Sturgia is not norse vikings

[norfsled]

Many seem to like norse vikings and all the mythology surrounding them. There also seems to be a misunderstanding among many people that the Sturgians in this games are based on norse vikings from scandinavia. They are not. They are based on Slavs. They have slavic accent and names. Slavs live in eastern Europe and Russia. There were norsemen in that part of Europe too but they were of scandinavian descent and soon melted into the slavic culture.

The norsemens origin were germanic, speaking old norse which was very similar to old english and old german. So similar in fact that they could probably understand each other without translating. They had nothing to do with the russian sounding language and accent that so often is associated with them in video games. I still haven't forgiven CA for giving the norwegian viking faction a russian accent in medieval 2 total war. Making that faction unplayable for me without editing the configuration files to change accent.

There is no good faction in this game to place the norse vikings, but if you must squeeze them in somewhere it would have to be the battanians. They are the closest in culture and language.

Another point about vikings. Viking is not the name of a culture or a people. It's the name of the soldiers that went to raid. Vik means bay, that's where they arrived when the raided and how they got their name. The norsemen had farmers, traders, craftmen, and every other profession everyone else had, and they had vikings.

[darien]

Sturgians were supposed to be the predecesors of the Vaegir. They are Rus. Slavs. The nordic are not supposed to be in Bannerlord till 100-200 years later when they invade from the north.

[Winger]

Yes, we have vikings at home.

[Zef]

They are based on the kievan rus who just like in real life had some heavy intermingling with norse vikings during certain time periods.

This is not new information, everybody knows this.

[✠ Sigmar ✠]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by norfsled:

When did I ever claim that??? I've already stated that vikings were the raiders and not the people or culture. They were vikings because they went viking.

So if I refer to Swedes the way Norwegians do, because how we see some of them. Does that make you that? Or is that just something we sometimes refer to you as? If you want to embody a crude joke about Swedes, I wouldn't mind. How about it? -)

What you call vikings, they never used that description of themselves. "I'm a viking" didn't exist.... English (whatever people), could refer to them as vikings, because of the old norse word "vikingr", which mean raid/piracy. Thus... "there comes the vikings"... But still would be Leif the fisherman, Erik the ship builder, Jensen the hunter... whatever... get it now?

If you want to refer to anyone as the viking trope in Bannerlord, I guess "Sea Raiders", would be the closest, but only the low tier ones in appearance.

You were not there. You don't know what they called themselves.

Linguists have come up with several alternative theories about the origin of the word, which are summarized here, for starters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

Some of these etymological theories attribute the origin of "vikingr" to Old Norse words like "vika" ("sea mile"), or point out a possible relation with Old Icelandic "víkja" ("to turn [a boat]"). It is very likely that "viking" (the journey of Norse pirates and merchants) and "vikingr" (the person who is going on such journeys) were part of the language of the people involved. It is not an English term.

[✠ Sigmar ✠]

Originally posted by ✠ Sigmar ✠:

Originally posted by Ruffio:

So if I refer to Swedes the way Norwegians do, because how we see some of them. Does that make you that? Or is that just something we sometimes refer to you as? If you want to embody a crude joke about Swedes, I wouldn't mind. How about it? -)

What you call vikings, they never used that description of themselves. "I'm a viking" didn't exist.... English (whatever people), could refer to them as vikings, because of the old norse word "vikingr", which mean raid/piracy. Thus... "there comes the vikings"... But still would be Leif the fisherman, Erik the ship builder, Jensen the hunter... whatever... get it now?

If you want to refer to anyone as the viking trope in Bannerlord, I guess "Sea Raiders", would be the closest, but only the low tier ones in appearance.

You were not there. You don't know what they called themselves.

Linguists have come up with several alternative theories about the origin of the word, which are summarized here, for starters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

Some of these etymological theories attribute the origin of "vikingr" to Old Norse words like "vika" ("sea mile"), or point out a possible relation with Old Icelandic "víkja" ("to turn [a boat]"). It is very likely that "viking" (the journey of Norse pirates and merchants) and "vikingr" (the person who is going on such journeys) were part of the language of the people involved. It is not necessarily an original English term.

Y'all need to avoid getting worked up about statements that are not based on the full picture, but rather on a subjective feeling how it should be.

[Rezonus]

Originally posted by darien:

Sturgians were supposed to be the predecesors of the Vaegir. They are Rus. Slavs. The nordic are not supposed to be in Bannerlord till 100-200 years later when they invade from the north.

The Sea Raiders are Nords themselves I believe.

[norfsled]

Originally posted by ✠ Sigmar ✠:

Originally posted by Ruffio:

So if I refer to Swedes the way Norwegians do, because how we see some of them. Does that make you that? Or is that just something we sometimes refer to you as? If you want to embody a crude joke about Swedes, I wouldn't mind. How about it? -)

What you call vikings, they never used that description of themselves. "I'm a viking" didn't exist.... English (whatever people), could refer to them as vikings, because of the old norse word "vikingr", which mean raid/piracy. Thus... "there comes the vikings"... But still would be Leif the fisherman, Erik the ship builder, Jensen the hunter... whatever... get it now?

If you want to refer to anyone as the viking trope in Bannerlord, I guess "Sea Raiders", would be the closest, but only the low tier ones in appearance.

You were not there. You don't know what they called themselves.

Linguists have come up with several alternative theories about the origin of the word, which are summarized here, for starters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

Some of these etymological theories attribute the origin of "vikingr" to Old Norse words like "vika" ("sea mile"), or point out a possible relation with Old Icelandic "víkja" ("to turn [a boat]"). It is very likely that "viking" (the journey of Norse pirates and merchants) and "vikingr" (the person who is going on such journeys) were part of the language of the people involved. It is not an English term.

I guess We'll never find out, but remember that Old Norse and old English were very similar languages. It could have been an old english term. Or it could have been an old Norse term, or both at the same time. It certainly is not a modern english word. It's an old and strange word I think. If this word was invented in english today it could possibly be called vike for the raid and vikers for the ones doing it. Vikers go viking on a vike. That's just my personal hypothesis, don't quote me on that.

[Domz_commando]

Dude, I don't know what exactly are you smoking, but it's absolutely clear that Sturgian is a fantasy mixture of ancient "wooden" rus and scandinavian (viking) cultures.

The thing is these two cultures had been very close to each other during the early medievel period of time, many ancient russian kings had german surnames, so... I don't even see a point to discuss about something so obvious to anyone who knows MnB lore.

[Domz_commando]

Originally posted by Rezonus:

The Sea Raiders are Nords themselves I believe.

And what about sturgian troops called Varangians?... Cause varangian literally mean "viking" in old Slavic.

[Hermóðr]

Originally posted by Darth Revan:

Originally posted by Hermóðr:

Sturgia is based upon Kievrus which was created and founded by Vikings. In the game Sturgias leader is a Nord and several of their elite units are Nords while their chaff is Slavic. Nords are very clearly based upon Scandinavians. Sturgia just like Kievrus is Nordic-Slavic.

thats not how it works, a scandinavian leader does not make the entire population of a region into scandinavians, the overwhelming majoritiy of the population were slavs

Are you incapable of reading? If so don't even bother responding. Where did i say the entire population was Scandinavian? I'm very clearly stating it was Nordic-Slavic. Do you know what that means?

[Hermóðr]

Originally posted by Ardariel:

Originally posted by Hermóðr:

Sturgia is based upon Kievrus which was created and founded by Vikings. In the game Sturgias leader is a Nord and several of their elite units are Nords while their chaff is Slavic. Nords are very clearly based upon Scandinavians. Sturgia just like Kievrus is Nordic-Slavic.

created and founded? That is a big stretch. Why not say it was creted by goths then? Pretty same logic would be there, and uilike nords, goths actually were there

Rurik was invited to reign in novgorod, already existing state, and that "calling for reign" was already long-existing tradition.
Ampunt of norse presence was miniscule. Both phisically and culturally. But ofc to say there were no influence would be just as of a strech as stating it was "created and fonded".

As for goths - look for Oium. That is a gothic state that were existing in territory, where Kiev, for example, was later.

Big stretch? Please do read history...

[norfsled]

Originally posted by Domz_commando:

Dude, I don't know what exactly are you smoking, but it's absolutely clear that Sturgian is a fantasy mixture of ancient "wooden" rus and scandinavian (viking) cultures.

The thing is these two cultures had been very close to each other during the early medievel period of time, many ancient russian kings had german surnames, so... I don't even see a point to discuss about something so obvious to anyone who knows MnB lore.

So there were some norse vikings who invaded slavic territories and took control there, that doesn't turn the norse back home slavs, it doesn't make the slavs there norsemen either, and it doesn't mean the cultures are close or similar. It means the slavs had some norse rulers for a while. The game is based on that. NOT the norse culture. Norsemen at home didn't speak slavic language and didn't have slavic culture. Sturgia is based on the slavic culture (with a tiny minority of norse nobility) and not the norse culture.
So if someone for example is making a mod for this game with european map, Sturgia should NOT occupy scandinavia, that would be totally backwards and wrong. Just making that clear. There is no need to discuss this more as everyone seems to agree.

[Darth Revan]

Originally posted by norfsled:

Originally posted by Domz_commando:

Dude, I don't know what exactly are you smoking, but it's absolutely clear that Sturgian is a fantasy mixture of ancient "wooden" rus and scandinavian (viking) cultures.

The thing is these two cultures had been very close to each other during the early medievel period of time, many ancient russian kings had german surnames, so... I don't even see a point to discuss about something so obvious to anyone who knows MnB lore.

So there were some norse vikings who invaded slavic territories and took control there, that doesn't turn the norse back home slavs, it doesn't make the slavs there norsemen either, and it doesn't mean the cultures are close or similar. It means the slavs had some norse rulers for a while. The game is based on that. NOT the norse culture. Norsemen at home didn't speak slavic language and didn't have slavic culture. Sturgia is based on the slavic culture (with a tiny minority of norse nobility) and not the norse culture.
So if someone for example is making a mod for this game with european map, Sturgia should NOT occupy scandinavia, that would be totally backwards and wrong. Just making that clear. There is no need to discuss this more as everyone seems to agree.

Very true, by the logic of some of the people in this discussion the English would have been French or now German

Or that the majority of western Europe was italian

[✠ Sigmar ✠]

Originally posted by norfsled:

Originally posted by ✠ Sigmar ✠:

You were not there. You don't know what they called themselves.

Linguists have come up with several alternative theories about the origin of the word, which are summarized here, for starters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

Some of these etymological theories attribute the origin of "vikingr" to Old Norse words like "vika" ("sea mile"), or point out a possible relation with Old Icelandic "víkja" ("to turn [a boat]"). It is very likely that "viking" (the journey of Norse pirates and merchants) and "vikingr" (the person who is going on such journeys) were part of the language of the people involved. It is not an English term.

I guess We'll never find out, but remember that Old Norse and old English were very similar languages. It could have been an old english term. Or it could have been an old Norse term, or both at the same time. It certainly is not a modern english word. It's an old and strange word I think. If this word was invented in english today it could possibly be called vike for the raid and vikers for the ones doing it. Vikers go viking on a vike. That's just my personal hypothesis, don't quote me on that.

Your assumptions have no similarity to the hypothesis of linguists who examine this question scientifically. Please note that your private opinions and feelings are not relevant when it comes to the pursuit of historical truth.

[norfsled]

Originally posted by ✠ Sigmar ✠:

Originally posted by norfsled:

I guess We'll never find out, but remember that Old Norse and old English were very similar languages. It could have been an old english term. Or it could have been an old Norse term, or both at the same time. It certainly is not a modern english word. It's an old and strange word I think. If this word was invented in english today it could possibly be called vike for the raid and vikers for the ones doing it. Vikers go viking on a vike. That's just my personal hypothesis, don't quote me on that.

Your assumptions have no similarity to the hypothesis of linguists who examine this question scientifically. Please note that your private opinions and feelings are not relevant when it comes to the pursuit of historical truth.

Tbh I don't think this is some great field of science. It's pretty much a closed chapter of history, don't expect any big discoveries. Some things we have to accept are lost to time. And I can invent a new word using modern english grammar as much as I please.