Talk:Garðaríki

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You should perhaps not forget to mention GUTAGARD in connection with Gardarike. Gutagard was the name on one of the bigger estates near today's Novgorod. Gutagard was the trading post of the vikings from Gotland (the largest island in the Baltic sea and a county of Sweden). These "gutar" in Swedish, were prominent in trading with Russia. For example, when the Germans (or Gothic people) started to trade with the Russians, they always sailed via Gotland to bring with them pilots from there as it was the Gotlanders that indeed had established early contacts with Novgorod. (Later, when the Germans got more known to the area, they set up a main tradig post in Visby on the island of Gotland and this became the start of the later to become the HANSA union, but that is another story). Best regards Bo Johansson Singapore

[edit] Icelandic

Why is the name in Icelandic mentioned? Icelandic is NOT the same as Old Norse although it's descended from it. The Swedish name is also quite irrelevant since the Varangians language differed a lot from contemporary Swedish.Aaker 22:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Icelandic is a dialect of Old Norse. In fact, modern Icelandic is closer to Old Norse than modern Norwegian. By contempory Swedish do you mean modern Swedish? The Varangians at the time were mostly Swedish. --Grimhelm 22:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Icelandic is derived from and still close to Old Norse but it is not considered to be the same language. By contemporary Swedish i mean what we in Sweden call "Nusvenska", i.e modern Swedish. The Varangians came predominantly from the eastern parts of the Scaninavian peninsula, which nowadays belongs to Sweden, but in those days no Swedish state or nation existed so it would be quite incorrect to call them Swedish.Aaker 18:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Sigh! Ethnic labels are always so controversial. I won't even get started here on the use of the word "Swedish" in English which is not identical to the use of the word "svensk" in Swedish.--Berig 08:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)