750 from where, at an early point in time, they continued along the Volga towards the Caliphate. Later, however, towards the end of the 9th century, the route along the Dnepr to Byzantium became of greater importance. It was here that Scandinavians, known as “Rus”, by establishing military bases intended to safeguard the trade route and, by forging alliances with the local populations, established the principality to which they gave their name and which subsequently became Russia: Undoubtedly the most marked consequence of Scandinavian activity during the Viking Age.

These trade-related bases, together with several rapidly growing trading places in the Scandinavian and Baltic areas, were part of a major long-distance trade network which conveyed goods between east and west. A characteristic feature of these trading places was that, apart from the local population, Scandinavians were the only group to be represented at more or less all of them. It seems that this long-distance trade network was based around Scandinavians. If justification is to be found for Scandinavian activity giving its name to an epoch in European history it must be in the form of this long-distance trade network, rather than war and plunder. At the same time, the temporal boundary for this period should be shunted back to the early 8th century.

It is clear that our use of the term “Vikings” in reference to Scandinavians of that period is erroneous. In principle it should, in a research perspective, be abandoned in favour of “Scandinavians” or narrow contemporaneous ethnically- or geographically-based terms. But is this possible given that “Viking” has today become one of the most successful brands for Scandinavians and Scandinavia, and with powerful associated commercial interests?" Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:11, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

All of this info is about etymology, which is the study of the history and morphology of words --including their changing meanings-- through time. It's great only for an etymology section. At the same time the word "deer" meant "any kind of wild animal" including wolves and bears. Are we using that word incorrectly, now referring only to stags? Should we be calling the moose an elk, because a few English settlers followed by Lewis and Clark got it wrong? Should the glass article only refer to silicate glass, because the scientific definition is too recent and includes things like plastic and porcelain? Dictionaries are about words, but encyclopedias are about things, and we have to consolidate those things under commonly used names using easily understandable terminology.
The second problem with this source is that it is a primary source, requiring some expert knowledge of etymology in order to interpret correctly. This is why we prefer secondary sources to be used, or, at the very least, back up the primary source. College papers written by a professor are usually considered "fringe" until they become accepted in the mainstream enough to warrant a secondary-source article (usually more than one) somewhere. Zaereth (talk) 22:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I agree that this fits the etymology section well. I also draw the following conclusions from this text and the preceding arguments: 1) The norsemen of the era whom we now call "vikings", used that word for anyone who behaved like them - that is, a sea pirate, irrespective of ethnicity, including the "Estonian pirates". 2) The norsemen built a significant trade network over the centuries. 3) 18th century Scandinavian romanticism revived "Vikings" in a new definition, creating a heroic national myth focused only on the norse ethnicity. 4) Seafaring norsemen are now a successful brand under "Vikings". 5) Since "vikings" has been used now for norsemen only, all other groups who lived the same lifestyle and whom the original norsemen called Vikings, are to be excluded from the definition. Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I would say we should avoid drawing our own conclusions, because that is called synthesis. Instead, we add the facts and notable opinions from reliable sources and let the reader draw their own conclusions. I would also keep in mind that the modern definition of "pirate' differs from its original version, usually referring to the commandeering of ships while at sea. (More relating to "hijacker" than "invader" or "plunderer", conjuring up visions of Blackbeard. It's highlu doubtful that Viking engaged in piracy by the modern definition, because that really required the invention of the ship-borne cannon. There's a reason I use the more-accurate term "raiders" to refer to that particular activity.) I agree that the Viking Age was really a time of great transition for Europe (as the entire Middle Ages were), and that the whole concept of nations or nationality was slow to spread to Scandinavia and the Baltic, but even the source you mentioned (and I pointed out) above states that there were marked cultural differences between the peoples of east and west, with the dividing line primarily between the Scandinavian and Finnic peoples (such as a feudal form of governance in the west and a more corporate structure (not a business but a form of governance called an oligarchy) in the east. Not to mention,as Johnbod pointed out above, that "Viking" in English rarely refers to the people of the country we call Norway, but generally to those settlers, invaders, and raiders (Norsemen, or "people from the north) who came from Scandinavia (and mostly from the fjords of Norway) to not only find booty but start up their lives in a new location, a process they engaged in long before the Viking Age). There's a reason they were so romanticized in England, because quite frankly they are as much our ancestors as the rest. These linguistic changes are always determined by society as a whole, and no dictionary or encyclopedia has ever been able to influence that. Zaereth (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Let's summarize this back to the main points. So far there seems to be three different and sometimes contradicting claims made by different editors. Claim 1) "Vikings" had an ethnic meaning already back when the word was used by the norsemen we nowadays call "vikings". - This claim is easy to refute, even the current main article claims otherwise with ample sources. "Viking" was not an ethnic description. It defined anyone partaking in an activity. Claim 2) Anyone defined as "viking" in the viking sagas must have been Norse. This is the example of Philip of Macedon or Oeselians. None were Norse. This is also refuted by relevant sources, starting with the Danish archaeology report above. Claim 3) Even if there were people of non-norse ethnicities whom were called "vikings", we are not allowed to list them in the article on Wikipedia because "vikings" has now assumed an ethnic meaning and a viking can only be strictly "norse". Claim 1 and Claim 2 are refuted by sources. Claim 3 - Not sure what to say about that right now. Seems to be a "mainstream usage" claim. Which obviously does not prohibit listing "non-mainstream usage" history from relevant sources. (PS: "Norse" is not a synonym for Norway or Norwegians. No relevance here.) Blomsterhagens (talk) 00:31, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but your logic is flawed. (And I don't mean that to be rude, but it's not attacking you personally to refer to the logic of an argument. Sometimes it's the easiest way to show someone that something they actually believe is not based on sound reasoning.) I'll list them in order: 1.) Etymological fallacy, but the overall use of this is called a red herring. 2.) This is called the fallacy of the undistributed middle. 3.) Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (with this, because of this) or a variation thereof called "reverse causation" and "causal oversimplification." The problem is that not one of your sources specifically call these peoples you name "Vikings". I read through them, and none say it in any shape or form. You allude that may have been called that by the inhabitants of Norway, but what does that matter? (An etymological fallacy, because it has nothing to do with English.)
You are trying to define the etymology of the English language by using a non-English perspective. This is why we need reliable, secondary sources. I don't wish to prolong this discussion, so I'll leave it to others, but would suggest reading some books like A History of the English Language by Elly van Gelderen, to help put in into an English perspective. This is the English Wikipedia after all. (PS: "Norse most certainly is a synonym, infact that's the very definition in the dictionary, the Norwegians or especially their language.) Zaereth (talk) 01:31, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
This is not productive anymore. See Norsemen. You're now contradicting both yourself and the main article. I will start a new thread later with the latest state of things + sources. Blomsterhagens (talk) 08:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, @Blomsterhagens:, during some 8-10 years I have made similair remarks, and just been unpolitely neglected. Your efforts are badly needed, and important. The present article is not NPOV, and even if the article is written with Anglo-American_focus it should still reflect verified truth, and facts, and not a common misunderstanding, who vikings were. I believe that Project Countering systemic bias]] may be useful, in order to update this article so it better reflect the scintific status, as well as abetter international balance, when it comes to the definition of the word Viking. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:52, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I concur, the definition of viking used in this article is entirely Anglo-American focused and contains no real analysis of the international usage. The fact this is the English Wikipedia does not mean all subjects should be seen only as English words. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 12:07, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
On a second note, It should be highlighted that the article Norsemen, which IS an accepted term for Scandinavian people during Viking age, has suffered from the "comic-strip" definition of Vikings, and therefore lacks substantial information, which partly is mixed in the article Viking. The result; a confusing home-made artificial product, that neither reflect the original meaning of the word, or the scientific point of view, but merely reflects myths and misunderstandings, by ignorant people. IF the misunderstanding is so common IN UK and USA, as described, then how can we help the future generation to better knowledge, if disinformation is repeated in an encyclopedia? It is our responsibility, to see to that young readers should read the articles Viking and Norsemen, based on verified and scientific knowledge, rather than being victims for biaseduneducatedcated POV Dan Koehl (talk) 12:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
It has been debated elsewhere to make North Germanic peoples the main topic. There has been a lot of resistance to the idea so far, but there is detailed content in the article. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 12:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Thank you both for the support. I agree that Norsemen is the article which should have the actual scientific content on Scandinavian people during those times. When it comes to the definition of "Vikings", we should research what the current prevailing definition is in academic literature. It is definitely not "norse seafarers" like the article's current definition suggests. It sounds like something from a Netflix show. The real definition could be something along the lines of: "Vikings" in its current mainstream use is an 18th century romanticist national myth of norse seafarers. The term did not have ethnic connotations among the norsemen themselves. Blomsterhagens (talk) 12:56, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
This sort of talk has been going on for years among our Scandinavian readers. Experience shows that when comes to actual page move nominations etc, the native English-speakers arrive, and stick more or less to the status quo. This is the English Wikipedia, and current usage in English wins out, as it should. You might reflect what the British Museum called its big exhibition in 2014, and what that covered - "The Vikings" - see the web feature. And Blomsterhagens, please stop saying "scientific" when you mean "historical". Johnbod (talk) 13:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
In which case Dan Koehl's links for countering systemic bias and anglo-american focus are very much relevant here. Even if this is the english-language wikipedia, as was said by others, it should not propagate ignorant myths just because it's the prevailing view. So at the very least, secondary views need to be brought in. Blomsterhagens (talk) 13:23, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
This is, as several other editors have already pointed out to you, the English language Wikipedia, and articles here should reflect what terms mean to native English speakers, not what terms might mean to people who are native speakers of other languages. Just like articles on Wikipedias in other languages should reflect what terms mean to native speakers of those other languages... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 13:40, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
You are wrong. Please read Anglo-American_focus ; Project Countering systemic bias Blomsterhagens (talk) 13:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
No, I'm not. This has nothing to do with "cultural bias", but about what words mean in the English language (definition of Viking in the Oxford Dictionary: "Any of the Scandinavian seafaring pirates and traders who raided and settled in many parts of north-western Europe in the 8th–11th centuries"). - Tom | Thomas.W talk 13:56, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

This is a problem. No one is arguing the dictionary definition. But the different interpretations of what constitutes a Scandinavian are varied and deeply conflicting. It is also noticeable that this article goes far beyond discussing only the seafaring pirates and traders. I claim that "vikings" is being used to describe what Krakkos would describe as North Germanic people. This for some reason is excluding Russ vikings and other groups not centred on Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. I think it would be beneficial to debate which groups should be defined here as viking, and maybe hold a straw poll on this to define the scope of the article. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 15:46, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

"Scandinavian" creates the same issue as "Norse". Oeselians were also called "vikings" by the Norse vikings. So what are we going to do about that? "Norse" or "Scandinavian" only works in the context of the 18th century national myth. Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
No it doesn't. Scandinavian is correct, but your definition of Scandinavia is too limited. The current article is only about Norse Viking's, but what about Finnic Vikings, Estonian Vikings, and Russ Vikings? I understand there is even evidence for Karelian Vikings. If this article is only about Norse Vikings, then that should be noted. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 17:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
It would also be a good idea to see if we can get some good sources on the subject. Estonian vikings are featured in The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, but only occasionally mentioned since. There are only a few recent archaeological studies I am aware of and I don't think Edgar's book is considered reliable. Arguing for inclusion of information is one thing, but there needs to be something to include. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 17:27, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I absolutely agree on including Finnic vikings (Estonians are Finnic). You can refer to the talk page on Oeselians for references for example. But I don't understand how Finnic peoples can be Scandinavian. "Scandinavia" is generally a very specific geographic term that does not include Finnic countries. Neither does "norse" as an ethnicity. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:29, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Another good source from Yale University: "Ólaf’s uncle Sigurd discovered Ólaf by chance and noted how Ólaf’s appearance was markedly different from the native Estonians." ... "The approach here is intentionally subjective, favoring the case of one side: those who spoke or understood the language of the Icelandic texts - the Norwegians, the Swedes, and the Danes. They are the protagonists of these tales; the people of the East are the foes to our heroes, and are therefore the villains in the narrative. But on taking a closer, more objective view, what else can we see? We can’t read the speech or musings of the Estonians, so their case can only be made through their actions and reactions according to the Norse texts. We see that they are at times Viking aggressors, but just as often they fall victim to Norse Viking aggression. They take slaves, but they are also taken in slavery. And aside from linguistic differences, what are the significant points of separation? We are reminded several times that there are physical differences between the Norse people and the Estonian people, but we aren’t clearly told what they are. The Norse are often depicted as fair or light, but the Estonians aren’t explicitly noted for having a dark complexion; next to nothing is stated about their appearance. We see a similar shared raiding culture, and a pursuit of resources. But the line between East and West is not distinct. It is possible to assert that the Austmarr itself, the Eastern Sea is the line of distinction. But no such line of distinction is drawn between Icelander, Faroese, and Norwegian, where it can be easily argued that the geography of water separates them far more than does the Swede or Dane from the Estonian. I would propose the idea that kinship binds, but that a binding agent to kinship is language, and the corpus of literature which both comes out of the language and defines the parameters of the language over time. In this way, the literary tradition gains central importance to defining kinship over a large span of geography. Minus the rich body of tales and heroic poetry maintained in the Old Icelandic, it is possible that the collective Norse kinship and the Baltic otherness might have been mitigated and blended into something more homogenous over time." Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:36, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I was thinking more about what their history was. So far I know little about what they actually did. What are some of their notable raids? What countries did they invade and what wars were fought? Who were their significant leaders? That sort of information. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 21:28, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I believe "Battles and raids" chapter under Oeselians gives a basic overview which is mainly from the Icelandic and Danish literature. There have been several long books written on them in Estonia, I need to write a referenced summary from those books. The Oeselians controlled the seas on the Baltic and mainly raided Sweden. Sometimes Denmark. They were likely much less in total numbers than the Norse Vikings. The Swedish Viking king Ingvar fell in a battle against the Oeselian Vikings. I've seen no literature on them traveling far from their homeland, like the Norse vikings did. They seem to have been local "sea pirates" of the day, controlling the trade flows to the Kievan Rus' and Novgorod. Their island Ösel / Saaremaa has the second highest count of Viking age treasures in the Baltic sea region after Gotland. Blomsterhagens (talk) 21:52, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
That sounds promising. I will have to read more about the subject. In the meantime I started a new thread to focus the issue of article scope. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 22:02, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
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