Re: Some gutter trash

John Turco wrote:
David Brown wrote:
John Turco wrote:

<edited for brevity>


English and German are each part of the same western subset, of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family; Norwegian, Swedish and Danish all belong to the northern group. I find this ironic, as at a glance, German looks so much more similar to those Scandinavian tongues*, than it does to
English.


It is difficult for an amateur to give a decent impression - even though I am fairly fluent in Norwegian and have some memories of German from school. It is hard to avoid being subjective. German grammar is, I would say, closer to English grammar (especially older English - try reading Milton for example) than to Norwegian grammar. In vocabulary, my vague guess is that English and Norwegian are closer to each other than either is to German.

Than, again, the Angles and the Saxons came from Germany, and the Norman
Conquest caused a distinct divergence between English and German.


Yes, we are all mixed up - the British people and English language especially.

[* Finland is "Scandinavian" solely in a geographical sense, as that nation
is otherwise non-Nordic.]


Parts of Finland are heavily Swedish in language, people, and history, and modern Finnish culture is closer to the rest of Scandinavia than to their other neighbours. But genetically and historically the Fins are much closer to the Baltic counties than to the rest of Scandinavia, and the Finnish language is an oddity (it's closely related to Sami from the north of Scandinavia, and loosely related to Hungarian).

<edited>
Women had far more influence and power - when a woman's husband was
away on a Viking expedition, she had full legal authority over their
estate which was owned jointly. And if she caught him cheating on
her with another woman (foreign women and slaves don't count, of
course) she could demand his arrest and execution.
"Demands" are easily made, but, how often are they fulfulled? Besides,
this simply fits the prevailing stereotype of vengeful, bloodthirsty
Vikings.

Written history from the time is sparse, though there is much more from
Sweden at slightly later dates (say, 1200 onwards). Judging from my
spare knowledge of the sparse records, such demands would seldom be
made, such as if the man in question was of considerable renown, but
they would be carried out if the evidence was against him.

Nevertheless, how would this type of brutal custom, possibly help to
portray the Vikings in a more favorable light?

I guess the topic has strayed a little... the point was merely that while in most contemporary societies women were effectively property owned by their father, husband or brothers, in Viking society they had far more rights.

Perhaps this explains why modern Scandinavian societies are less
misogynist than other European countries.
Really? Not according to a Wikipedia article on Sweden, I'd seen, a few
months ago. It claimed that, during the late 19th century and early 20th
century, Swedish emigrants to the United States found American society
to be much more democratic (and far less authoritarian) than their "old
country" ever was.

Was it Swedish women or Swedish men who claimed that?

I don't remember, and why does it matter, anyhow? Or, are you implying that only women's "claims" can have any validity?


In 19th century Sweden, the average man was a farmer with very little influence on the running of the country. On moving to the USA, he would have far more to say - democracy in the USA, especially at a local (and therefore more immediately visible) level, was much more developed. The point is, if a Swedish male emigrant said the USA was more democratic than Sweden at the time, the comment without other context says absolutely nothing about the male domination or women's rights in either country. If the Swede was a women, the assumption (again without context) would be that it was in reference to her own democratic rights.

There is certainly no doubt about modern Scandinavia being less
male-biased that most other countries. Some of that is perhaps a
general effect of greater socialism (such as better maternity leave),
and I have no idea if or how that might have had historical Viking
influence.

But other than that, I simply throwing out an idea - I have no evidence
beyond the facts that women (free women, anyway) had better rights in
Viking societies than in most contemporary societies, and modern
Scandinavian women have better rights than in most contemporary
societies. Whether these two situations are related or not is just an
idea.

<edited>

Modern Sweden's astronomical rates of juvenle delinquency, out-of-wedlock
births and suicides, may tend to offset the supposed "benefits" of the
country's overly permissive society.


There are pros and cons of every system - but here you are mixing up significantly different social problems (some would argue about whether out-of-wedlock births /is/ a problem) with significantly different causes and effects.

Take suicide for example. The general rule is that as standards of living go up, so do so suicide rates. The theory goes that people commit suicide over things like relationship or financial problems - people who have to struggle with getting enough food or shelter for their families do not commit suicide.

Oh, well...has any thread in Usenet history, been as totally unrelated to
a newsgroup's subject matter, as >this< one? I guess I'm to blame, being
the poster who first mentioned the Vlkings.


I think it is a good thing to have these sorts of threads on occasion - groups like this are very international, and it's nice to have some cross-cultural discussions.

Conversely, news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage has become so quiet,
in recent years, that >any< kind of discussion may be welcomed!


Perhaps we should discuss the pros and cons of exFAT? That would combine an on-topic subject with opinion, politics, philosophy, economics and religion...
.

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