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The term ‘Viking’ as it is commonly used is misleading
- guerrilla 4y agoThe thing is, that's not the problem. The problem is that people don't know these basic facts about the periods under consideration. Words change their meanings and 'vikings' is now just a vague term for all of it and that's not something to waste your time fighting. The real problem is people thinking they know something about vikings when they don't even know this basic introductory material. They don't even know there's anything to know. A big part of the creation of that situation is movies and TV which pretty much only focus on pirates but the whole thing from the migration period to Christianized Scandinavia is pretty interesting. It seems like something schools could glaze over, so that people at least get an idea that there's something more going on than what's in popular media.
- dsclough 4y agoAre either of these things actually a problem? Regular people have probably always been misinformed about everything, does it matter at all?
- guerrilla 4y agoHe mentioned one of the practical problems in the article, that the current mode of romanticism has been used as a justificatory foundation for fascists. > This is insidious; by linking military prowess and savagery to an entire ethnic group, it encourages its appropriation by racial supremacists. I think in general though that any amount propagating misinformation is bad and can have all kinds of minor unforeseen consequences that can add up.
- rocqua 4y agoOn the idea that 'wild men' are superior fighters, and that hard times breed strong men, strong men make good times, good times breed weak men, and weak men make hard times. There is a nice (but long) series of blogposts: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... It brings up how many times this idea was brought forth by people frustrated by the limitations of civilization, who wished to convince their peers they would be better off as a wilder people.
- barry-cotter 4y agoPeople are being morons is a fully general justification for censorship because people are always either deeply misinformed about something, hence moronic, or doing something someone thinks is stupid, hence moronic. > I think in general though that any amount propagating misinformation is bad and can have all kinds of minor unforeseen consequences that can add up. Yes, other people agree with you that there are bad people out there with bad opinions who should be stopped. They just disagree on who the bad people are, and what the bad opinions are. Some people think Drag Queen Story Hour is great. Others think that all guns should be banned. Some think that teaching first graders about gender identities is wonderful, others that denigrating religion is wrong. Misinformation is an excuse for censorship and people aren’t dumb enough to fall for it for long.
- guerrilla 4y agoYou seem very lost. I said nothing about censorship.
- bavell 4y ago> the current mode of romanticism has been used as a justificatory foundation for fascists. Any examples? Sounds to me like a lot of hand waving and rhetoric.
- guerrilla 4y agoSorry, I thought it was common knowledge since the 90's [1] and kind of obvious being that they often use the valknut, Thor's hammer and Tyr's rune for their logos. There's nothing hand-wavy about it though. It's huge in current fascist movements, you won't have to look too hard. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathenry_(new_religious_movement)#Racial_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathenry_(new_religious_movem...
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- filterfish 4y ago> Regular people have probably always been misinformed about everything ... So others are responsible for what you know? Surely it's the individual's responsibility not to be ignorant?
- guerrilla 4y agoYes, liars are responsible for lying. And this is why we have school as well.
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- rhapsodic 4y agoToday we have techo vikings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjCdB5p2v0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjCdB5p2v0Y
- VikingCoder 4y agoI feel attacked.
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- TrispusAttucks 4y agoYeah. That was uncalled for. Author owes you a beer or apology.
- JasonFruit 4y agoI think you could write an article titled "The term x as it is commonly used is misleading," substituting any common historical term for x. So while this is true, I'm not any more bothered by it than using "slave" to describe all the varied forms of servitude in the ancient world, to choose the first example that occurs to me.
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- bigDinosaur 4y agoSlave is a superset of the slave subtypes. 'Viking' is not such a superset because it didn't really exist at all. So the slave example isn't misleading, just incomplete as all generalisations must be. I'd find it problematic if you referred to slaves who were in fact not slaves at all, though.
- bitwize 4y agoI've always thought of the Vikings as men in ships who did the actual exploring and pillaging; their ethnicity being Norse. I have rarely heard the word used to describe turn-of-the-second-millennium Scandinavians in general, only the Scandinavian explorers and sailors who were active in that time. Much like the term "ninja" (or, perhaps more closely, "conquistador"), the term "Viking" connotes a time period, a region/ethnic group, and an occupation. So if we get rid of the term "Viking", maybe we should get rid of "ninja" as well. After all it too is rooted in myth, romanticism, and cultural stereotypes... virtually no records kept by ninja actually survive, and what we know of them comes from those who hired or witnessed them as well as legends and tall tales.
- mkl95 4y agoI'd say this is a pretty accurate comment > A víkingr was someone who went on expeditions, usually abroad, usually by sea, and usually in a group with other víkingar (the plural). Víkingr did not imply any particular ethnicity and it was a fairly neutral term, which could be used of one’s own group or another group. * So basically it was a blanket term for [military and civilian] sailors * https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-word-viking-really-mean-75647 https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-word-viking-really...
- xg15 4y ago> After all it too is rooted in myth, romanticism, and cultural stereotypes... Kinda funny, from what I read the depiction of ninjas in popular culture - dressed in pitch black cloth, cloaked face - was really the outfit of stage hands in traditional japanese theater. Convention was that viewers ignore the stage hands for the sake of the plot. In one play, a ninja assassination was shown and to demonstrate the point that absolutely anyone could be the ninja and he could strike out of nowhere, the ninja was revealed to be one of the stage hands in a sort of fourth-wall break. So our current mental image of "ninjas" is itself the result of a past popular-culture interpretation of them, not the actual looks.
- hutzlibu 4y agoYup, that it is a funny anecdote. Most ninjas were dressed /disguised in common, civilian clothes to do their trade. And black is actually not the best color to hide (when you stand in front of a light wall, you would stood out in low light conditions wearing black).
- janmarsal 4y agoI agree with almost everything with the author, except that whole racist aspect. I've always been annoyed how basically all the scandiniavians of the viking era are labeled as nothing but savage pirates. As if they were good for nothing but stealing. There's something very demeaning about that, no matter how much they're romanticized for it these days. Imagine if in the future all the 20th century Sicilians, or all Italians even, were labeled as mafia men simply because of their ethnicity. Then someone would write how problematic it is that a whole ethnic group is labeled as criminals, not because of how demeaning it is, but because The Godfather is a good movie and some Italian might feel proud for it.
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- rocqua 4y agoIt's also more likely to stick for 'vikings' because their image is slightly attractive to a big minority of people. Which makes it quite insidious. On the other hand, I don't think many 'viking' / Scandinavian people are suffering actual discrimination in the current day. It's racism that misunderstands someones ancestors, without projecting it on their own person. Which seems a lot less harmful to me.
- vintermann 4y agoYes, the problem isn't that Danes or Norwegians get offended when you suggest a romanticized hyper-violent version of their ancestors. On the contrary, it's that some of them get a little too excited about it. And foreign "appropriators", too. Ukrainian ultranationalists, for instance, got really geared up over the theory that Odin was a historical person living near Azov (which the Norwegian adventurer and crank-historian Thor Heyerdahl claimed came from "As-Hov" or "home of the aesir"). If we could get foreign militias to wear slightly less neo-nazi insignia on their uniforms by getting the idea of "vikings" back on the ground, I'd say that would be great.
- jollybean 4y agoThe difference is, if Vikings had some kind of cultural dominance, and they defined the leadership of the region, brought home spoils and bounty, it would be like the Mafia literally running Italy, in which case, we surely would refer to it as the 'Mafia Period' at least.
- foobar9k 4y agoViking in Japan means an all-you-can-eat buffet
- labster 4y agoYou can even eat Ghenghis Khan and Mont Blanc at a viking.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y agoIt was easier to remember than smörgåsbord, I suppose.
- jdshaffer 4y agoThere is a great book about this called "Laughing, I Shall Die" by Dr. Shippey [0]. The blub on Amazon says: Laughing Shall I Die explores the Viking fascination with scenes of heroic death. The literature of the Vikings is dominated by famous last stands, famous last words, death songs, and defiant gestures, all presented with grim humor. Much of this mindset is markedly alien to modern sentiment, and academics have accordingly shunned it. And yet, it is this same worldview that has always powered the popular public image of the Vikings—with their berserkers, valkyries, and cults of Valhalla and Ragnarok—and has also been surprisingly corroborated by archaeological discoveries such as the Ridgeway massacre site in Dorset. Was it this mindset that powered the sudden eruption of the Vikings onto the European scene? Was it a belief in heroic death that made them so lastingly successful against so many bellicose opponents? Weighing the evidence of sagas and poems against the accounts of the Vikings’ victims, Tom Shippey considers these questions as he plumbs the complexities of Viking psychology. Along the way, he recounts many of the great bravura scenes of Old Norse literature, including the Fall of the House of the Skjoldungs, the clash between the two great longships Ironbeard and Long Serpent, and the death of Thormod the skald. One of the most exciting books on Vikings for a generation, Laughing Shall I Die presents Vikings for what they were: not peaceful explorers and traders, but warriors, marauders, and storytellers. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Laughing-Shall-Die-Deaths-Vikings/dp/1780239092 https://www.amazon.com/Laughing-Shall-Die-Deaths-Vikings/dp/...
- semi-extrinsic 4y agoFWIW, the academic literature around Vikings is much poorer in English than in Icelandic or other scandinavian languages. Especially after the extremely thorough work Sigurður Nordal did throughout his career. And in the scandinavian countries, we learn about the sagas and the awesome Viking last words in high school. I remember especially we found very funny a scene where a person is murdered as he answers the front door, and his dying words are "hmmm, those broad swords are really getting common these days". (I can't seem to find the exact quote.)
- jdshaffer 4y agoThere are some other great examples in the book as well, like this gem: What Ragnar is supposed to have said as he died in King Ella's snakepit, according to this second version, is: Gnyðja mundu grísir, ef galtar hag vissi. One of the things that has always struck English translators of Norse is that it seems on the surface really rather easy to translate, with words which are unexpectedly familiar. But then one isn't quite sure what they mean. In this case grísir means greasies, little pigs, piggies, while gnyðja is clearly onomatopoeic and means grunt, or even, arguably, "go oink oink". And what Ragnar is saying - grimly, roguishly, perhaps with a nod and a wink - is, "the piggies would grunt if they knew of the old boar's death". He, of course, is the "old boar", and the "piggies" are his sons.
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- Biologist123 4y agoI always thought the Vikings were the piratical dudes on the long boats. I thought this was a common understanding, and I wondered if the author was setting up a straw man to make for an argument. As an aside, my son asked me a few weeks ago where all the Vikings went. I explained that they definitely run the UK - the Queen is a direct descendent of William the Bastard/Conqueror. And in much of Europe the Norman Vikings contributed much to Royal bloodlines. From there these Vikings - cunningly renamed colonialists as if in deference to the author’s point - set out to plunder the world. Hello America. I’m not an historian, but this seemed like a fair retelling of history to me.
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- rocqua 4y agoThe article states (without sources) that people talk if viking villages and viking women and children. That doesn't fit the raiding definition. Similarly the article argues a big difference between the opportunistic independant raiders of the 900s and the politically organized landings with intent to conquer and rule of the later centuries. The second group were not 'wild raiders' but the standard 'one country invading another' of the early middle ages. At least by the article's reasoning.
- Biologist123 4y agoWe do talk about Danegeld and Norsemen, not Vikinggeld and Vikingmen, from the later age. I worked with a guy from an area of Britain well known for its “Viking” settlements. Whilst at university, his DNA was tested as part of an historical study. He informed me that despite the passage of a thousand years there has been very little dilution of his Norse blood. He was very blonde, but otherwise quite short and peaceable.
- atchoo 4y ago> there has been very little dilution of his Norse blood Hmm. VERY doubtful unless his family has 1000 years of inbreeding. Much more likely to be yet another crap ethnic ancestry test or fiction. Claiming Viking heritage is kind of a common British thing especially if you are blonde. It's the sort of thing you are told as a kid and becomes part of your identity despite genetic studies showing very little remaining trace in the population as a whole. Where was he from? The best chance would be if he came from Orkney but I don't think anyone is actually pure Norse after multiple waves of immigration after the original Norse settlement. If he comes from England then I'd say it's definitely a bogus claim. There are even genetic studies that the Viking settlers themselves were not genetically pure Norse making such blood purity claims even more doubtful.
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- mongol 4y ago> It should be retired. Cultural appropriation if I ever heard it. What about retiring Anglo-Saxons while at it?
- rocqua 4y agoThe point is that the term, as used in English, was incorrectly appropriated from another language. Moreover use of the term lumps people together that have little in common. Contrast this against the term Anglo-Saxon used by a group of people to describe themselves.
- mongol 4y agoI don't think a call for retiring the term is motivated. It is a completely relevant word to apply for certain events and processes taking place in the centuries before the medieval age. People from current Scandinavia went out in the world to pillage and trade, they were called vikings (according to rune stones raised in their homelands by their families back there), and what they did has affected history. If the word is used too broadly, that is something that can be called out, but calling for retirement of the entire word is taking it too far.
- barry-cotter 4y ago> The point is that the term, as used in English, was incorrectly appropriated from another language. Language is not appropriated, it is used. A language is not property. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes never called themselves Anglo-Saxons. They were intimately aware of differences between themselves that are lost to us.
- vintermann 4y agoWhat culture? Nordic metal music culture? Neopagan culture? Because I'm Norwegian, and I've been arguing against viking as an ethnonym and mythologizing around "vikings" for decades. It really is like, as one poster above said, if we decided to describe everyone in Japan before say 1700 as "ninjas".
- century19 4y ago-- Calling such people ‘Vikings’ would be like calling 18th century British, French or Dutch naval officers ‘pirates’ simply because they wore vaguely similar hats and sailed vaguely similar ships to Blackbeard. Thing is, pirates like Blackbeard were doing the same thing the British navy were doing, they just stopped giving the loot back to the Empire. Where do people think they got the boats from? So the navy kind of were pirates, or at least engaged in that activity, albeit sanctioned by government at home.
- croes 4y agoBut you wouldn't call the people of Great Britain pirates.
- pseudo0 4y agoThe piece does a very poor job of establishing whether any sizable fraction of people actually misuse the word in the way they claim. Even Hollywood managed to get it right with "The Norseman", not "The Viking".
- century19 4y agoAnd the Norsemen/Normans invaded England and took over. They went native and became English after a while. Then started The British Empire.
- Sharlin 4y agoBefore that they had mostly gone native and become French first.
- century19 4y agoVery true, effectively French speaking Vikings. Who changed the English language to include lots of French. We can see the fingerprints in the way food is named: pork/pig, beef/cow, etc. The French word was used when serving the Normans at the table, and the English word was used in the field.
- martijnvds 4y agoHenceforth, they shall be known as Emacsking
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- bryanrasmussen 4y agoah, pedantry - that's where I'm a Viking.
- russnes 4y agoI'm Norwegian and I just realized why its called "Viking" (not 100% sure it's true). The word vik describes a geographical phenomenom, much like the word fjord does. Google translate says it is in English: "inlet", i.e. it's where the ocean penetrates into the land and creates a small body of water, smaller than a bay. Adding ing to any word, is similar to in English as adding ling to any word. So if it were English, it would be vikling, someone who is of the vik. Norwegian definition: Vik er et vannområde som danner innskjæring i kysten eller i en innsjø, oftest trangere enn bukt og kortere enn kil.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/v%C3%ADkingr#Old_Norse https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/v%C3%ADkingr#Old_Norse agrees that this is the etymology
- HelloNurse 4y agoIt makes sense that sea pirates should be people from the seaside, but why specifically people from viks? Were the viks more populated than other coastal features or more suitable as ports?
- tboyd47 4y agoPerhaps it refers to penetrating into the inland of the victim's territory by way of a vik.
- atombender 4y agoBut this how folk etymologies emerge, because people find familiar-looking connections that "make sense" without much supporting evidence. You're using modern Norwegian to form a theory about the origin of an ancient word in a different language. The fact is, we simply don't know for sure where the word "viking" comes from. The word was essentially invented in the 18th century to mean something other than the original meaning; the word was not so common during the Viking age, and almost certainly wasn't used at the time to refer to an entire culture or people. We are not even sure if it is of Norse or English origin, and it's unclear who called them this first. The Old English "wic" meaning village or camp predates "viking" by several hundred years [1], and the Latin "vicus" is much older. The oldest sources we have for the word (as "wicing" or "witsing", both pronounced the same) are Old English texts; it's not unlikely that the word was first used by Anglo-Saxons to refer to "pirates" from the North, and that the word was then adopted by the latter. Another possibility, as seen in the Widsith text, which refers to a tribe as "wicinga cynn", is that it refers to the historical geographical area of Vík (or Víkin) which today is the area surrounding the Oslo fjord. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/Viking https://www.etymonline.com/word/Viking
- paradite 4y agoI couldn't identify a central thesis from the article, apart from "Viking" is misleading and should not be used, and how the word evolved into its current "misleading" meaning. I was expecting a real definition or description of what "Viking" should mean, but that pary seems to be buried in a sea of words.
- rat9988 4y agoFirst paragraph first three sentences, you have the definition of the word viking with context.
- EnKopVand 4y agoAs a Scandinavian all I can say is good luck with changing things. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly wish I could wear the Thor’s hammer necklace that I was given as a baptismal gift (I know, I know) without being associated with all sort of nonsense. But that’s just how the world is these days. I don’t really mind most of the cultural appropriation by the way. I think things like the Marvel Thor, the NFL team, the horned helmets, the ridiculous tv shows, and, the Speedo wearing blood bowl team are all amazing. Sure those things are over the top, historically incorrect and rather stupid, but they also come from a sort of loving place. What I do mind is the failed men who run around pretending to be manlier than they are by stealing our culture and turning it into something hateful. I know I sort of look the part of Hitlers secret fantasy, being a tall Scandinavian with undercuts and a moustache, but I’m really not right wing and it bothers me when I’m associated with hateful assholes because they’ve appropriated my cultural heritage. It’s the way the world is, like I said, and I think you’ll have as much hope of removing the horns from the helmets that you will trying to make the broader international society understand that Viking is something you did not something you were.
- henrikschroder 4y agoThe author's point is that the term is wrong because most northmen weren't going viking, weren't pirating and plundering and raiding, therefore it should be called something different. Alright, cool, but suggest something better, then? The way this time period is taught in Swedish schools is that we talk about the "viking age", and people generally know that referring to everyone living in Scandinavia at this time as "vikings" is wrong and sloppy, and a better term is "northmen". But you know what? It doesn't matter. The fact is that this time period (~800 to ~1050) in Scandinavia is reasonably well-defined, and characterized by a bunch of distinct shared features; art, religion, language, and culture, such that no other cultures had these features at this time. The start of the time period is usually set at the raid on Lindisfarne, because this was the first time that Scandinavians had some sort of effect on the rest of Europe, it's the first time we got "noticed" by the others, it's the first time we appear in history. The Viking age generally ended with the Christianization of Scandinavia, and the establishment of the nation states that pretty much powered the historical events of the last thousand years in the area. Sure, history is always a continuous blur rather than well defined eras, but it's still a useful concept. The age of dragon-headed longboats, human sacrifices to Odin, runestones, and the Varingian guard was a thing, it was unique and unparallelled, and it left behind a legacy outside Scandinavia in the form of for example Normandy, the Danelaw, or the Kievan Rus, and a legacy inside Scandinavia, being an intrinsic part of the "founding mythos" of our modern nations. This thing needs to be called something, so why not name it for the thing that started it, why not name it for the people going viking?
- Strom 4y ago> [..] time period (~800 to ~1050) [..] the first time we appear in history. Some interesting new developments with that recently. In 2008-2010 two Viking ships were discovered in Saaremaa, Estonia. The ships (or the bits that's left of them) have been dated to be from around 650–750. There were some 40+ Swedish men buried with these ships after some sort of battle. [1][2][3] These findings move Viking military action outside of Scandinavia to a time before Lindisfarne. The archaeologists believe the men died in a battle some time between 700 and 750, perhaps almost as much as a century before the Viking Age officially began. -- [1] https://www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features/941-vikings-saaremaa-estonia-salme-vendel-oseberg https://www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features/941-viki... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269403778_RESEARCH_RESULTS_OF_THE_SALME_SHIP_BURIALS_IN_2011-2012 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269403778_RESEARCH_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salme_ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salme_ships
- ng12 4y agoSo what? Historical names for other cultures usually come from the context under which they were first encountered. Arab sources call the Crusaders Franks because the first wave was mostly French. It's very common.
- fitch321 4y agoEmacs users vs vi kings
- daneel_w 4y agoThe term as used on Swedish rune stones was along the lines of a verb. Many of the stones herald some dead family member, "who died in/during viking".
- teleforce 4y agoThe irony is that the author of the article critisizing the word viking but used the word Saracen probably refering to the Arab or Muslim people of the Middle Age. It's a deragotary term for them because not unlike the viking word the Saracen in Arabic the word means barbarian or plunderer.
- walnutclosefarm 4y agoI think one reads this as a symptom of academic history - if you are an historian of a thoroughly studied period or aspect of history, then the only things you have to offer, as an academic, are either tuckpointing an established narrative wall with new tidbits of fact or interpretation, or trying to push the narrative wall over so you can tell a different story. The first won't get you much attention, so the second become highly appealing - doubly so, if you can attach your effort to a highly popular narrative, or, as in this case, word or phrase. In other words, he needed top publish something, and saying "what you think you know about the word "viking" is all wrong," makes a good headline for what is otherwise an absolutely ordinary review of well known history.
- cplusplusfellow 4y agoEven better when you can write an article that essentially says : “what you think you know about the word "viking" is racist”
- photochemsyn 4y agoThis quote is slightly amusing as the result could be the opposite of what the author intends: Calling such people ‘Vikings’ would be like calling 18th century British, French or Dutch naval officers ‘pirates’ simply because they wore vaguely similar hats and sailed vaguely similar ships to Blackbeard. Much of the activity of the European navies at the time (and in prior centuries) is best classified as 'piracy' or 'privateering'. Most of the European colonial enterprise (capturing slaves in Africa, shipping them to plantations in the New World, shipping the resulting raw materials to Europe, etc.) was basically piratical in nature, and the various involved interests were just as happy to prey upon one another as upon the native populations, for example the English vs. the Spanish: https://www.nps.gov/articles/piracyandprivateering.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/piracyandprivateering.htm > "Roanoke, with its lush vegetation, virgin forests and bountiful harvests from the sea, was indeed "Raleigh's Eden." But it was also ideally suited as a base from which the English could prey upon Spanish treasure ships as they lumbered their way north from the Caribbean to catch the homeward flowing currents of the Gulf Stream just off the coast of the Outer Banks. After leaving Ralph Lane's 1585 military colony on Roanoke, Sir Richard Grenville captured a fortune in Spanish booty on the return trip to England, which no doubt pleased the investors. That same year, the English Crown officially sanctioned the harrassment and disruption of Spanish shipping."
- noasaservice 4y agoYep. If you were going to do a raid/piracy, you would have said "I'm going a viking", or "Im going a plundering". And settlements not under your control were ripe targets for that - they were on YOUR territory. And having been in a proper Norse longboat, those things are nigh silent. And seeing 50 of them land on the shore at early morning fog, would be terrifying.
- dr_dshiv 4y agoWhen the Vikings met the Greeks https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2016/10/when-vikings-met-greeks.html https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2016/10/when-vik...
- bogomipz 4y agoRelatedly, the Viking stereotype of wearing horned helmets also has its origins in the 19th century. This trope was largely put into the public's imagination via Wagner's "Ring Cycle" opera. See: https://ingebretsens-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/51267328-frank-invention-of-horned-helmet.pdf https://ingebretsens-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/512...
- ratsmack 4y ago>it encourages its appropriation by racial supremacists. When I got to this point, I quit reading and will disregard the article.
- devnull255 4y agoSounds to me like Viking is as Viking does. Raiding and pillaging still inflicts the same result on victims whether carried out under a monarch's banner or by independent agents. Maybe use of his word describing where the pillaging and plundering was happening is similar to why the word 'typhoon' and 'hurricane' is used to describe the same meteorological phenomenon. It depends on where it is happening. Use of the word in history will also depend on the perspective of who is telling the history, whether you identify with the conquerors or the conquered. Alexander the Great to western historians is Alexander the Accursed to the Persians.
- runnr_az 4y agoI'm a sleep viking. (Cue Simpsons debate)
- 7402 4y agoAn entirely side comment: this issue is touched on in the quite entertaining Norwegian show on HBO Max, "Beforeigners." I recommend it. It's a sci-fi / police procedural with the premise that people are suddenly arriving from the past (the 19th Century, 1000 years ago, and pre-historic times). It also has a fair amount of humor throughout. The time-travelers from 1000 years ago commonly refer to themselves as "Vikings," although one such person testily observes to a person from the present, "actually, we prefer the term 'people of Norse descent.'"