Talk:Norwegians

Removals

I've removed some racist material and other POV's from this page. As I won't be surprised to see it reinstated I kindly ask that anyone that might do so evaluates the material first. Some other removals could also be needed. - Moravice

I do not understand what your objections are to this article. If you could please explain yourself, that would be best. Thanks. (by the way I made some new revisions to the article, not a "blind revert") -BSveen 16:05, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

Underestimation of Total Population

The total population is underestimated at 7.8 considering manny Norwegian diasporas were left out. True number probably stands around 10 million.

where come those numbers from?

Such numbers must be very uncertain. The article also claim 4.6 mill ethnic Norwegian in Norway. Norway has a population of 4, 7 mill. Of this population ca 9 % is foreigner. This makes up around 350 000 people, reducing the ethnic Norwegian population in Norway to 4, 3 mill. If we go into counting ethnic Norwegian we have to subtract also. (Norwegian) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.48.180 (talk) 11:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Norwegian Lutherans

The page claims "the vast majority" of Norwegians are Lutherans. This is not true; a large Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten, have found out that no more than 49.5% of the norwegian population answers "yes" at the question "do you believe in God".

Yes you are absolutely right, thats why i have changed the formulation to the "vast majority are nominally Lutherans,(the majority of Norways population still hold membership in the Norwegian Lutheran Church) and mentioned the secularization of a country which probably ranks among the least religious in the world. The religiousity among Norwegian-Americans, as this article also include under Norwegians, is however probably stronger. Not that I have seen any figures but I think it can be presumed due to the relative high level of religiousity in the general American population. Thats why I mention only the secularization of Norway proper, not of Norwegians as this here is meant to mean also their descendants across the Atlantic Ocean. kjetor

I updated this. If you read closley, it said the vast majority of religious Norwegians were Lutheran. However, I updated it to reflect current statistics from Norway.CBadSurf 00:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Norwegians a Germanic people?

This article is included in the category Germanic peoples along with other modern national groups (Danes, Swedes, English, Dutch), although no source is given for the claims. I nominated the category for deletion - see its entry here - because it includes modern groups under a historical term (Roman period to mediaeval). The category is being used for a political agenda, to promote the idea that ethnic groups and nations in north-west Europe are "Germanic". That claim is typically associated with neo-nazi groups, for the association of the term Germanic peoples with Nazism, see Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Lebensraum, and for instance Hitler salute. As with the Swedes and Danes, the issue here is also whether Norwegians describe themselves as a "Germanic people".Paul111 20:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

To link this with nazis is absurd. Norwegian is a Germanic language. That´s why Norwegians are classified as Germanic people. --Oddeivind (talk) 06:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You do not have to place the exact same message on every talkpage which falls into the Germanic peoples category. 1 is enough.Rex 21:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Since the German Nazis put the Nordic peoples on the top of their race ranking which caused such horrible acts, Norwegians are not very keen on discussing these things. After the war studies on grouping peoples and such were not exactly seen as usefull (and they really aren't). Anyway I dug up a Norwegian book from 1934 (Jorden (The Earth) by Werner Werenskiold). It briefly describes the Norwegians as a nordisk (Nordic) germansk (Germanic) people. It also pokes fun at the German's habit of assigning the "nordic breed" all sorts of heroic traits. In general the classification of Norwegians, Swedes and others into categories such as Germanic is not very usefull or relevant, but since it is not wrong I don't see the necesity to delete such categories.Inge 00:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Here’s a test: If the category includes Ashkenazi Jews, whose traditional language (Yiddish) and significant proportion of culture throughout the last 1000 years or more is clearly “Germanic”, as well various NW European traveller groups, then this category makes some sort of sense in a linguistical and cultural way. If this doesn't happen sometime soon, that seems pretty clear proof of “race” being the deciding factor. If that turns out to be the case, then this category needs to go. Now. -- Olve 01:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

But the article Ashkenazi Jews does not state any relation to Germanic peoples. The article can't be put in that category when it does not mention any connection to Germanic peoples. The article Yiddish language does however state that it is a Germanic language. So I guess that issue either isn't as straight forward.Inge 12:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Common ancestry is one of the deciding factors of grouping people. It's stupid to say "If this doesn't happen sometime soon, that seems pretty clear proof of “race” being the deciding factor. If that turns out to be the case, then this category needs to go. Now." Many Jews themselves put great emphasis on ancestry: [2] Lukas19 12:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, Norwegians are Germanic. I´m surprised to see that this can be a matter of dispute. Isn´t the ethnicity of a people determined by that people´s ancestry? If it is, then it must be clear that the Norwegian people indeed is a part of a Germanic group. Yes, the cultures, languages etc. of the Germanic peoples have become more diverse, but that does not change the fact that these peoples are branches from the same tree. If you find the term "Germanic" to have certain negative connotations, that is really your problem. Even if misused, and even if people associate it with nazism, the fact still stands. Pretending otherwise because some people do not know how to separate science from politics is in my opinion not a very good idea. 129.177.156.111 18:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy disputed

Added accuracy dispute tag, since the article now states twice that Norwegians are part of the Germanic peoples. This category is not in use for modern ethnic groups, seeGermanic peoples. (I would have used a section accuracy tag, but neither claim is in a section).Paul111 17:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I hope you are not doing this just to prove some sort of point in relation to your category deletion dispute. If you ascribe to the notion of ethnic groups, what group are the ethnic Norwegians a sub-group of, if not the Germanic group? This reference: Werenskiold, Werner; Jorden Dens land og folk, Annet bind Australia, Amerika, Europa; Gyldendal Norsk Forlag; Oslo; 1934. Pages 363 and 585 describes the Norwegians as predominantly Nordic which is in turn a subgroup of the Germanic group. I don't expect to find many modern works trying to classify Norwegians ethnicly like this since it has been seen as and IMO is totally irrelevant. The article Ethnic group states "Ethnic groups are usually classified by the language they speak." It then goes on to classify Germanic peoples as a sub-group of the Indo-Iranians. The article Germanic peoples states "The Germanic peoples are a linguistic and ethnic branch of Indo-European peoples, [...]identified by their use of the Germanic languages [...]." The article Germanic languages lists Norwegian as such. It seems to be generally agreed that Germanic is a valid sub-grouping to use when classifying ethnic groups today and that the Norwegians are a sub-group of that group.Inge 18:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

No modern ethnic or national group belongs to the Germanic peoples, and that article clearly says so. The category is being used to claim that they do, and that is reason to delete it. However, the false claim is not confined to the category, but is repeated elsewhere, as in the template at this article. All of these references should go. Two other users have pointed out that many East European Jews also spoke a Germanic language, Yiddish, and if language is the criteria, then they belong on this page as a related ethnic group. As for the reference, there were many books published in the 1930s about the Germanic peoples and the Aryan race, but since 1945 few people take their content seriously.Paul111 18:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ethnicity as:

Main Entry: eth·nic·i·ty Pronunciation: eth-'ni-s&-tE Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural -ties 1 : ethnic quality or affiliation <aspects of ethnicity> 2 : a particular ethnic affiliation or group <students of diverse ethnicities>

And ethnic as:

Main Entry: 1eth·nic Pronunciation: 'eth-nik Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin ethnicus, from Greek ethnikos national, gentile, from ethnos nation, people; akin to Greek Ethos custom -- more at SIB 1 : HEATHEN 2 a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves> b : being a member of a specified ethnic group <an ethnic German> c : of, relating to, or characteristic of ethnics <ethnic neighborhoods> <ethnic foods>

Therefore we can consider Germanic as an ethnic group/category since Germanic people share common racial, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background. The only part missing is national. Lukas19 20:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Paul, if you want to be taken seriously please don't play the nazi card. None of us here have Nazi affiliations or sympathies to my knowledge. If you can put that behind you the discussion might benfit. You obviously don't know the work I have mentioned and therefore should not allude to it being some sort of nazirelated race theory book. It is not. I would also urge you to try to separate the terms germanic and aryan. The notion of an aryan master race was a nazi invention. Germanic does not fall into the same category. If you have something against the term Germanic because of its misuse by the Nazis, maybe you should adress that problem. After 1945 research into the origins and relations between the Germanic peoples were not exactly a priority among scholars for obvious reasons. Quite frankly I think that was for the better, we have more important things to spend our academic resources on. You are correct that the article has the following passage: ""Germanic" as understood today is a linguistic term. Modern ethnicities speaking Germanic languages are usually not referred to as Germanic peoples, a term of historic scope. All present-day countries speaking a Germanic language have mixed ethnic roots not restricted to the earliest Germanic peoples." This does not state that no modern ethnic or national group belongs to the Germanic peoples. It states that the use of the term is no longer common and that all peoples have some some degree of mixed ancestry. The article states among other things that the Germanic Jutes merged with the Germanic Danes. The end result should then be also a predominantly Germanic people inhabiting Denmark. Can you tell me which other people merged with the Danes to make the present Danes not Germanic? The article also mentions the Norwegians as a Germanic group. Can you tell us when the Norwegians stopped being a Germanic people? There has to my knowledge not been any influxes of non-germanic peoples to Norway the last 1500-2000 years large enough to change the status of Norwegians as a predominantly Germanic people. (There is no doubt that Norwegians have mixed ethnic roots and this is not about who has the right to call themselves a Norwegian. That is not the point we are discussing here.) Unless you deny that a Norwegian ethnicity exits you would have to give some reasonable explantion as to what group it belongs to if not the Germanic.Inge 21:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The onus is on the editor to provide a reliable source for the claim, that the Norwegian people are a Germanic people. Because Germanic is no longer accepted, a book from 1934 would not be a reliable source. A reliable source would be, for instance, a recent survey indicating that the majority of Norwegians describe themselves as 'Germanic'.Paul111 12:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well the book is a reliable source. I don't see how any work is to be done here if we have the obligation to prove every useage of every term at every passage of time. I have tried several times to explain that research into the germanicness of Norwegians have not been made since WWII. Your demand of a recent survey asking if Norwegians feel they are germanic or not is impossible to meet and I suspect that is why you demanded it. You are the one stating that the term is no longer accepted. The article on Germanic peoples does not state that. It clearly describes the Norwegians as a Germanic people. Up to what point in time do you accept the Norwegians being a Germanic people? Maybe we can reach a compromise: "Norwegians were a Germanic people up to 1945." Is that acceptable for you?Inge 13:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Why have you not placed the disputed tag on the German, Swedish and Danish articles? They state the same as this one. I believe you are not trying to engage in a serious discussion on the status of Norwegians, but out to make a point.Inge 14:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the {{accuracy}} tag from the article page. The arguments presented by Paul111 seem to be heavily POV:ed by political motives (Paul111 somehow manages to connect "germanic" with nazism), and besides that I suspect that we're dealing with a troll here. Paul111 requests "reliable sources" about the "claim" that norwegians - just like other scandinavians, as well as europeans - belongs to the germanic group. Well, I don't know where to start, since about any book I've read on this subject classifies scandinavians as a part of the larger group of germanic people. At the same time Paul111 uses other Wikipedia articles to back his own claims. Don't get me wrong, but I don't consider Wikipedia that much of a reliable source, since it is open for anyone to edit. Anyway, I would prefer to have an administrator look into this, because I have a feeling that Paul111 is violating a few policies and guidelines in this little crusade of his. And I suspect that this user is a troll, because thit is a schoolbook example of troll behaviour: To appear from nowhere, and start disputes on subjects that are far from controversial, in order to make people bend over backwards in their efforts to prove that what is already proven is correct. People, don't feed the trolls. And don't be afraid to remove tags and templates that you feel have been placed on article pages without a proper reason. /M.O (u) (t) 17:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Paul111, you want a reliable survey that most Norwegians consider themselves Germanic? You won't find one. Norwegians consider themselves Norwegian, first of all. Then they consider themselves Scandinavian. If you push them they will admit they are Europeans. They admit they speak a Germanic language, like English. But we all know that one thousand years ago a lot of Germanic tribes wandered around northern Europe. Some of them happened to be in Europe. But that doesn't make Germanic a synonym with nazism. CBadSurf 07:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Dispute

Those who follows news in Norway will know that the term "nordmann" (Norwegian/noun) has been controversial in Norway as well. I don't think this is a simple issue, but let me add a couple of points to the fray:

• I fundamentally reject the idea that genetics should matter at all. Olve's acid test is apt.
• "Ethnic Norwegian" is a bit of an elusive term. What is it that a shipowner in Bergen has in common with a tenant farmer in Hedmark? Or a fisher in Lofoten with a shoemaker in Kristiansand?
• If we are talking about Norwegian cultural and linguistic heritage, then this should be covered in articles on Norwegian literature, ethnology, architecture, music, etc., etc.
• If we are talking about the people who have lived and live in Norway, then demographics of Norway is the right article. --Leifern 13:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Ethnicity is not an objective category, but one that is renegotiated based on various criteria that are seen as meaningful by the people involved. In this case, most people living in Norway seem to hold that a shipowner in Bergen has a certain something in common with a tenant farmer in Hedmark that neither has in common with, say, a Danish or Pakistani immigrant. At least not the first generation. I would recommend the essay "On Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" by Norwegian social anthropologist Fredrik Barth, that deals with the issue of how real-life ethnic groups very often defy academical attempts at rigorous and "objective" classifications, since they aren't really based on any one criteria, but on several criteria that can in various situations be held more or less important. The ultimate criteria is simply, by his own words, ascription and self-ascription, ie. whether you consider yourself a member of the ethnic group, and whether other members of the group consider you a co-member. Barth's theory focuses more in boundary-maintenance and argues that any particular cultural "content" (language, race, origin, land, religion, etc.) is largely incidental and usually elevated to a symbolic status after the formation of the ethnic group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sir Godspeed (talk • contribs) 12:13, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Delete this article?

The more I think about it, the more I think this article should be deleted. We have Culture of Norway, Demographics of Norway, Norwegian language, Norwegian literature, History of Norway, etc., etc. There probably should be an article called Ethnology of Norway, and that should be all we need. I'll await reactions before formally nominating it. --Leifern 14:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, since we have Danish people, Swedish people, Icelanders, Faroese people, Germans, Dutch (ethnic group) and so on, we should also have this article. If you want these kinds of articles to be deleted, maybe you should take that up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups to open a more generally based discussion on these kinds of articles. Inge 15:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right that it's a broader discussion. But in looking at these articles, too, there are similar problems in that they struggle with definitions. --Leifern 16:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Leifern. The idea that Americans or Canadians with a Norwegian ethnic background are Norwegian doesn't stand up to reality. The first generation emigrants can identify Norwegian, and the second generation if the maintain citizenship and the language. But not beyond that. Assimilation in these countries is so complete, that very few can identify a single ethnic background -- except of course for some Asians, who have limited inter-marriage. The reality is you are now a Canadian, or an American.

On top of all this, there is a whole debate going on in Norway now about who is and isn't an "ethnic Norwegian."

CBadSurf 00:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

What do you think of this edit? I differentiated ancestry from ancestry+identification with culture (ethnicity)...Lukas19 02:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just don't know how much this article adds to Culture of Norway, Demographics of Norway, Norwegian language, Norwegian literature, History of Norway, etc., etc. especially if we add Ethnology of Norway. Maybe there should be an article about what it means to have a Norwegian identity, but that's a different topic. --Leifern 22:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree -- this article doesn't add much. CBadSurf 02:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the fact that there has been a debate makes it clear that it's not that simple. Besides historians do not seem to have any trouble with separating Norwegians and Sami as different peoples Fornadan (t) 07:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Population?

Following in the weighty discussions above, this may seem a little minor, but in the info box, the total population is estimated as 4.3 million, and only the USA and Canada are listed as areas of significant population. Is this info box meant only to refer to Norwegians in diaspora? If so, it lacks clear marking as such; its name is simply "Norwegians" (Nordmenn) and it estimates total population to no more than that of Norway. I apologise if this due to inattention on my part, but I cannot find out this puzzle.Hinakana 13:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Americans or Canadians or anyone else with only partial Norwegian ancestry, with no knowledge of Norwegian and who hasnt lived in Norway for a long time are not ethnic Norwegians...Lukas19 22:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Lukas, you seem to be confusing ethnic Norwegian with culturally Norwegian. An ethnic Norwegian is someone who is of Norwegian ancestry, plain and simple. We could argue over how much Norwegian ancestry makes someone an ethnic Norwegian (for example, having a Norwegian parent vs having a Norwegian great great great grandparent). It sounds like that if we reversed your logic, and that if someone who had just partial Norwegian ancestry was able to speak Norwegian and lived in Norway for a long time then he could be considered ethnic Norwegian, however being able to speak the language and living in the country does not change someone's ethnic group. Ancestry (one's ethnic group) and Culture can be two completely different things.

In the case of USA and Canada, the numbers only reflect the number of people who consider themselves Norwegian (as in that's what they write on their census), not whether those people are culturally or even ethnically Norwegian.

Yeah but most Americans or Canadians in question claim partial Norwegian ancestry. Someone with 1/4 Norwegian and 3/4 Swedish ancestry may be an ethnic Norwegian but not someone with 1/4 Norwegian, 1/4 Italian, 1/4 Native American and 1/4 Irish. Of course this is my opinion and you are entitled to your own opinion but there is a distinction with predominantly Norwegian people living in Norway and speaking Norwegian and others with partial Norwegian ancestry; and the table makes that distinction. Lukas19 00:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The translation of the term Nordmenn

I edited the translation of the term Nordmenn. It translates as Norsemen not 'men from the north'. Swedes, Danes and also Norwegians would confirm this.

Actually, I'd suggest another revision of this translation. Nordmenn translates literally as northmen, not Norsemen. Norse, at least in modern Norwegian, would be translated as norrøn, whereas nord simply means north. It's not a major point, but in contemporary Norwegian/Scandinavian usage the terms Norse and Norwegian are intentionally differentiated, because Norse is exclusively used to describe Norwegian/Scandinavian culture during the Viking age. Maitreya (talk) 18:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur that this distinction should find its way into the article. __meco (talk) 00:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Hm. The dictionary kind of support both sides

"Norse : 1. Of or relating to medieval Scandinavia or its peoples, languages, or cultures. 2. Of or relating to Norway or its people, language, or culture. 3. Of, relating to, or being the branch of the North Germanic languages that includes Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese."

I think both are correct. Besides, Norse translating to norrøn is really not relevant as norrøn is just used as a term used to describe a historical period while Norse is the description of ethnicity and geography. Nastykermit (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 09:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Now you call it the "term". Since it's a Danish word for Norwegians, and a term in Norwegian and Swedish, where the right word is norsker or norskar. Since nordmænd/nordmenn is the Danish word, which translated means "North men", is probably because they always have lived north from the Danes :). --Tesko111111 (talk) 20:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Arigato1's removal of information

Arigato1 has removed information about Swedes on this page and on this page. To avoid any misunderstandings about his erroneous reason for removing the text, I cite the source here:

In fact the [...] data indicate Germans and a few other Central European populations as being the closest to the Norwegians. When we compare our results with those based on different polymorphic systems,9,17 we can infer that these conclusions are also valid for Swedish, while Finns and Saami had a quite different genetic history with a great impact of Uralic Finno-Ugric speaking population.[3]

The reason Arigato1 cited for removing the text is disturbingly wrong.--The trollfighter 12:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

"related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 23:29, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion review discussion

Please see the deletion review discussion here. Badagnani 18:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Minor point on Scandinavians as a group

While this is not terribly important, I think it's worth mentioning that in reality the differentiation between ethnic Norwegians and Swedes is primarily a question of history more than anything. In terms of physical appearance, it's impossible, even for Norwegians and Swedes, to tell the two apart and the languages are much closer than, say, American and Jamaican English, although the latter two would both be considered variations of a common language. This is not to say that there are no differences, but my point is really that any estimation of Norwegian population in Sweden or vice versa is meaningless, because the two groups blend together to the extent that any second-generation Norwegian in Sweden would consider himself Swedish and be accepted as such by Swedish society. Thus, talk of a Norwegian diaspora in Sweden (or vice versa) is meaningless, and the large population exchange over time makes it even more so. Maitreya (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ari Behn??

Does anyone else than me see a problem with Ari Behn being listed as one of the "top 8" Norwegians through history? I don't think he's worthy at all to be listed amongst Fridtjof Nansen etc., Ari Behn 's achievements is writing a bad book and marrying the Norwegian princess. I think he should be removed ASAP. Gabagool (talk) 15:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, should be people from Norwegian of the century or something. I would change Groven with Edvard Munch (painter) and Behn with Wenche Foss (actor) or Morten Harket (artist) if we find good pictures. Røed (talk · no) 22:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, you'd have to make a new version of image:Norwegians (ethnic group).jpg... But indeed, Behn is not coming close to a representative top 8th. Finn Rindahl (talk) 23:35, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

You are putting your finger at something important here. At the moment also Siv Jansen has been added. Personally I take offence at her being put together with great Norwegian names. If one should have her represented here, at least one should also have Jens Stoltenberg or some other politicans to the left of centre as a balance. At the moment even some obscure model that I never even have heard about has been added. I think it is time to make a clean up here and not just leave this to individuals trying to force through their own opinions here. Are there no guidelines here? --Oddeivind (talk) 07:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Picture

Why is there no Edvard Munch and Edvard Grieg in the picture? Vanjagenije (talk) 17:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I have now added them both, as well as St. Olaf and Ole Gunnar Solskjær. -GabaG (talk) 15:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Are beauty queens really sufficiently notable to be included in the picture? Sure they look good but.. Surely someone like Kristian Birkeland or Lars Onsager would be a better choice than Lisa-Mari Moen Jünge ? 84.48.193.121 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC).

Title

I don't see any explanation of why this page was moved from Norwegian people to Norwegian ethnic group, especially not why the move was repeated after being reverted. The appropriate process is bold, revert, discuss, not "bold, revert, repeat" (we're an encyclopedia, not a shampoo). The common practice on Wikipedia is for articles entitled [[Fooian people]] to be about the ethnic group, and for [[Fooian]] to be a disambiguation page. When we want to refer to people who live in or are citizens of a country, as opposed to members of an ethnic group, we use [[Fooland|Fooian]]. See, for example, French/France/French people; German/Germany/German people (redirects to Germans); Japan/Japanese/Japanese people; Sweden/Swedish/Swedish people (recently moved by the same editor who moved this page); and many other examples. Now, I'd be the first to admit that this isn't an ironclad rule and there can be exceptions when there is a good reason for it, but I haven't seen anyone offer any reason at all, good or otherwise, for treating Norwegians or Swedes differently from all other ethnic groups/nationalities. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:14, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Removal of images I added from infobox

Members of the Norwegian royal family are hardly "less notable". Also, the presence of more than one woman in the infobox would seem necessary to provide at least some semblance of gender balance. Erik9 (talk) 22:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

See: [4]

Please don't try to force such equal rights fascism here when it has no hold in history and reality. Affirmative action should not be used to kick away anyone's actual achivements based on social/ethnic reasons. Märtha Louise has more or less made highly controversial actions, such as claiming to be able to talk to horses and angels [5](that's actually true). If royalty should be in the infobox Crown Prince Haakon should rather be put in since he does good things for the world (charity/humanitarian work and so on). Suggest some notable women on the talk page and we'll replace them with Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg for instance if they are more notable. (There should at least not be more than 12 people in the infobox anyways though.) -GabaG (talk) 23:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion about the subject matter of this article. If it pertained to "Norway's most notable people", then I would agree that the inclusion of images in the infobox should be governed by an objective evaluation of individual achievements and importance, and that issues of gender balance would be irrelevant. However, this article relates to "the Norwegian people as an ethnic group". Norwegians, as an ethnic group, cannot be adequately depicted by an image from which women are almost entirely excluded. Exceeding your ad hoc limit of twelve people in the infobox is justifiable for the purpose of remedying this problem. Erik9 (talk) 00:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

So what do you want to do. Put 20 people in the infobox? And yes, if it was just for the regular Norwegian ethnic group, then why should not I simply post a picture of myself there, and everyone else? And it's not just notable people, but appropriate notable people, why isn't perhaps the most notable Italian American - Al Capone in that infobox? Controversial people such as Märtha Louise might not be appropriate to put there. And there can't just be turned into anarchy regarding such issues. And regarding gender, in Russians there are 11 people (2 women), Spanish people 18 people (3 women). Perhaps Finns have the best solution with simply a regular 1901 peasant-family (What do I know..)? -GabaG (talk) 01:02, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

By convention, infoboxes for ethnic groups include images of notable members of the group to provide an informative starting point for further research. However, since the images are designed to depict the ethnic group itself, notability is not the sole relevant consideration: issues of representativeness, such as gender balance, are also important, as is the availability of high-quality free images: though Kirsti Bergstø, whose image I initially added, is not the most notable female Norwegian politician, we happen to have an excellent photograph of her. Per your own research, this article's current infobox (91.666% male) has a greater imbalance of men to women than Russians (81.818% male) or Spanish people (83.333% male). Since neither Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway, nor Kirsti Bergstø, have the infamy of Al Capone, the comparison is not germane to the present controversy. Erik9 (talk) 01:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Unless you have a political bias I don't understand why you want to add such an unknown person as Kirsti Bergstø, leader of the youth organization of the relatively small socialist party SV. It should then rather be Gro Harlem Brundtland or Siv Jensen, perhaps the two foremost Norwegian female politicians to date. -GabaG (talk) 01:40, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

We could use Siv Jensen instead (File:Gro Harlem Brundtland1 2007 04 20.jpg has a significant color imbalance, likely due to the use of an approximately 3000K tungsten light source with daylight color temperature settings). My search for articles with high-quality images was not exhaustive. Erik9 (talk) 01:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I therefore suggest that the infobox be reconfigured as follows:

Norwegian people
Nordmenn

St. Olaf  • P. Tordenskjold  • N. H. Abel  • F. Stang H. Ibsen  • E. Grieg  • F. Nansen  • E. Munch R. Amundsen  • E. Groven  • L. Ullmann  • O. G. Solskjær Princess Mette-Marit Siv Jensen
Regions with significant populations
Norway:4,135,400
United States	4.5 million
Canada	432,515
Brazil	150,000 - 250,000 est.
Argentina	50,000 - 100,000 est.
Sweden	44,773
Chile	42,000 - 60,000 est.
Spain	20,000
Denmark	15,782
Uruguay	15,000 - 20,000 est.
Australia	15,000
United Kingdom	10,000
Germany	6,251
Japan	452
Languages
Norwegian Related languages include Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Swedish, and to a lesser extent, all Germanic languages.
Religion
83% of the population of Norway are members of the Christian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway. Norway is highly secularized, and only about 10% of the population attend religious services more than once a month.
Related ethnic groups
Germanic ethnic groups: Danish, Icelanders, Swedish, Dutch, Germans, Austrian, English, Faroese, Flemings, Normans;.

Erik9 (talk) 02:04, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Though I have excluded Princess Märtha Louise of Norway for the moment, I see no reason why her spiritualism or religious faith should disqualifying, unless we consider anyone who isn't a staunch atheist and a supporter of a completely materialist worldview an embarrassment to their fellow citizens. In no case should living people's religious beliefs serve as an excuse for directing gratuitously derogatory language against them. Erik9 (talk) 03:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't you at least edit the ethnicgroup picture instead of just adding pictures in the manner you did. For instance switch Eivind Groven and Frederik Stang with Siv Jensen and perhaps Eva Joly. Just adding the pictures like you did looks very messy and makes the infobox unnecessary big. -GabaG (talk) 11:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I added images, rather than replacing any of the existing photographs, because I didn't find anyone in the existing infobox to be worthy of removal. I can, however, join the new photos with the existing composite image, once we have enough to add a completely new row. File:Evajoly.jpg is not really the sort of image that I would suggest using to depict Norwegians, as a ethnic group, since the photograph was taken when she was quite old and unattractive. Princess Märtha Louise and Kirsti Bergstø are more photogenic. Erik9 (talk) 13:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

So your equal rights philosophy is that only young attractive photogenic Norwegians are worthy of addition? That if someone are over, say 50 years old, they aren't representable of the Norwegian people? And btw - I think both Eivind Groven and Frederik Stang are worthy of removal. I don't know if I want to continue this discussion for my part as long as it is just one's thoughts against another's, and unworthy to waste so much time on. So I guess help yourself and just add whatever you want in the infobox... -GabaG (talk) 14:06, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia currently has an article on tulips. The current lead image is the featured picture File:Tulip - floriade canberra.jpg, showing young, beautiful flowers at the prime of their lives. Should we, in the name of hypothetical balance, also include images of tulips that are old and wilted? We readily conclude we should depict healthy, vibrant specimens, rather than those suffering from the ravages of time. Similarly, while File:Evajoly.jpg would be appropriate for an article on geriatric Norwegians, we should exclude it from the infobox here to avoid portraying the Norwegian people unfavorably. Erik9 (talk) 19:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the montage doesn't give enough weight to pre-19th century people YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

We have few high-quality images of Norwegians living prior to the 19th century. Is there a specific image that you suggest adding? Erik9 (talk) 01:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone please enlighten me of why there's a picture of Kirsti Bergstø (please don't tell me that was the most photogenic you found..)? A junior politician doesn't really rank amongst St. Olaf, royality and Nansen.. If there's just a need for a woman; why not add Sigrid Undset (as she is only Norwegian female Nobel laurate)? Norwegianzealot (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:10, 3 June 2009 (UTC).

Because Erik9 apparently owns this article and his opinion is the only thing that matters.. The entire infobox do look completely rediculous now too of course. It is actually highly inappropriate to add persons such as Kirsti Bergstø here which probably 0.05% of Norwegians have even heard of. -GabaG (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I also think one should remove Siv Jensen. Although undoubtedly a Norwegian, many Norwegians would take offence by having her pictured here. --Oddeivind (talk) 18:21, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind once again that the subject of this article is "the Norwegian people as an ethnic group", not "notable Norwegians". For the purpose of a photographic depiction of the Norwegian people, appearances are vitally important. While Sigrid Undset is undoubtedly a quite important author fully deserving textual mention in appropriate articles, File:Sigrid Undset crop.jpg is exceedingly ugly, and has no place in this article unless we are trying to portray Norwegian women as witches. I look forward to any suggestions as to how we might improve the notability of the women depicted in the infobox without compromising visual quality. Erik9 (talk) 02:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Your arguments are totally outside what is the normal in all ethnic people articles on Wikipedia. You say that it has nothing to do with notable Norwegians, which can be true sometimes, however it is very bad to mix notable, non-notable and controversial persons in this manner. The only time non-notable people are to be added is if they are more or less only anonymous representatives. Also I really hope you see for yourself that it's not just me that find your actions here inappropriate. -GabaG (talk) 09:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Everyone whose image is currently featured in the infobox is sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article about them. I'm sure you will agree, however, that notability cannot be the sole criterion for inclusion of images - if it were, then the infobox would hardly be complete without a picture of the eponymous Vidkun Quisling, whose last name, when used as a term of derision, has one of the highest levels of international recognition of any Norwegian. The inclusion of photographs of ugly people in this infobox would likewise portray Norwegians in a bad light. Erik9 (talk) 01:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see all the persons listed are notable. And about apperances, sorry to say it, but that sounds a bit fascist to me. Should one only depict attractive people? Hmmm, maybe you should put in a picture of me, hehe. Well, I think if one should have photos there it is natural to choose someone who are well-known. Otherwise you could just as well show your classmates!! --Oddeivind (talk) 10:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

As explained in my comment above, that notability is one condition for inclusion in the infobox does not imply that it should be the only criterion. Erik9 (talk) 01:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

This is just getting silly... If i follow the crocked logics of Erik9; Dorthe Skappel would be a lot more suited addition to the info box ('looks' and people actually know who she is). Norwegianzealot (talk) 19:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Erik9 are now still continuing to add even more ludacris entries to the infobox. The latest out is some Lisa-Mari Moen Jünge which I know most people don't know who is at all. After asking for "a substantive explanation when blanking encyclopedic material" I question if Erik9 even knows the basics of an encyclopedia, for instance that it is not merely a beauty pageant. If it's nice-looking girls you're after I suggest that you log out of Wikipedia and google "cute girls" instead. And again, it is totally inapropriate to blend in completly obscure persons such as a random model in a section otherwise based upon national-heroes (at least before you started interfering). Also note that of the four people that also has commented here they all seem equally outraged about your behaviour as I am starting to get. In my mind your edits here are starting to get borderline vandalistic. -GabaG (talk) 00:32, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

As explained repeatedly above, since the infobox is designed to illustrate the subject of the article, "the Norwegian people as an ethnic group", not "the world's most notable Norwegians", notability cannot be the sole criterion for inclusion, and physical appearance is important. To dismiss the matter with glib, facile mockery such as

an encyclopedia... is not merely a beauty pageant. If it's nice-looking girls you're after I suggest that you log out of Wikipedia and google "cute girls" instead.

trivializes the issue. Furthermore, if you continue to accuse me of "borderline vandalis[m]", you may be blocked for personal attacks. Erik9 (talk) 00:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Italians, Spanish people, Germans, English people, Finnish people (here only males btw which by Erik9 "wasn't allowed"), Swedish people, Danish people (only one woman), Poles (only one woman out of 17 persons), French people (only 4 woman out of 27 persons), Russians (again only one woman out of 11 persons) and practically every ethnic group article includes only heavily notable people (and most does also not apply your equal rights fascism). None contain random people of that ethnicity just for merely being "nice-looking". So therefore I suggest you take up this revolution of yours at a higher level in the Wikipedia-system since by your standards your logic should be applied to all ethnic-group articles, your struggle can not only be resolved for this article alone. Actually the other present entries you have made also in reality fails to this universal standard of Wikipedia ethnic-group articles. Please understand, and not again simply ignore and talk away what i state which is factual. -GabaG (talk) 01:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Until recently, Finns (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (at that page title until a recent cut-and-paste pagemove) contained File:A finnish Farmer family 1901.jpg as the sole illustration included in the infobox, depicting Finnish people who are not even identified by name, much less notable. More importantly, your argument that since other highly deficient articles exist, this article's quality must be reduced commensurately is vacuous, a position further explained by the essay Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. Erik9 (talk) 01:35, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've had it with this. Even with none approval, no consensus, no willingless to come to reason you still think that you are right and are the only person that matters in the world, even with the "world" against you. Even after plenty of sources, standards etc. have been presented to you, you ignorantly talk around everything and pretend you don't hear what other people say. It's nothing less than discussing with a really annoying 5-year old. I will now leave it to others to save this article from your crocked logic and anarchy... Goodbye. -GabaG (talk) 01:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

If puerile personal attacks are the only thing you have to add to this discussion, then good riddance! Erik9 (talk) 02:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Accusing someone for vandalism hardly qualifies as personal attacks. If so, all administrators on some point would have been involved in personal attacks! As far as I can see everyone arguing against you here are discussing the subject. --Oddeivind (talk) 06:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

While correctly describing actual vandalism as such is not a personal attack, completely baseless accusations of vandalism can be considered personal attacks, as can characterizations of another editor as "a really annoying 5-year old", etc... Erik9 (talk) 22:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

References

Inaccurate numbers of norwegian abroad

The numbers given for norwegian living outside Norway are at the best inaccurate, and most likely impossible to compare, since some of the numbers only includes norwegian citizens, some of them even only norwegian citizens who has reported their whereabouts to an embassy (UK), while other numbers include every inhabitant in a country who has a norwegian ancestor (US).

How likely is it that there should be ten times as many norwegians in Brazil, half ways across the earth, as in neighbouring country Denmark!?!? Bw --Orland (talk) 00:02, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The surprisingly high numbers for norwegians in four latinamerican countries were added by an anonymous (and SPU) IP in june 2007 inthis and the previous edit. I'm removing them now as no source are given. --Orland (talk) 05:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

References

Iceland source

The source for how many Norwegians living in Iceland is wrong. Norwegian citizenship does not mean they have to be ethnic Norwegian. Bgagaga (talk) 19:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Major cleanup

I didn't see this page before now as I had only looked at the discussion page for the article itself. I did a major cleanup and verified a lot of the sources. Unfortunately none of the sources really said anything about an ethnic group of Norwegians and so I had to delete almost all of that. Please look at the discussion page for that article for the entire explanation. -- google my name to find out about me -- Johannes Wilm 17:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Additions from [Talk:Norwegians]

There were two talk pages for the same content. I now move everything here and try to ask the other one to be deleted. We will lose the history of the talk page, but it's the only possibility I can see to get out of this chaotic state. --Johanneswilm (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The current redirect is much better than to lose history. --LPfi (talk) 11:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

---

TALK PAGE TELEPORTATION PROVES PROBLEMATIC – Correct talk page here.

Hello! I am User:MrGulli. Anyway, an administrator is needed to delete this talk page. "Talk:Norwegians", I mean. The actual talk page for this article is here: TALK:NORWEGIAN PEOPLE.
That page then needs to be moved to this address. Someone must've moved the article from Norwegian people to Norwegians without moving the talk page, anyhow GOOD LUCK ! MrGulli (talk) 03:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup?

This article could need a cleanup. The Icelandic and Faroese are counted as Icelanders and Faroese, respectively, not Norwegians. They're counted as different ethnic groups. Also, it seems weird to include all quarter-bred Norwegians in the Americas who are culturally assimilated into their respective countries, and to not count assimilated Norwegian-speaking immgrants to Norway. At least, it is not in line with Norwegians' own perception of norwegianness. Are there any general guidelines for this on Wikipedia? Narssarssuaq (talk) 10:35, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed. The problem is discussed on the above mentioned talk page. --LPfi (talk) 12:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I have cleanup the page somewhat. Please see comments below. google my name to find out about me -- Johannes Wilm 17:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Major cleanup

I removed the three tables at the bottom. The reason for this is:

The first table did not have references connected to it. If you do think the numbers can be proven, please provide evidence before adding the table again.

The second table compared the US and Norway in terms of children born to "Norwegians". However the data about Norway defined origin as "Own, mother's or father's country of birth if it is foreign, otherwise Norway." While the data from the US census describes its selection process as "Respondents were asked to select their origin (and the origin of other household members) from a "flash card" listing ethnic origins." [6].

The two ways of determining background will produce ver different results. First of all are the Norwegian figures based on Norwegian clearly measured indicators, while those from the US measure what group the respondent believes to originate from. Secondly, there is no category "US American" as origin within the US census, so that everybody is forced to select some foreign origin. Third, the Norwegian figures automatically make a third generation immigrant count as "Norwegian", while no such thing happens in the US census. Given that a large part of Norwegian ancestors to US Americans having immigrated in the 1880s or so, had the Norwegian rules for measuring been used, they would all be listed as having "US American" parents.

The third table compared Norwegian and US counties as how large a percentage of "Norwegians living in them. The US data did not have any explanations as how Norwegian ancestry was measured, so it is likely the same data set from the US census. The same problem of comparing data therefore exists, and so the data is not comparable.

The section about genetic similarity to Germans I changed to only be about Norway (not Sweden, that should be on the Swedish page), and I changed it from concerning "Norwegians" to the "Norwegian population" as that is what one study in question refers to, and I#ve also the explanation given that article: thousands of years of migration in and out of Norway. I've also pur the two sections about genetics together. I did not check the references for these studies any further.

I also changed the definition of Norwegians to what its actual use is today. Norwegians are generally all those who have Norwegian citizenship, if they choose to see themselves as Norwegians. If they don't choose to see themselves as Norwegians, but for example Sami, then they are not to be seen as Norwegian.

At the top I exchanged the Norwegian-without-immigrant background for the Norwegian population of Norway. The page linked hitherto does not give figures of this. It is those born to Norwegian parents and those born to foreigners but having Norwegian citizenship taken together: . As menitoned above and as mentioned in the egentic studies that are referenced on this page, the numbers do in fact count 3rd generation immigrants as Norwegians and the general population of Norway has thousands of years of a history of immigration.

I then removed the US figures, for the above reasons. I removed the Canadian nfigures, as the Canadian statistics are based on people's own view as to what their ethnic origin is, whereas the Norwegian numbers are about citizenship (see above).

I then removed the UK and Iceland, and Faeroye Island figures as they weren't referenced. It seems that in the case of Iceland and the F. Islands it is someone's personal estimate of people with Norwegian background, and in the case of the UK it is Norwegian citizens currently registered with their embassy in the UK. These are two very different groups that cannot be compared.

I removed the Australian figures as these are based on origin before migration to Australia of ancestors. These numebrs are different than those of the US and Canada, yet also incompatibel with the Norwegian numbers for the same reasons mentioned above.

I removed the Swedish numbers as these are about where people residing in Sweden were born. A person with Pakistani parents born in Norway would here be counted as Norwegian, although he may hold a Swedish passport. These numbers are therefore also incompatible with the Norwegian figures.

The Danish figures show foreign nationals resident in Denmark. However, none of the pages linked hitherto show number of Norwegian citizens resident in Norway, so also this figure is incompatibel with the Norwegian numbers. If a number of total Norwegian citizens can be found and linked, and the total number of Norwegian citizens in Norway, then those numbers would be more accurate than what is there hitherto.

Given that only figures for Norway are left for now, I removed the total figure and only kept that for Norway. google my name to find out about me -- Johannes Wilm 17:33, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Johanneswilm

This article is, and has been for several years, an article about the ethnic group Norwegians. The article is not about the word "Norwegian". Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but an encyclopedia.Alphasinus (talk) 12:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

"Norwegians" is not an ethnic group but a national group. If you wish to argue otherwise you will have to produce reliable sources that state this directly. It is currently a problem that there is on article on "Norwegians" and one on "Norwegian people" with no clear differentiation of content between them. You are however trying to turn this article into a POV fork discussing Norwegians as a putative "germanic ethnic" and trying to track down a "Norwegian diaspora" through creative synthesis of disparate sources. This is not permissible. If you want to posit the existence of a "Norwegian diaspora" you will need to find sources that explicitly use that term and use the information from there - you cannot compose such a group from information from different primary sources. This is a clear breach of WP:NOR. ·Maunus·ƛ· 14:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

this bickering about ethnicity in Europe is extremely tiring. Most countries in Europe are more or less nation states. This is a result of 19th century history. For this reason, the concepts of ethnicity and nationality are blurred all over Europe. This doesn't mean that ethnicity doesn't exist in Europe, but for some reason, there seems to be no end of editors who come to Wikipedia crusading to make exactly this claim. It merely means that the articles about European peoples such as the Norwegians need to take into account aspects of both ethnicity and nationality. --dab (𒁳) 10:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

So why did this "mob" of people all just suddenly go on and attack this article about Norwegians? Why have you not done anything to any of all the other "people articles" which holds the ethnic version, including diasporas abroad? If you deny the existence of c. 5 million ethnic Norwegians in the US, then you must also deny the existence of any other ethnic group in the US (and everywhere else). I find it extremely unfair that Norwegians should be treated worse than everyone else in the manner that is happening now. Norwegians are worth just as much as all other peoples in th world. – Bellatores (t.) 12:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Merge

This article should be merged to Norwegian people. There is no reliable source that can support a distinction between "Norwegians" as an "ethnic identity" and "Norwegian people" as a national identity. And even if there were it would make better sense to treat both sense in a single article in order to explain the difference. This article is currently just reduplicating content with a POV slant towards somekind of ethno-nationalism. ·Maunus·ƛ· 14:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed but this would be moving, not merging, right? Is there a consensus on how pages are to be named? For example, the articles for people of Denmark and Finland are named Danes and Finns, not Danish people and Finnish people, with emphasis on the word "people" and nationality. Qwerty (talk) 09:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

No it would be merging since I am not proposing replacing one page with the other, only to bring the content of both articles together in a single coherent article with a single title. Whether it be merged to Norwegians or Norwegian people I don't care much about. We just don't need to slightly different article on the same topic.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

---

yes, of course there should only be a single article, but you somehow ended up deleting 600 revisions in the history of the Norwegian people page. This is in violation of our content licence, and it is not the proper way to merge articles. --dab (𒁳) 10:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

You are an admin, you can undelete it an merge it the proper way. ·Maunus·ƛ· 11:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Religion

The section about modern day religion seems to be original research. I think the situation in Finland is quite the same as in Norway: most people nominally Lutherans, few people attending services. I have heard of no oppression of Lutherans, so the theory that all religious people fled to USA seems quite far fetched. I could argue about the arguing in the article, but as original research isn't allowed here there is no reason to. --LPfi (talk) 06:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Culture

The culture section now talks only about language and religion. But are we going to have one section here about culture among Norwegians and an other section in Norway about culture in Norway. Then this would either be a duplicate or about how culture of "real Norwegians" differ from that of their neighbours, either in America or in Norway. I see nothing good in such an attempt. --LPfi (talk) 06:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Germanic

I am removing Alphasinus unsourced changes introducing the notion that Norwegians are a "Germanic ethnic group". This classification is is unsourced and arbitrary, Germanic is a linguistic category not an ethnic one and we could equally well write "indo-European ethnic group", but that also contributes no relevant information. Norwegians are an ethno-national group that speak a germanic language. Also Icelanders are not Norwegians, nor are Orcadians or Faroe islanders - each of these are ethno-national groups in their own right - the fact that the first populations of their respective islands migrate from Norway more than 1000 years ago does not make them norwegians by any applicable standard. ·Maunus·ƛ· 02:56, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, as long as there is an article on Germanic peoples, you are just plain wrong. Read the article for starters, it clearly states that Germanic peoples are an ethno-linguistic group. It's not "a linguistic category" in the sense that is relevant to this article (which is on the ethnic group, not the language). Boefste (talk) 23:06, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Get reliable sources. Without sources there is no discussion.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:36, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

your wrong maunus you dont have to have a source for a self evident basic fact, look on other ethic group articles like russians or kirgiz people they all have unsourced yet self evident basic facts, here is some more information about the Germanic peoples(count it as your "source" if you may)[[7]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freesaveliy (talk • contribs) 18:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Rigmaroles and paradoxes

In the footnote in the infobox for the UK Norwegian population, it says Does not include people of Faroese, Icelandic, Orcadian or Shetlandic ancestry, or any other rigmaroles and paradoxes. This doesn't make any sense based on my understanding of the words 'rigmarole' and 'paradox' (and it certainly wouldn't be any clearer with rigmarole and paradox linked). What does this mean? —Akrabbim^talk 15:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Here are the diffs that added the language, found with wikiblame: paradoxes, rigmaroles. Unfortunately, MrGulli is retired. So are these formal anthropological terms, or should they be removed, or what? —Akrabbim^talk 12:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the "rigmaroles and paradoxes part".·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Under Australia

"But when the gold rush began in Australia in 1851 flocked to the volunteers, and it has been said that as many as 5000 Norwegian-born was in the periods. Around 1860 there shall have been around 2500 Norwegians there. A good number of these had previously tried luck that gold miners in California, and many went also return to America. Gullgravere guess almost by definition, fortune seekers, and thus prepared to move around depending on your luck might smile, and there was little stability there."

This paragraph is incoherent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.150.48.131 (talk) 14:28, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Norwegians#Canada section

Aside from needing citations for various claims here, there's a complete lack of information about Norwegians in British Columbia (who came via different routes/means than those described, and for different reasons), likewise Newfoundland (it's not by accident that one of the major streets in St John's is called "Stavanger" and that a taxi company name/family name is Bugden.....re BC Hans Lars Helgesen was the first non-Briton to hold a legislative seat in Canada; he was the founder of the commercial fishery in what's now called Haida Gwaii. Norwegians were common in the goldfields, most of the originals having come like everyone else to the Fraser Gold Rush via California; population rates in the western provinces could also be shown (Saskatchewan has the highest percentage at about 7%, BC and Alberta are next. There's various things in this section that made me go "WHAT?" and "huh?" I'll be back about those some other time.Skookum1 (talk) 05:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Other terms

The term "norrbagge", now seen as derogatory, has nothing to do with sheep or goats, or these animals testicles. During the civil war i Norway in the 12th and 13th centuries, there were two main fractions, the "poor" peoples party called the Birkebeiner (Birch-tree legs) as these were said to use the birch-tree bark (known as "never") for their shoewear,- and the Bagler party, siding with the church and the Bishops. Bagler is an adjective form of the noun "bagall", which is a bishops staff.

Both these names were of course given by the opposing party to the other party to ridicule them. As Norway included large areas which was ceded to Sweden in 1645 and 1658, the people in Sweden referred to those who lived in the southern part of the ceded areas as "baggar",- later "norrbaggar",- as their Swedish ancestors had done before them. But the reason for the name was of course a mispronunciation of the word "bagler",- as no one in Sweden was familiar with that word or the word "bagall".

This led to the erroneous connection with sheep and other livestock. The word bagge has never meant anything connected to testicles, not even today. It simply means male sheep.

In the 17th century the ever present wars led Swedish soldiers to think that this was just another derogatory term of Norwegians, but one must not forget that there were a noble family in Sweden that had "Bagge" as their family name, and they still have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.234.170.183 (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting. I started searching for sources, as we ought to give reliable sources for statements in the article. I found a Norwegian source, who had yet another explanation: that "bagge" refers to Bagaholm, which lies at what used to be the border between Norway and Sweden until 1658 (at Bagaholm, later Bohus, Fortress. "Nordbagge" then means those who lives north of Bagaholm. If you have a reliable source (books, magazines, newspapers) for the "bagler" explanation, we can include that explanation as well. But it appears that the meaning of the word is regarded as uncertain by linguistic experts. Kind regards, Iselilja (talk) 20:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Svi Jensen a prominent Norwegian?

Can someone give me a good reason not to remove her as a "prominent" Norwegian? I see no reason to have her there, especially considering how insignificant and unknown she is. In addition, we should consider adding Magnus Carlsen. He might well be the most famous Norwegian of year 2014.

--90.149.188.205 (talk) 13:48, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 September 2015

Please revert the image in the info-box of famous/notable Norwegians ("Norwegians (ethnicgroup)b.png") back to the original image ("Norwegians (ethnicgroup).jpg"). The new image has a clear far right-wing political and royalist bias.

The text below the new image reads: St. Olaf • P. Tordenskjold • N. H. Abel • F. Stang H. Ibsen • E. Grieg • F. Nansen • E. Munch R. Amundsen • E. Groven • L. Ullmann • O. G. Solskjær Pr. Märtha • Pr. Mette-Marit • S. Jensen • L-M. M. Jünge

The text below the original image would need to be edited to: St. Olaf • P. Tordenskjold • N. H. Abel • F. Stang H. Ibsen • E. Grieg • F. Nansen • E. Munch R. Amundsen • E. Groven • L. Ullmann 81.107.45.41 (talk) 08:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Please read the relevant sections on this talk page. -- Sam Sailor ^Talk! 16:14, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The gallery of personalities from the infobox

I invite everybody to post their opinions at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#The_necessity_of_galleries_of_personalities_in_the_infoboxes Hahun (talk) 11:35, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

RfC can be found here Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups#Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the articles about ethnic groups. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 03:14, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Wrong population of Norwegians

The number displaying the Norwegian population is not up to date. Per today the number has passed 5 millions, and this shuld be updated in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PetterWilmo (talk • contribs) 15:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

The total population of Norway is a bad indication over how many ethnic Norwegians there are, according to SSB the entire population growth stems from non-ethnic immigration and the total ethnic Norwegian population has been reduced. 84.247.151.29 (talk) 16:25, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

References

More Norwegians in the US than in Norway?

This is simply nonsense. Having some Norwegian ancestor is not the same, at all, as being Norwegian. Those numbers are simply wrong, the measure different things. How can this appear on a serious enciclopaedia? --46.25.48.186 (talk) 14:05, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110927060758/http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/EJHG_2002_v10_521-529.pdf to http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/EJHG_2002_v10_521-529.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120414055310/http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(07)63256-X to http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(07)63256-X
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120219033541/http://www.studyinnorway.no/sn/Living-in-Norway/Culture to http://www.studyinnorway.no/sn/Living-in-Norway/Culture
• Added {{dead link}} tag to http://www.aftenbladet.no/livssyn/1086156/2_prosent_gaar_i_kirken_paa_en_vanlig_soendag.html

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Norwegian-Americans

Why are Americans with, no matter how much, Norwegian ancestry considered Norwegian? The definition in the start of the article states that Norwegians: "share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language". Most Norwegian-Americans/Americans with Norwegian heritage do not. I can only find numbers that which say that about 55 thousand Norwegian-Americans actually speak the Norwegian language, and most of them don't really practice the culture or have any relation to Norway whatsoever. Why they are considered "ethnic Norwegians" and included in this article is beyond me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supevan (talk • contribs) 10:14, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Brazil

Norwegians never migrated in Brazil in significant numbers. Somebody is including a fake source to claim there are 400,000 Norwegians in Brazil, but that is not true. Moreover, Brazilian censuses do not ask about ancestry, only about nationality, and there aren't 400,000 Norwegians in Brazil. Xuxo (talk) 01:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)