Taking Sides: Vikings vs. Pirates

Mentalist!

I want one of those viking helmets with the horns. And maybe a breastplate. And then I'll sing opera and smite people with my Braids Of Instant Death. Excellent.

Yet! Without the Vikings, you wouldn't have Dublin! Or Glasgow! Or York! (So you wouldn't have ANY of Yorkshire, would you?) So half of you wouldn't be here without the Vikings!

Apparently the argument went something like this... because Iceland fought so hard to be free of colonial rule by Denmark or somebody, they no longer want to have anything to do with Scandanavia or be called Scandinavian, despite their all being descended from Vikings interbreeding with fairies or elves or something.
-- kate (masonicboo...), October 22nd, 2003.

Okay, I can buy that they don't want to be thought of as Scandanavian, but that doesn't make them any less so. But that does explain why I remember reading that. Thank you!

You know what? Fuck it. You all hate me anyway and you don't answer my threads anyway, so I'm starting it anyway.

-- kate

I'm sorry, but that's MY line!!!!

:-)

Viking women are generally HOTTER than Pirate women. So Vikings win again!

How does one define "Scandinavian" anyway?

Is it a geographical area, in which case Finland would be included, but Iceland probably not?

Or is it a cultural Viking thing, in which case Finland would not be included, yet Iceland would be included, like it or not?

Someone who knew lots about Vikings once told me that in reality Viking's didn't have horned helmets, it's just a false historical stereotype.

http://tubes.ominix.com/art/a/personal/decorative-viking-helmet.png

Wait, Tuomas, being Finnish, you are totally qualified to answer our "Is Scandinavia a cultural or a geographical construct?" dilemma!

Or is it a cultural Viking thing, in which case Finland would not be included, yet Iceland would be included, like it or not?

If you're talking about the Viking age, it's the latter, since there were obviously no Finnish Vikings. Nowadays, however, the word "Scandinavian" definitely includes Finland as well, since (despite the genetical/linguistical differences) Finnish society is very similar to Sweden, Norway and Denmark, more similar than Iceland I think.

In my world, Vikings have horns. End of story!

(Though thanks for clearing that up about Scandinavia, Tuomas.)

Finland (or the area which later became the state of Finland) was under Swedish rule from the 15th to the 19th century, and it was then when our "scandinavization" probably began. After Finland became independent in 1917 (we were a part of Russia from 1808 to 1917), it became politically aligned with other Scandinavian states, which is why our Social Democrat welfare state is very similar to other Nordic welfare states, especially that of Sweden.

(Even though I still think they're wrong on the Horn Front)

What did the Vikings do for fun?

And did the Vikings Hate Fun?

It appears to be some kind of "Scottish People Express Their Inner Viking Site" which is perfect for me! (Though too bad their typical male Viking has braids, while their typical female Viking is stuck with a dumb looking headscarf.)

Where Did The Horns Come From???

What about those horned Viking helmets?

There's even a book called "They Did Not Have Horns".

"One of the biggest battles in re-creating Viking history is the myth of the horned helmets. This image has stuck in millions of peoples minds for the last century thanks to faulty teaching of the history and the famed 'History by Hollywood'. Whenever one goes to a Scandinavian event you can expect to see the plastic horned helms on sale because the average person seems to expect to see this myth wherever they go. But how did it come about?

Back at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century there had been a rise in the interest in Vikings that started social clubs and organizations. These groups were not historical groups but rather fraternal groups or even drinking clubs taking advantage of the image of the drinking orgies that had been placed on the Vikings. Members often posed for photos while wearing horned or winged helms. This image seemed to be fed off of the popular culture of its day with Richard Wagners' massive opera 'Ring des Nibelungen'. Burning into the masses was the ridiculous costumes worn by the performers that became to many fact that Vikings had worn horned or winged helms. Now granted that the opera was based on the German version of the Norse Volsung Saga, but the image stuck. As time went along, this image entered pulp fiction, comics, movies and television. But it is important to note that the most famous Viking movie 'The Vikings' with Kirk Douglas did not take this image up, which scores points with the costume directors.

In all of the art from the Viking era, from carvings to tapestries, only one image from that time had an image of a viking with a horned like helm. This tapestry appears to show a caravan of people with a man at the lead with a horned like helm holding two spears in one hand and a sword in the other. A theory on this could be that what one is looking at is a caravan being led by a priest of Odin considering that the horns on the helm appears to be carved into two ravins (Hugin and Munin) or even possibly a representation from the Ynglinga Saga from the Heimskringla. In that saga it speaks of Odin being a great chief who leads his people back to Europe from Asia. If that is so, them maybe the 'carved horns' are not such, but rather an image of the ravins sitting atop of the helm. In the sagas it speaks of Odin letting the ravins go to travel the world to gather news, then return to speak into his ears what they had seen. From this it can be argued that there may be a possibility that horned helms did exist, but for religious purposes and not for combat.

If this image is a source for historians to prove that Viking had horns, then it is greatly flawed. An example is such: A high level Bishop passes away and the church buries him in the full regalia of his post. After that time the world enters into another Dark Age because of a great disaster. Most of the records that we have is destroyed and our way of life has been lost. After a 1000 to maybe 1500 years passes and civilization rises up to the level we have today and archeologists discover the tomb of the before mentioned bishop. They find the body in a preserved state and after examining it they come to the conclusion that people in the late 20th and early 21st century all worn red robes with tall funny hats. Before you know it, groups are started that recreated our era with people dressing this way as an example of how we dressed. Believe it it or not, many conclusions have come about with less.

As it goes we have much more information on how the Vikings lived, and a large amount of artifacts from that era... ...and no helms with horns have been found."

OK, OK, you've got me on the horns. I concede. ::sniff::

But they wore their hair in braids. Don't go trying to ruin my image of Vikings with long gold or red braids!

Shouldn't that first sentence be Vikings vs. Iceland, though?

Now that you mention it, the landscape did look a bit too volcanic to be Irish.

Spelling/grammar pedants, can you correct me or back me up?

It's entirely possible that I might have misspelled it - my jokes are unfunny enough in English!

(Besides, you lot have such crazy dipthongs anyway, that it might have been a valid question!)

(Though, apparently, according to this linguistic theory book I was reading the other night, the Finnish alphabet apparently has the most perfect ratio of letters to unique speech sounds anyway!)

I have no idea what "the prefect ratio of letters to unique speech sounds" is, but Finland is often said to be a beautiful because of the high amount of vowels compared to the amount of consonants. I can't comment on this, since I can't take an outsider's view on my tongue.

I see your point, Tuomas. The other week, HSA and I went to see these movies made by his friend Mika, who is a Finnish filmmaker. We were having a good time trying to figure out what the words means from the subtitles- I can't remember what it was, but I seem to recall that the word for "Spider" was particularly great - it was similar to "creepy-crawlie" or something like that?

English-Finnish-English translator.

I seem to recall that the word for "Spider" was particularly great - it was similar to "creepy-crawlie" or something like that?

It's "hämähäkki" - the "ä" is pronounced like the letter "a" in the English word "cat".

I assume perfect ratio means that there are exactly the same number of letters as sounds.

Well, this is true, for every sound in Finnish there is one matching letter, and one matching letter only - except for the "ng"-sound which is pronounced as one sound even though it takes two letters.

The English alphabet is a good example of this. The range of sounds is somewhere in the 40s, but we still manage to have one entirely redundant letter in our 26 (c), and two more of dubious value (q and x).

Thank you!!! I had forgotten what it was. HSA was saying it all night, but then we forgot it when he sobered up.

Ah, I see what you mean about one-to-one mapping - no dipthongs! (Dipthong has 2 dipthongs in it, what a great word.)

This applies to Finnish as well. Every letter represents one distinct sound, and one sound only - except for the "ng". The foreign letters x, z, q and å are a bit more problematic, since they're part of the "official" Finnish alphabet; they are, however, used only in borrowed words (there's no Finnish words which would use them), and are not part of the "original" Finnish alphabet.

(I keep having to spell Ophthalmology today, which is driving me nuts)

Actually, how do you pronounce diphthong? I've spent my entire life pronouncing it as 'diffthong' and it's just occurred to me it could be 'dipthong'.

But I am in disagreement about the consonant thing.

BESIDES, WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH VIKINGS?!?!?

Back on subject, please!

http://www.collectionspicturelibrary.com/h3-re-21g-7.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong

Yes, Viking funeral rites are cool. Pyres and ship burials and all that = super ace!

(God, don't take pyres away from me... I *know* ship burials are real coz Time Team said they were!)

VS

http://www.main.nc.us/JOH/images/pirates.gif

Teach history, mwah hah hah. Only at Cambridge. So I could perve on Nigel Spivey.

Finnish as a language always gets points from me for inspiring one JRR Tolkien...

Kate is a female Thomas Pynchon!

Anne Bonney and Mary Read to thread!

also, where do HIGHWAYMEN fit into all this?

Vikings rule, of course: bloodthirsty, love food and less elderly to worry over.

I forgot; the Vikings discovered America. Well, rather, they were the first Europeans to get to America. SO IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT, DAMN THEM!!!

Yeah, according to Tolkienists the elf tongue was somehow inspired by Finnish. I can't see much similarity there, but then again, I'm not an linguist. Also, one story in Silmarillion was apparently lifted from the Finnish national epic "Kalevala" (equivalent to the Edda mythology of the Vikings), which Tolkien knew well. It's been years since I read Silmarillion, but if I remember correctly, the story in question was the one with Turin Turambar.

I've changed my mind.

CORNISH PIRATES ARE BETTER THAN VIKINGS.

http://www.piratesofstpiran.co.uk/

<3 "Because piracy is too important to be left up to Disney" <3

It's hilarious to read old threads from 2003 that invariably descend into discussions of Finnish linguistics.

http://www.piratesofstpiran.co.uk/_RefFiles/Jolly_roger_2.gif

Jolly_Roger_2.gif

Seriously, 7 years ago, I should have given up on the computer programming thing and just given in and accepted that my destiny was to become a pirate linguist. An archeological pirate linguist.

I love that Vikings called their assemblies "Thing"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_%28assembly%29

"Thing" means dinner as far as I'm concerned.