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Ethnicity

The lede of the article says: "Vikings were seafaring Norse people from Southern Scandinavia". In light of new research, could we please find a way to update this to match what is now known.

Sources:

1. Science Magazine
2. Science Daily / University of Cambridge
3. Nature

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:

• Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.
• Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair. Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry.
• The study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.
• Early Viking Age raiding parties were an activity for locals and included close family members. The genetic legacy in the UK has left the population with up to six per cent Viking DNA.

The six-year research project, published in Nature today (16 September 2020), debunks the modern image of Vikings and was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen.

St John's College, University of Cambridge, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200916113544.htm

To start, I'd offer a simple edit: "Vikings were seafaring people of primarily Norse origin."

--Blomsterhagens (talk) 19:48, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@Blomsterhagens:, theres just a little problem with that, namely its not true, and we shall not spread lies on Wikipedia. Not one single prime source claim that "Vikings were seafaring people of primarily Norse origin". Contrary, several sources mention vikings as people from Israel, Arabia, and even a greek king. Professor John H Lind, has pointed out, there is zero affiliation between Scandinavians and the word viking, since it just was the translation of the latin pirate, until it was replaced by the term pirate. Therefore, it should be clear, already in the intro, that it had only one mening, pirate, and that they could be from anywhere in the world. Dan Koehl (talk) 23:38, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

If you originate from Southern Scandinavia in the 9th or 10th century, then you are Norse by definition. We don't have much evidence for Slavic settlement in the region before AD 1000. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 13:54, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Trimmed the suggestion to stay on topic. Slavic ethnicities should be off-topic for this thread, because that's not what the sources are about. What exactly the other ethnicities were is an ongoing topic and should be discussed separately. This is only a topic about the fact that not all vikings were of Scandinavian origin. The new research linked to above is very clear on that. --Blomsterhagens (talk) 15:09, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Norse by one definition. Historians of Anglo-Saxon England often distinguish between Danish and Norse (Norwegian) Vikings. For example, Dorothy Whitelock in her translation of ASC A for 920 refers to "English and Danish, Norsemen and others" (English Historical Documents, p. 217), whereas Michael Swanton has "English and Danish and Norwegians and others" (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, p. 104). We need to be aware that there is not an agreed meaning of 'Norse'. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:58, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Whatever the definition of Norse is, this is a verbatim quote: "World's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren't all Scandinavian". So by definition, the lede can not say that "vikings were norse". It is incorrect. It can say they were primarily norse or primarily Scandinavian. The "slavic" comment above is off-topic. Slavic ethnicites are not a topic here. The only topic is that it is a fact that not all vikings were of Scandinavian origin. What exactly the other ethnicities were, should not be the scope for now, because it's a separate area of research and should be discussed in separate threads. --Blomsterhagens (talk) 15:02, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi, as far as I understand the referenced articles, as well as other relevant articles on European genetic makeup both in the cited sources as well as in Wikipedia, there has been a lot of mixing of populations going on in Europe for the last 25000 - 35000 years or so, with predominantly West Asian as well as East Asian admixtures, etc. etc. So it should come as no wonder that "the Vikings", too, have a mixed genetic makeup. However, the core problem lies in the perception of "the Viking Age" as A Thing, "the Vikings" as A People, and even more the weirdly specific start and end dates. Disregarding these slightly Anglo-centric perspectives to include Classical and Migration Age population movements would solve some problems, as would clearing the the confusion of Scandinavian population, culture and history on the one side, and the popular image of fur-clad monastery raiders on the other. As one of the cited sources says, "viking" is a job description, not an ethnic group. But y'all know this. T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, and of course there's this little tidbit from sciencemag: "To the team’s surprise, there was little evidence of genetic mixture within Scandinavia itself. Although a few coastal settlements and island trading hubs were hot spots of genetic diversity, Scandinavian populations farther inland stayed genetically stable—and separate—for centuries. “We can separate a Norwegian person from a Swedish person from a Danish person,” Sindbæk says." T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 23:38, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I can agree with you, that there is a hell of a lot of over-conceptualization in all of this, and what's even worse is the tendency to view these things in terms of modern standards and values. A big problem I see is one of etymological fallacy: the belief that the meaning of a word today has anything to do with it's original meaning. We have to write this article using the English language, and using the words as they are commonly understood in English. That makes anything we write to some degree or another Anglo-centric. The Viking Age is a great example, because that is a very English way of describing the time period, and the dates are based upon English experience with them. There not much we can do to change the language, as much as that pains some people. We have to work within the confines the language provides us.

That's one aspect of over-conceptualizing the situation. Another is putting too much focus on things like ethnicity. At the end of the day, the Scandinavians were just as much Germanic as the Angles were, and there is little variation between them. That's where we start putting in these racial divides that were really non-existent back then. Back then, divisions were based more upon things like language and customs, and by far most predominantly, religion. Religion was everything back then. While King Alfred was fighting the Northmen on one front, he was also fighting the Celtic Britons on the other. On the one hand was a religion they could relate to, being the Angle's old Germanic religion. When the Angles became Christian, their religion never really changed (not to this day). It's still very much the old Viking religion, only with different names. (Just like Santeria, where the voodoo religions of Africa became Christian, but the only thing that changed was that their gods are now named after saints.) The Britons, on the other hand, were viewed as devil worshippers, and this is still carried on today in English ideas of witchcraft. Even our modern depiction of the devil come directly from the Celtic god Cernunnos.

Religion was everything back then, and when everyone else had been converted, Norway was still one of the last holdouts of the old ways. And I know, today everything has to be racially motivated, like it's mandatory or something, but it just wasn't always that way. We seem to gloss completely over the one thing that really separated the Vikings from the rest of Scandinavia and Europe. (And to anyone interested, I highly recommend reading Alfred's books, especially his history of the world, just to get some better insight into the times of the day. Zaereth (talk) 00:22, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, oh, what wonderful discussions we could have ... Like, it is not an etymological fallacy to ask what a word (like "viking") might have meant to people at some other age ... or that using the English language necessarily leads to an Anglo-centric perspective on the content of history ... sigh ... but I'll try to stay on the narrow improve-the-article-path. That leaves only one brief point: I disagree with the OP that the article needs to change. T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 03:16, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

We should get back to the original topic. That long thread went far from the topic of the original sources. The goal of Wikipedia is to present what is written in reliable sources. Reliable sources listed above say point blank: "World's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren't all Scandinavian" ; It is not in the scope of Wikipedia editors to interpret reliable sources based on how they see fit. The only job is to verify if the source is legitimate for the article and if it is, then how to best present the facts from the source. So what are we going to do about it?

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:

• Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.
• Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair. Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry.
• The study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.
• Early Viking Age raiding parties were an activity for locals and included close family members. The genetic legacy in the UK has left the population with up to six per cent Viking DNA.

The six-year research project, published in Nature today (16 September 2020), debunks the modern image of Vikings and was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen.

St John's College, University of Cambridge, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200916113544.htm

Blomsterhagens (talk) 19:05, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Enough

Its clear that Dan Koehl has a long standing gripe with the English language usage & popular perception of the word "Viking". Its clear also that the vast majority of contributors here understand that also, but argue that this is en wiki, and NOT policies apply. So ENOUGH already. If Dan Koehl continues to beat a dead horse and suck all into a time sink, I'm gonna bring this to AN/I, per a hybrid of not here/spa. Ceoil (talk) 19:06, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Already done, he's gotten a two week block. I think it's worth discussing whether community sanctions are in order though.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know the history of the previous quarrels here. But the debate here seems to have been about viking ethnicity. There is legitimate research from both Uni. Cambridge and Uni. Copenhagen that backs up the claim that vikings were not singularly norse/scandinavian. The newest sources are very clear on the fact that we can't say all vikings were of Scandinavian origin. It is a culmination of a six-year research project, finished in 2020. As it stands, it's the most relevant research done on the topic so far and it would be erroneous to ignore it in this article.

Sources:

1. Science Magazine
2. Science Daily / University of Cambridge
3. Nature

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:

• Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.
• Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair. Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry.
• The study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.
• Early Viking Age raiding parties were an activity for locals and included close family members. The genetic legacy in the UK has left the population with up to six per cent Viking DNA.

The six-year research project, published in Nature today (16 September 2020), debunks the modern image of Vikings and was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen.

St John's College, University of Cambridge, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200916113544.htm

Blomsterhagens (talk) 23:55, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Recent revert

Blomsterhagens has reverted my change of the lead from "Vikings is the modern name given to seafaring Scandinavians (from Norse pirates from southern Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden)" to "Vikings is the modern name given to seafaring Scandinavians (from present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden)" with the comment that my change does not deal with the problem of ethnicity. There are several problems with the original version and my edit tried to deal with two of them, the pejorative description of Vikings as pirates and the ambiguous word Norse, which is better avoided as in popular usage it is often used as a synonym for Vikings but historians generally distinguish between Norse (Norwegian) and Danish Vikings. There are obviously further changes needed to deal with the ethnic issue but I do not think it is helpful to revert to a clumsier and more inaccurate version. I suggest reverting back to my version with the addition of the word "primarily" as Blomsterhagens suggested, and then adding that genetic analysis of culturally Viking burials has shown that some of them are of local people. Perhaps Blomsterhagens could make these further changes as the expert on this aspect. What do you think? Dudley Miles (talk) 08:19, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Dudley Miles: I support the solution you proposed here. I reverted the previous edit, because it removed the "citation needed" tag on the ethnicity question. I support your updated proposal for using "Scandinavian" instead of norse + adding the word "primarily" + adding some detail about the recent genetic analysis. Blomsterhagens (talk) 11:04, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation request

This paragraph(second to last paragraph in Etymology) should be made less ambiguous and more importantly, de-plagiarized.

The term ”Viking" that appeared in Northwestern Germanic sources in the Viking Age denoted pirates. According to some researchers, the term back then had no geographic or ethnic connotations that limited it to Scandinavia only. The term was instead used about anyone who to the Norse peoples appeared as a pirate. Therefore, the term had been used about Israelites on the Red Sea; Muslims encountering Scandinavians in the Mediterranean; Caucasian pirates encountering the famous Swedish Ingvar-Expedition, and Estonian pirates on the Baltic Sea. Thus the term "Viking" was supposedly never limited to a single ethnicity as such, but rather an activity.

1) De-plagiarize: This paragraph is pasted nearly entirely from the thesis of Lind's paper. It should be rephrased by the wiki editor as a summary, OR edited to show it is a quote.

2) The paragraph says 'according to some researchers', when only Lind is cited. To clear up the ambiguity, additional researchers should be added to fulfill the some researchers statement' OR changed to According to one modern researcher.... It may be difficult to find additional researchers making this conclusion, since it is pasted from Lind's 2020 paper and seems to be a new take (2020) in historical research on the vikings. So until more researchers are found in support, then it should probably read '-According to one modern researcher....-'

3) 'back then'. Back when? This ambiguity is not up to wikipedia standards. This is the type of problem brought on by the pasting of a paragraph rather than writing one. Perhaps the wiki editor can fill in the details to clear up the ambiguity. Who? the whole world? When is 'back then'?

4) The first sentence 'The term ”Viking" that appeared in Northwestern Germanic sources in the Viking Age denoted pirates.' This should be disambiguated by listing these 'northwestern Germanic sources' specifically 'The Indo-European language family containing English, German, Dutch, Frisian, the Scandinavian languages, and Gothic,' so that casual readers understand the descriptor is talking about many similar but not identical words in a variety of ancient languages that covered all the peoples of Northern Europe,...(a unique situation that makes it so difficult to pin down the etymology of the word 'viking' as used by Scandinavian raiders on a few of their runestones. Again, a problem that comes from pasting a paragraph rather than writing your own.

This is not my field and I have researched before commenting. Awolnetdiva (talk) 01:40, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

This is a strange one as it is difficult to find the original source, although it appears to be an English language paper in a Russian language book. I suggest deleting the paragraph and adding as a second sentence in the first paragraph of the section: "The historian John Lind states that in Anglo-Saxon and early medieval Scandinavian sources "Viking" meant "pirate", without specifying any particular ethnicity or geographic area.<ref>{{cite document|url=https://www.academia.edu/8906219|first=John |last=Lind|title=«Vikings» and the Viking Age |date=2011}}</ref> Dudley Miles (talk) 07:47, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Might this somehow be related to Dan Koehl? This seems quite similar to his usual modus operandi (add sources about viking only meaning pirate, often posting large quotations without attribution...). I'd suggest simply deleting the offending paragraph and citing the fact that Viking primarily meant pirate in Old Norse to a dictionary.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

A speculation about a connection to a particular editor is not a valid reason for deleting. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:07, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

But a copyright violation is.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Additionally, the information is redundant - it simply restates what is stated in the paragraph above, but at greater length.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:12, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree with deletion to primarily solve the copyright issue, (but it also solves the 'one author paper' POV which is disguised in the article as 'some researchers'.) Aside from the introductory phrase, the paragraph is pasted entirely from the single author's thesis statement (link in footnotes, only the cover pages are in Russian language, the paper can be read and summarized). Therefore it must be summarized, or deleted. If not deleted, I would suggest the following edit as a summary of Lind's paper. "According to researcher John Lind, while the etymology of the word 'viking' is not entirely certain, the Germanic languages of the time period used similar words to generically describe raiders and pirates of many origins, and seem to describe the activity of raiding rather than any specific regional identity of the raiders.[40] Awolnetdiva (talk) 19:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Intermixing with Slavs ... ?

Hi, I think this section is overinterpreting its sources, and I also wonder if the emphasis on Slavs, in this form, is due or not.
To take the last point first, European north/south intermixing had been going on since the Bronze Age (e.g. Denmark/Germany), and it should surprise no one that voyaging people intermixed with various locals, including Irish, Scots, English, French, Frisian, Frankish, Baltic, Saami, and also Slavs, of course. Why the Slavs in particular should be mentioned, is unclear to me.
My proposal for the section would be:

Intermixing

While inland Norse populations show a marked stability, people from the coastal communities intermixed with all of the peoples they encountered, perhaps with the exception of North American "skrælings". For example, some authors (one article?) describe Slavic and Viking tribes as "closely linked, fighting one another, intermixing and trading".[75][76][77] In the Middle Ages, ware was transferred from many other areas to Scandinavia, and sites in Denmark like the island of Langeland could be considered "a melting pot of Slavic and Scandinavian elements".[75]

A 10th-century grave of a warrior-woman in Denmark was long thought to belong to a Viking. However, analyses of the burial style and grave goods suggest links to present-day Poland.[75] The sagas frequently mention journeys to and alliances made in Gardarike. The first king of the Swedes, Eric, was married to Gunhild, of the Polish House of Piast.[79] Likewise, his son, Olof, fell in love with Edla, a Slavic woman, and took her as his frilla (concubine).[80] She bore him a son and a daughter: Emund the Old, King of Sweden, and Astrid, Queen of Norway. Cnut the Great, King of Denmark, England and Norway, was the son of a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland,[81] possibly the former Polish queen of Sweden, wife of Eric."

Here, the Slav/Viking connection serves as an illustration of a wider general phenomenon. This version is also more true to the sources. A number of Slavic royalty have been snipped, since they enter history centuries after what generally is termed the Viking Age." T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 12:24, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi, btw, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/viking-was-job-description-not-matter-heredity-massive-ancient-dna-study-shows is the source for "While inland Norse populations show a marked stability ...." : "To the team’s surprise, there was little evidence of genetic mixture within Scandinavia itself. Although a few coastal settlements and island trading hubs were hot spots of genetic diversity, Scandinavian populations farther inland stayed genetically stable—and separate—for centuries. “We can separate a Norwegian person from a Swedish person from a Danish person,” Sindbæk says." T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 08:57, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

No responses? T 46.212.185.190 (talk) 16:35, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 December 2021

Grammar error on "Expert sailors on their characteristic longships"it should be aboard their characteristic longships Vikings established settlements 47.226.47.145 (talk) 15:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. PianoDan (talk) 18:23, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

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Sugestion

I propose, at the end of the following text:

The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians (Russian: варяги, from Old Norse Væringjar 'sworn men', from vàr- "confidence, vow of fealty", related to Old English wær "agreement, treaty, promise", Old High German wara "faithfulness" [55]

To be added:

and Slavic, (both old and present days') vera (vyera, vyara) "faith, belief, credit".

212.200.247.101 (talk) 22:51, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 March 2022

At the end of the following text:

The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians (Russian: варяги, from Old Norse Væringjar 'sworn men', from vàr- "confidence, vow of fealty", related to Old English wær "agreement, treaty, promise", Old High German wara "faithfulness" [55]

I propose to be added:

, promise", Old High German wara "faithfulness" and Slavic, (both old and present days') vera (vyera, vyara) "faith, belief, credit". 212.200.247.101 (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.

Also, please don't repeat the same request just to get attention of others. NickyLam12 (My talk page) 07:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 July 2022

Change :The character is featured in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor and its sequels Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok. To: The character is featured in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor and its sequels Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder. Zacupquark (talk) 16:52, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

 Partly done: I just removed all the names of the sequels as excessive detail. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:11, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Assimilation into Christendom

In this section appears the following line,

"The medieval Church held that Christians should not own fellow Christians as slaves, so chattel slavery diminished as a practice throughout northern Europe."

This line is unsourced and should be reworded to read "slavery" until sourcing is available. Chattel slavery is the buying, selling and breeding of slaves like livestock, something that emerged during the Age of Discovery when Europeans began enslaving Africans. I have never heard of chattel slavery being practiced in northern Europe during the Viking Age. Sources?? Jonathan f1 (talk) 02:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't know where you get that notion, but chattel slavery goes back to the time of Moses at least. It didn't become business on an industrial scale until the 1600s--1700s, but it most certainly was practiced by the Vikings, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc... Just before the Viking Age was the fall of the Roman Empire and the great migration period. The slave trade had primarily been a barter system for much of history, as was most of the economic structures. Money existed, but people didn't trust it. It wasn't until the Roman Empire that a stable monetary system developed, and a really stable economy, and thus slaves were really bought and sold for money. But all Rome did was import wealth. What went into Rome stayed in Rome. The fall of Rome came with the collapse of that monetary system, and all of Europe fell into disarray. Thats where we get into the Viking Age, and the time of Feudalism. Aka: the Manorial Age. This was a time when people lost all trust in money and big government. Life became communal and was all centered around the country manor. Each manor tried to be as self-sufficient as possible, growing their own food or even making their own weapons and tools. Most slaves at this time were serfs, which is basically the indentured servant variety. But there was still a slave trade going on, especially among the pagans, but for the next 900 years money practically fell into disuse. Trade still occurred, though. Zaereth (talk) 02:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The Domesday Book records that 10% of the English population were slaves. This rose to 25% in Cornwall. The main source of slaves was those caught during warfare. After William the Conqueror Normans decided that giving a slave a piece of land and the right to own a cow, meant that the slaves could feed themselves. They became less of a burden on the Norman lord. As such the slaves became serfs and were part of the feudal system. There are numerous references to slaves in the medieval literature. The Vikings would transport surplus captives to sell at the Rouen slave market. Malcolm III of Scotland was well know for his forays into northern England and capture people to work as slaves north of the border. Look at Normans and slavery. or Slave raiding and slave trading in early England for more info.Wilfridselsey (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

It is quite likely that the true Vikings were Slavs

Since almost all Viking bone finds have halpogroup R1a and not typical for Germanic tribes Halpogroup I. History needs maybe to be rewritten. Slavs also have predominantly similar genetics. Slavs were the true Vikings. The new DNA tests show that. While the Germanic population has Halpogroup I, the Vikings who conquered England or Iceland have Slavic Halpogroup R1a, predominantly Z284, M458 and M548 (Interestingly, there are a particularly large number of people in the area of ​​present-day Poland and bone finds can also be found in old graves in Poland before about 2000 BC.). Genetics don't lie, genetics can't be invented or told. Strangely enough, to this day most still refer to narratives that were created in the racist and national times of the 19th century. 95.118.22.179 (talk) 01:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 01:56, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

(Moved some header into the first paragraph to reduce header length and improve readbility)

The journal article you have linked to doi:10.13189/sa.2021.090202 does not mention "Viking" "Scandinavia(n)" or "Nordic". How can it possibly back up your assertions here? The paper's topic isn't even Vikings. It is about Poles, and should not be considered an authority on a tangential subject, even if it was mentioned (which it isn't). If you are using the content of the paper to make a claim that is not explicitly made in the paper, then that is original research, which is not allowed. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 02:15, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

This is a nonsense claim. It mixes genetics and ethnic groups and it gets the genetics wrong. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 18:28, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Nah, how about we present history as it actually was instead of trying to rewrite it based on debunked fringe theories promoted by Slavic nationalists. TylerBurden (talk) 10:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

The standalone "Norsemen" article

Since I assume more people are watching this article: I've started a discussion of the fact that the standalone article Norsemen is basically superfluous and in fact just duplicates this article at a much smaller scale at Talk:Norsemen#Merge to Vikings?.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:05, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Norse or Norsemen – The name used for the people living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. It literally means ‘man from the north’.

Viking – Norse seafarers who during the Viking Age left their Scandinavian homelands (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) to raid, trade and colonize. The meaning behind the term is debated, but we tend to consider Anatoly Liberman's thesis the most logical one. In it he argues that most likely means a person who takes rowing shifts on a boat, based on that the noun "Vica" that means the very same thing. From our linguistic perspective, it makes perfect sense. Moxy- 04:25, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

?—Ermenrich (talk) 12:17, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, the Norsemen article should perhaps be dedicated to the ones who stayed home. Or, the wider picture of this society, with its men, women and children. Material culture. Religion. Language. kings and armies, farmers and fishermen, and other branches of industry, like going abroad to get rich. T 84.208.65.62 (talk) 01:29, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Vikings as rowers

Hi, re the aforementioned Anatoly Liberman: that the etymology of "viking" refers to "rowers (of shifts)" is a theory presented by Eldar Heide (Heide, E. (2005). «Víking-'rower shifting'?» Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 120, 41-54.), building on an article by Bertil Daggfeldt ("https://www.abc.se/~m10354/publ/vik-rodd.htm" from, IIRC, 1983). In a 2009 article, Liberman _summarizes_ the research status at the time, but doesn't give any independent theories of his own. T 84.208.65.62 (talk) 02:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I think there is a lot of etymological fallacy tossed around when people talk about the word "viking". There is no evidence the word was ever used in Old English, except one obscure reference to the word "wic", meaning "camp" or "dwelling place". This was more of a suffix than anything else, and many towns in England still end with "wic" or "wich", such as Sandwich, Middlewich, Northwich, etc... It also had a tendency to refer to a gathering place or coven, hence the term wicca (witch). It's highly unlikely this word was ever applied to the Vikings back then. The English term back in the Viking Age was "Nordsmen" (Norsemen, which literally translates as "men from the north") or Danes. The term Viking didn't enter English until the 1800s when it was used in popular German operas. The thing this term describes, as it is used in English today, is still very much the Nordsmen that King Alfred wrote so much about back in the day. Zaereth (talk) 23:44, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Dirham

There is an article about these coins so please link to it. Thanks. --2003:F5:FF0C:DD00:55EF:AFF3:526D:7FC1 (talk) 01:37, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Where should we link it? Zaereth (talk) 01:41, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me? As far as I know every browser offers the possibility to search on whatever page you’re on. ‘Arabian silver coins, called dirhams’ is what you should look for, in the section on other names for the Vikings. It should be obvious that the last word within the quote should link to the article about the coin. Besides, one paragraph later we read that ‘the Muslim chroniclers of al-Andalus referred to the Vikings as Magians’ and as the latter term isn’t exactly everyday speech (and not identical with magicians in any modern sense of the word) it should link to Magi. --2003:F5:FF0C:DD00:2490:FD5A:7F6D:40BF (talk) 12:34, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you are saying. As far as I know, a browser is an animal such as a moose or a giraffe, which is not a grazer. If you want me to link this term to the article, then you'll need to tell me, very specifically, where in the article it should be linked. If the term is somewhere in the article, then it should be easy enough for you to find. If it's not, then we'd have to add a sentence or a paragraph about the coins, but we can't do that just anywhere. It would need to fit in the context. It's your idea, so what's your plan? Zaereth (talk) 17:41, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Very funny. And yes, that was sarcasm. --2003:F5:FF1C:E900:BC53:B0D7:9E3:657E (talk) 14:43, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what's funny, because I'm being very serious. I'd help if I had some clue what it is you want, but I can't read your mind. Zaereth (talk) 17:16, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistency

We have,

"and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000. The Greenland settlement was established around 980, during the Medieval Warm Period, and its demise by the mid-15th century may have been partly due to climate change."

980 to c1450, 450 years, is not "short-lived". And if it was founded in 980, why do we say circa 1000? .     Jim . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 22:09, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree that is confusingly worded, but it's discussing two separate places: L'Anse aux Meadows is located in modern-day Newfoundland, and its exact origin date is uncertain, hence "circa 1000." The next sentence refers to the unnamed Greenland settlement, which is distinct from L'Anse aux Meadows. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2023 (UTC)