Talk:Q24566025

Norse

@Anders Feder: Do we have non-Norse-runestones here? -- Innocent bystander (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

@Innocent bystander: I asked myself that too, and looking at w:en:Anglo-Saxon runes I came to the conclusion that some non-Norse stones do exist (though we may not have items for them yet). The article mentions both Anglo-Saxon "stone slabs" and "stone crosses".--Anders Feder (talk) 17:56, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Ok, then it makes sense. --78.73.94.165 18:25, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

@Anders Feder: Does this require a special treatment of Kensington Runestone (Q969351)? I have been careful there and only added "P31:Inscription". In contrast to many other runestones, the script used is Dalecarlian runes (Q3352035) and the language is some kind of post-16th century Scandinavian. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 07:38, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

@Innocent bystander: I noticed that enwiki has listed that one among 2 others under the heading "Modern runestones". In parallel with their example, maybe we could have a new subclass of runestone (Q815241) called "modern runestone" or something along those lines?--Anders Feder (talk) 07:59, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

@Anders Feder: When I look into en:Norse it tells me "Scandinavian people before the Christianisation of Scandinavia". Most runestones are Christian. Jellingestenarna is a typical runestone today, it was made by an early Christian in memory of Pagan relatives.

"Harald kung lät göra dessa kummel efter Gorm, sin fader, och efter Tyrvi, sin moder. Den Harald som lagt under sig hela Danmark och Norge och som kristnade danerna."

How does this affects the use of the word "Norse" in this label? -- Innocent bystander (talk) 06:50, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

@Innocent bystander: If that definition was generally accepted, Old Norse (Q35505) would be called "Old Christian", because almost all of our sources in Old Norse were written after the Christianisation of Scandinavia, and Norse mythology (Q128285) should really be "Christian mythology", because almost all of our sources on the mythology were written down by Christians. Realistically, scholars don't use the term in a way that is that rigid. "Norse" refers to some general trends and commonalities - not some uncompromising periodization in time.--Anders Feder (talk) 07:43, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

@Anders Feder: And all who wrote the Bible, even the Christ himself, were Jews, so that is not the point.

I am struggling with finding a Swedish word for this "general trends and commonalities". I am not aware of any word that can be used in the same way as the English word "norse" as it is used here and in many other places. "Norse people" is "nordmän" and "Norse language" is "fornnordiska", but otherwise, I do not know. I do not know if any of these two fits together with "runsten". -- Innocent bystander (talk) 08:13, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

@Innocent bystander: What does the Bible have to do with it? Just like someone can be "Christian" and "Jewish", so someone can be "Christian" and "Norse", which was exactly my point.--Anders Feder (talk) 08:32, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

The prehistoric era of any geographic area is defined as the era without a written record. It was the Christian Scandinavians who spread the written word in Scandinavia, at least those records that still can be read today. The stones like Jellingestenen therefor ends the prehistoric era. Many stones in Södermanland are up to 200 years younger than Jellingestenen, they are medieval. We usually talk about the prehistoric Scandinavians as "Norse". But if a large part of these stones are not pre-historic, can we then then still talk about them as "Norse"? They are then maybe rather "runestones with Norse runes" rather than "Norse runestones"? That would make it more simple to name this item in other languages than English. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 11:08, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

@Innocent bystander: If we define the prehistoric era as the era without a written record (as we should), then by that very definition it is the earliest runic inscriptions - not Jellingestenen - that marks the end of the prehistoric era. Jellingestenen is neither more or less an artifact of writing than any other runestone. I do not know where you get the sense that "Norse" refers specifically to prehistoric Scandinavians. The Oxford dictionary defines it very simply as "Norwegians or Scandinavians in ancient or medieval times",[1] which is the sense used on this item. The Cambridge dictionary defines it as "belonging or relating to the people who lived in Scandinavia in the past, especially the Vikings".[2] Is there some other source that invalidates these two sources?--Anders Feder (talk) 14:44, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

en:Norse says something else than Oxfords dictionary. I am used to call prehistoric "Norse" for "nordmän" and medieval "Norse" for "svear/götar/daner etc". Your use of "norse" here for both prehistoric and medieval Scandinavians, makes it very difficult to translate the label. To use "Scandinavian" is also a little problematics, since the use of that term in prehistoric time is sort of biased against some ethnic groups here.

AND: The runestones from the first Christian time gives us enough written record to make a history out of them. The earlier runestones are so few and contains so little information that we cannot make any history at all. Therefor these stones marks the change from Prehistoric to Medieval time in Southern Scandinavia. (North Sweden, where I live, marks the treaty of Nöteborg 1323 as the starting point for the Medieval time.) -- Innocent bystander (talk) 17:31, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

@Innocent bystander: Wikipedia is neither a scholarly nor, by its own policies, a reliable source. Is there some particular reason to consider you a more reliable source than the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries?--Anders Feder (talk) 17:53, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

In regard to Northern Scandinavian prehistory, especially early metall age, you should! In English vocabulary, not at all! -- Innocent bystander (talk) 18:07, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Is that so? Do you hold some particular degree in English, or Northern Scandinavian prehistory for that matter?--Anders Feder (talk) 18:18, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

In Scandinavian prehistory. Yes, I do! My thesis last year was about an early metall age-culture in Northern Scandinavia. One infected discussion in this field is who is Scandinavian and who is not. I have seen nobody use the term "Norse" this far north and this early, but you can find them from the later metall age. If they lived here, or if they only were "guests", is disputed. All we know is that some of them died here. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 18:32, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

What are you referring to by "this far north and this early"? Which "this"?--Anders Feder (talk) 18:39, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

From Gästrikland (Q183459) to Västerbotten (Q211652) and early metall age. Depending on which model you use, this area is not divided into Bronze and Iron age, but are referred to as Metall age. The archaeological finds here are so few and contradicting that there is no simple model for how the history looks. One model says that the coast area was colonized from the South by Scandinavians, other that it was inhabited by a proto-Sami-people. A third model talks about the area as a Creole-area, an area with mixed populations and culture, where influences went in both directions. I would like to open up for a fourth explanation, that this area was populated by a people separate from both Sami and Scandinavians. They were distant related to the Sami, but isolated and had therefor developed another culture, with burial traditions different from the Sami and missing the typical Sami-ceramic. It didn't survived as a culture of its own. The lower classes in this culture later adopted the culture of the Scandinavians (who went here for trading and some of them stayed) while the upper classes adopted the culture of the Sami. That would explain why we have so little finds of early Sami here. It could also explain why two neighbour villages could look so different and how they could survive on agriculture when there were so many cold summers. Of course these are my unpublished ideas, and not something we can put into any article/item here. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 07:47, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, there is nothing wrong in discussing the context of a given item. But none of this seems to warrant a change in the present item. In actuality, there isn't much ambiguity over what peoples qualify as "Norse": it's the ones that spoke either Proto-Norse (Q1671294) or one of its immediate descendants (Old West Norse (Q10498026) and Old East Norse (Q10498031)).--Anders Feder (talk) 11:19, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I prefer one item for all kind of Norse runestones, yes. A possible alternative is to separate those with different kinds of futharks. But those are probably better separated by the property for "script". My problem probably is that it is difficult to make an adjective (Q34698) of "Norse" and preserve its meaning. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 14:50, 18 June 2016 (UTC)