Norse
Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries.
Etymology
The etymology of the adjective "norse" is somewhat surprising as one would expect it to have entered the English language through either the already present native stem "north" or via a Scandinavian language. Yet "Norse" (which entered English in 1598) derives from the Dutch or West Germanic word "noors", the adjective form of "Norwegian". The Scandinavian equivalent of the word is norrøn, or norrön (Icelandic: norræn). The modern English form (which sounds almost identical to the West Germanic term) may be used in a number of ways:
- Norse mythology describes ancient North Germanic beliefs.
- Norse paganism
- Norsecore is a subgenre of heavy metal music.
- Norsemen applies to Scandinavian people before the Christianization of northern Germania.
- North Germanic languages (through the synonym "Nordic languages") comprises a group of modern languages spoken in Scandinavia and nearby lands.
- West Norse is a term describing the modern languages of Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic within the North Germanic language group.
- East Norse is a term describing the modern languages of Danish and Swedish within the North Germanic language group.
- Proto-Norse language is the Indo-European language in use from 100 BC to 800 AD, predecessor of Old Norse.
- Old Norse language was the Germanic language in use from 800 AD to 1300 AD.
- Norse art describes Scandinavian art of the period 400 AD to 1066 AD and sometimes of the pre-historic period 1700 BC to 500 AD.
