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Scandinavian

Specialty Definition: Norsemen

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Norsemen is the name of the people of the areas which today are Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and northern Germany. The real term used was just 'Norse. (no Norse people ever called themself a "viking", also the helmet with the two horns is only fiction). They were interested in colonizing new areas towards the East and West. In the year 1005 they sailed to America. They were never much interested in becoming the ruling force. They had a high respect of women and the elderly, and many females had high positions and were very influencial (Freydis - see Norse Saga). They were interested in good education.

On a Norse ship ("viking ship"), there was one captain (chief), elected from the crew: the strongest, smartest, wisest, once wildest, with lots of experience, lots of friends and political supporters, with fame on many oceans and shores, with all authority. In moments of danger and in battle he made the decisions and strategy, all crew followed without any questioning. In times of peace they stood in the back. All younger warriors were allowed to challenge and question the chief in the time between wars. All trusted him and he backed all to the outside.

If the majority of the crew asks him to step down he does so and falls back to the role as advisor and teacher.

Many companies of modern Norse countries are operated in the same way as the wooden ships, and some world-leading businesses evolved (Nokia, IKEA, Ericsson, Maersk) - again influencing, navigating, moving, communicating and educating on global scales.

More information under viking

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Norsemen."

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North Germanic language

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

North Germanic, or Scandinavian, is any of several Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia, parts of Finland and on the islands west to Scandinavia.

There are two main branches, Insular (West-) Scandinavian and Continental (East-) Scandinavian. The former is the "older" (i.e. more conservative) version, talked by Vikings speaking Old Norse to Iceland (Icelandic), Greenland, the Faroes (Faeroese), and the Shetlands and Orkneys. The latter, Continental Scandinavian, is more influented by neighbouring languages, most notably Low German.

Many dialects in Norway retain the West-Scandinavian features, and Nynorsk, one of the two official written languages of the country, was based primarily on such dialects. Additionally, the dialect of Jämtland in Sweden is classified as West-Scandinavian.

In contrast, new features developed in Danish, Danish-influenced areas of Norway (due to the long Danish rule), and in Sweden (with Finland) to form the Continental varieties. In particular Bokmål, the first written standard language in Norway, and now the dominating official language, is considered Continental.

As a result, Danish and Norwegian may in reality be somewhat more similar to each other than either is to Swedish. Due to the long political union between Norway and Denmark, the Norwegian Bokmål shares much of the Danish vocabulary. In addition, due to Danish pronunciation, Swedes usually find it easier to understand Norwegian than Danish. But even if a Swede finds it difficult to understand a Dane, it is not necessarily the other way around. One witticism about Norwegian that expresses the basic similarities and differences between the languages is that "Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish." The relationships between the three languages might be summarized by the following diagram:

               + phonology
  Norwegian ----------------- Swedish
      |        - vocabulary
      |
- phonology
+ vocabulary
      |
      |
   Danish

The North Germanic languages are often cited as proof of Max Weinreich's aphorism "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." The differences in dialects within the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are often greater than the differences across the borders, but the political independence of these countries leads continental Scandinavian to be classified into Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish in the popular mind. The creation of Nynorsk out of Insular dialects after Norway became independent of Denmark in 1814 was an attempt to make the linguistic divisions match the political ones.

Family tree

All North Germanic languages are thought to be descended from Old Norse. Note that divisions between subfamilies of North Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and the most separated ones not.

• West (Insular) Scandinavian
  • Icelandic (in Iceland)
  • Faeroese (in the Faroes, which belong to Denmark)
  • Norn (extinct after the Shetlands and Orkneys were ceded to Scotland)
  • Nynorsk¹ (in Norway)
  • Jamska (in Jämtland, in Sweden)
  • Traveller Norwegian (used by Fanter in Norway)
• East (Continental) Scandinavian
  • Bokmål¹ (in Norway)
  • Danish
    • Island-Danish (on Zealand and the other islands)
    • East Danish², (on Bornholm)
    • Jutish, or West Danish, (in Jutland)
  • Swedish (see map at: Lands of Sweden)
    • Sveamål (in Svealand except Bergslagen)
    • Bergslagsmål/Dalecarlian (in Dalarna, Värmland and parts of Västmanland, in Sweden)
    • Norrländska mål (in Norrland)
    • Götamål (in Västergötland, Östergötland, Dalsland and Småland)
    • East-Swedish
      • Finland-Swedish³ (in some coastal areas of Finland)
      • Gutnish³ (in Gotland, in Sweden)
    • Scanian, formerly East Danish², (southernmost part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, see: Terra Scania)
  • Traveller Danish (used by Romany in Denmark)
  • Tavringer Romani (used by Romany in Sweden and Norway)

(1) Beside the two official written norms of Norwegian, there exists two established unofficial norms: Riksmål similar to, but more conservative (closer to Danish) than, Bokmål, used in different extent by a large number of people, especially in the cities and upper classes, and High-Norwegian (Høgnorsk) rather similar to Nynorsk, used by a very little minority, mostly for political reasons.

(2) The classification of the Bornholm-dialect together with Scanian is based on phonology and undisputed. They could maybe more correctly be called South Scandinavian dialects, but that term is not used. It must be noted that Swedish influence on Scanian has been considerable since the conquest in 1658.

(3) The classification within Swedish is rather antiquated and arbitrary, and here mainly used to single out the most important of the clearly distinguisable varieties. New scientific work is in progress.

External links

• Ethnologue Report for North Germanic

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "North Germanic language."

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Old Norse language

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Old Norse was the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the Nordic countries (for instance during the Viking Age).

Its modern descendants are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Norwegian, Faroese and the extinct Norn language of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands as well as the East Scandinavian languages of Swedish and Danish. Norwegian was later heavily influenced by East Scandinavian.

Among these, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects, particularly Scots, which contains many Old Norse loanwords.

The earliest inscriptions are runic, from the first centuries CE, and runes continued to be used for a thousand years. The main literary texts are in the Latin alphabet, the great sagas and eddas of mediaeval Iceland.

See also: Old Norse orthography

Weblinks

• soundsample
• Old Norse for Beginners

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Old Norse language."

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Scandinavia

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Scandinavia is the region of the Scandinavian Peninsula.

The usage and meaning of the term Scandinavia is somewhat ambiguous:

• In Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden and (mostly) Denmark are considered parts of Scandinavia.

• Outside of Scandinavia, also Finland (and often Iceland) are counted to Scandinavia.

• In a German mindset, Denmark and Iceland are often excluded.

• The term the Nordic countries is used by the Scandinavians unambigously for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

History

The modern use of the term Scandinavia rises from the Scandinavist political movement, which was active in the middle of the 19th century, chiefly between the First war of Schleswig (1848-1850), in which Sweden-Norway contributed with considerable military force, and the Second war of Schleswig (1864) when Sweden's parliament denounced the King's promises of military support.

The movement proposed the unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for this was the tumultous events during the Napoleonic wars in the beginning of the century leading to the partition of Sweden (the eastern part becoming the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809) and Denmark (whereby Norway, de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de facto merely a province, became independent in 1814 and thereafter was swiftly forced to accept a personal union with Sweden).

Finland being a part of the Russian Empire meant that it would have to be left out of any equation for a political union between the Nordic countries. A new term also had to be invented that excluded Finland from any such inspirations, and that term was Scandinavia. The geographical Scandinavia included Norway and Sweden, but the political Scandinavia was also to include Denmark. Politically Sweden and Norway were united in a personal union under one monarch. Denmark also included the dependent territories of Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the Atlantic ocean (which however historically had belonged to Norway, but unintentionally remained by Denmark according to the Treaty of Kiel).

The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied military support from Sweden-Norway to annex the (Danish) Duchy of Schleswig, which together with the (German) Duchy of Holstein had been in personal union with Denmark. It followed a brief but disastrous war between Denmark and Prussia (supported by Austria, the Second war of Schleswig in 1864), Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by Prussia, and after Prussia's success in the Franco-Prussian War a Prussia-led German Empire ("2nd Reich") was created, and a new power-balance of the Baltic sea countries was established.

Even if a Scandinavian political union never came about there was a Scandinavian Monetary Union established in 1873, with the Krona/Krone as the common currency, and which lasted until World War I.

The modern Scandinavian cooperation after World War I also came to include the independent Finland and Scandinavian as a political term came to be replaced by the term Nordic countries, and eventually by the Nordic council institution, in 1952.

Etymology

The name Scandinavia is most probably derived from the Germanic *Skathin- meaning "danger" (cf. English scathing and unscathed) and *awjo meaning "island". It may have referred to the dangeous banks around Skanör-Falsterbo in Scania in southern-most Scandinavia. Scandinavia appears in Roman texts, and in Jordanes history of the Goths as Scandza.

The name of the Scandinavian mountain range, Skanderna in Swedish, is in turn derived from Skandinavien in the 19th century, analogous with Alperna for the Alps. The commonly used names are Kölen "the Keel" or fjällen "the fells, the mountains".

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Scandinavia."

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Scandinavian

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

• A resident of Scandinavia
• A North Germanic language

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Scandinavian."

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: Scandinavian

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Modern Usage: Scandinavian

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Commercial Usage: Scandinavian

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Image Slideshow: Scandinavian

Photos: Scandinavian More pictures...

Illustrations: Scandinavian More pictures...

Computer Images: Scandinavian More pictures...

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Photo Album: Scandinavian

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Scandinavian worker on the Schnitzler Corporation ranch. He was harvesting wheat with a combine. Froid, Montana. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Scandinavian

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Usage Frequency: Scandinavian

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Usage in Company Names: Scandinavian

Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.

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Expressions: Scandinavian

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Scandinavian

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Modern Translation: Scandinavian

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Misspellings: Scandinavian

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Rhyming with "Scandinavian"

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Anagrams: Scandinavian

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