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-- Calling such people ‘Vikings’ would be like calling 18th century British, French or Dutch naval officers ‘pirates’ simply because they wore vaguely similar h

-- 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 ago
But you wouldn't call the people of Great Britain pirates.
- pseudo0 4y ago
  The 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 ago
    And the Norsemen/Normans invaded England and took over. They went native and became English after a while. Then started The British Empire.
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      Before that they had mostly gone native and become French first.
      - century19 4y ago
        Very 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.
      - Tagbert 4y ago
        That was the later “Normans” who were Norse that invaded the area of France and learned French. They invaded England a couple of hundred years after the original Norse invasions.
    - Tagbert 4y ago
      Of course the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Britain in the 5th century were barely distinguishable from the later Norse.
- century19 4y ago
  - speedbird 4y ago
    Evidence?
    - vinay427 4y ago
      Not the OP, but Wikipedia [1] lists the number as 25-35%, listing this book [2] as a source in which page 261 seems to provide numbers ranging from 32% to 24% in the centuries leading up to colonization. It's not clear what the source for book's estimates are, although some explanation seems to be provided for the author's methodology. The same Wikipedia article also lists another text [3] as a source for the historical share of GDP table [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#cite_note-maddison-19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#cite... [2] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rHJGz3HiJbcC&pg=PA257#v=snippet&q=gdp%20india https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rHJGz3HiJbcC&pg=PA257#v=... [3] https://archive.org/details/contoursworldeco00madd https://archive.org/details/contoursworldeco00madd [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#GDP_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#GDP_...
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    > Well, India did have 31% of the world's GDP before they looted it and left it with 2%. That's a misleading statistic, because your share of world GDP could go down merely from other people skyrocketing in GDP faster than you are. And, given the timeframe we're talking about, "other people skyrocketing in GDP" is precisely what happened (namely, the Industrial Revolution). The statistic that is more useful is real GDP per capita, and what the trajectory looks like before and during British rule (though I suspect this won't make the British look good either).
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  You wouldn't... but there is a somewhat old-fashioned tendency to do so in Spain (motivated by old imperial rivalries) and in Argentina (idem plus the Falklands affair). See for instance (in Spanish): - https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirata_(despectivo) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirata_(despectivo) - https://es.quora.com/Por-qué-los-ingleses-son-llamados-piratas https://es.quora.com/Por-qué-los-ingleses-son-llamados-pirat...
xg15 4y ago
> they just stopped giving the loot back to the Empire. And they were not under the control of the empire. Freelancers were an active part of British military strategy, while pirates acted on their own. I agree that distinction was probably irrelevant for the rest of the world, but you can understand why media and culture in the empire would value and depict them quite differently :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gherkinnn 4y ago
> albeit sanctioned by government at home That’s kind of a biggie, innit? What a strange point to make.

croes 4y ago

But you wouldn't call the people of Great Britain pirates.

pseudo0 4y ago
The 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 ago
  And the Norsemen/Normans invaded England and took over. They went native and became English after a while. Then started The British Empire.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Before that they had mostly gone native and become French first.
    - century19 4y ago
      Very 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.
    - Tagbert 4y ago
      That was the later “Normans” who were Norse that invaded the area of France and learned French. They invaded England a couple of hundred years after the original Norse invasions.
  - Tagbert 4y ago
    Of course the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Britain in the 5th century were barely distinguishable from the later Norse.
century19 4y ago
- speedbird 4y ago
  Evidence?
  - vinay427 4y ago
    Not the OP, but Wikipedia [1] lists the number as 25-35%, listing this book [2] as a source in which page 261 seems to provide numbers ranging from 32% to 24% in the centuries leading up to colonization. It's not clear what the source for book's estimates are, although some explanation seems to be provided for the author's methodology. The same Wikipedia article also lists another text [3] as a source for the historical share of GDP table [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#cite_note-maddison-19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#cite... [2] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rHJGz3HiJbcC&pg=PA257#v=snippet&q=gdp%20india https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rHJGz3HiJbcC&pg=PA257#v=... [3] https://archive.org/details/contoursworldeco00madd https://archive.org/details/contoursworldeco00madd [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#GDP_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India#GDP_...
- jcranmer 4y ago
  > Well, India did have 31% of the world's GDP before they looted it and left it with 2%. That's a misleading statistic, because your share of world GDP could go down merely from other people skyrocketing in GDP faster than you are. And, given the timeframe we're talking about, "other people skyrocketing in GDP" is precisely what happened (namely, the Industrial Revolution). The statistic that is more useful is real GDP per capita, and what the trajectory looks like before and during British rule (though I suspect this won't make the British look good either).
Mordisquitos 4y ago
You wouldn't... but there is a somewhat old-fashioned tendency to do so in Spain (motivated by old imperial rivalries) and in Argentina (idem plus the Falklands affair). See for instance (in Spanish): - https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirata_(despectivo) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirata_(despectivo) - https://es.quora.com/Por-qué-los-ingleses-son-llamados-piratas https://es.quora.com/Por-qué-los-ingleses-son-llamados-pirat...

xg15 4y ago

> they just stopped giving the loot back to the Empire. And they were not under the control of the empire. Freelancers were an active part of British military strategy, while pirates acted on their own. I agree that distinction was probably irrelevant for the rest of the world, but you can understand why media and culture in the empire would value and depict them quite differently :)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

gherkinnn 4y ago

> albeit sanctioned by government at home That’s kind of a biggie, innit? What a strange point to make.