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There are suggested Vikings came from three modern countries--Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Were there separate countries near the year 1000? Did most Vikings come from one or two of these modern countries?

I think Denmark and Sweden were independent kingdoms from the beginning but Norway was unified sometime during the Viking period.

The Danes and Norse tended to go west and south towards Europe but the Swedes concentrated on the east, sailing up the rivers deep into Russia and Poland.

Hi

Denmark did proberly have many local kings/chiefs in most of the vikingage and was unified by Harald Bluetooth in the 10. th century. Sweden was proberly unified in the 13. century, maybe earlier. There are much discussion of that in Sweden. I dont really know how it was in Norway. But it seems likely that all the scandinavian area was covered with a lot of small kingdoms. sometime on or mere kings got power over a bigger area and sometime a smaller.

Pippin

Pippin - you might be interested in this discussion on Viking DNA:

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewtopic.php?t=1734

Harald Bluetooth...! I like the sound of him.

How did the Finns fit into all this?
Today we call Finland part of Scandinavia, but what was the make up in the Glory Days of the Vikings?

The Finns are an enigma. As far as I can recall linguistically they are related to Hungarian or something.

kbs2244 wrote: Today we call Finland part of Scandinavia,

That must be you "we" then, kb, because we "we", in western Europe, consistently speak of "Scandinavia and Finland". So Finland is not regarded to be part of Scandinavia, which is considered to consist of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
However, from the 13th century up until 1809 Finland was a colony – not a part – of Sweden. Which may explain some of the confusion.

So, culturally and historically, Finland is not part of Scandinavia?
But Hungry? That is quite a way to travel, with a lot to get through on the way.
And, of course, the most basic question, why?
About the only similarity I can see in the two areas is a lack of level ground.

Hi

Yes i would also become hungry, if i traveled so long

The people speking the Finno-Ugric languages (sibiria, finland, estonia and hungary) may have peopled a big area and not the small enclaves they live in today. read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages

I will write some more on the viking kingdoms later, becourse i dont have the time now, i have a exam on monday.

Pippin

Finnish belongs to the Uralic family of languages, which has two main branches: the Finno-Ugrian and the Samoyed languages. Finnish and its closely cognate languages are jointly called Baltic-Finnic languages. Besides Finnish, these languages include Karelian, Ludian, Vepsian, Votian, Ingrian, Estonian and Livonian. Given some practice, Finns can understand other Baltic-Finnic languages fairly well, but not automatically. The Saami languages are remotely cognate languages of Finnish. Hungarian is distant from Finnish, and the relation between these two languages can only be established on historical linguistic grounds.

http://www.multilingual-matters.net/cil ... 030095.pdf


Not worth reading the whole paper for this!

Hi

When i was in Alta in north norway at the museum of helleristninger (clifdrawings from the bronzeage), there was signs in samian and finish and as i recal i didnt find two words looking like each other, but for me they sound much alike.

Kim

Hungarian is distant from Finnish, and the relation between these two languages can only be established on historical linguistic grounds.

The Finno-Ugric languages include the Finns as well as the Hungarians (Magyars). Although the two fall within the same language group they are not related by genetics. The two groups thought they were related until genetic testing was done, but this was a cultural transmission instead.

The Finns are primarily yDNA N3 while the Hungarians are primarily yDNA R1a (25%) plus a big mix of other genetics picked up apparently in their travels west (tag-alongs when they were rampaging through Rome). The Magyar language is agglutinative and very similar to the dead language Sumerian. They were not Sumerian, but possibly ransacked villages with them at some point in the distant past.

Cognito wrote:The Magyar language is agglutinative and very similar to the dead language Sumerian. They were not Sumerian, but possibly ransacked villages with them at some point in the distant past.

Interesting, Cog. By this 'Sumerian' do you mean the Sumerian from 'Iraq'? And, if so, when, and where, could those Sumerians have "ransacked villages with [the Magyars]"? Were they allies in a conflict with a common enemy? Which enemy would that have been then?