It probably was, he is one of the most annoying NPCs in Skyrim.

You're all wrong.

A.) The correct answer is B

B.) No, you're wrong, the correct answer is C

C.) 'A' was the most accrate, but it's a fictional world someone pulled out of their ass and scribbled on some paper so WGAF?

Basicly Danes, Swedes and Norwegians are Germans, the tribes, not the Nation. Ironicly they are even more German than we Germans are, because they weren't under Roman influence 2000 years ago.
And it doesn't stop there, also the French and English people have German Origins. France = Franconia, a region in northern Bavaria. And of course the Anglo-Saxons originated in the Saxony regeion, in East Germany.

I see. Failure on my part then.

Oh? Where is this "English"? I thought it was "Tamriel".

Just to clarify - Scandinavia in it's strictest (geographical) sense consists of Sweden and Norway which make up the Scandinavian peninsula. Culturally though Denmark is often included in the term Scandinavia since the languages and history/cultural history of these three countries are very closely intertwined. Include Finland (for hundreds of years a part of Sweden) an Iceland (colonialized by Norse peoples) and you have the Nordic Countries which is the correct/official term, but especially abroad Scandinavia is (slightly incorrectly) used to cover all five countries.

vD

What!!!! " they wish they were" HELL no

All of this nationalism becomes amusing after you realize how transient nations tend to be. http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/2000/index.html. I encourage the gentle readers of this thread to click back through the timeline there, and see if their home country even existed 100, 200, 300 years ago, and so on. It's funny how attached people get to their piece of land and its label, even though it might have been called something completely different just 5 generations ago. Notice how names, like "Rome" and "Roman", disappear and reappear at different spots at different times. Artificial labels for people, who are much the same everywhere...
Nation states in themselves are a modern idea. In much of history, people tended to group behind a leader, who was the "State"(The Roman Republic, and Athenian democracy are well known exceptions). The thought that, say, the French, or the people of any other nation state are a distinct group of people with shared looks, shared religion and shared ideas about everything, and have always been like that, is an modern, artificial construct.

Same reason there's no hersir and longboats..they're nords not norse, they just draw inspiration from norse mythology

Nah, Bokm?l isn't quite like Old Norse. It is very heavily influenced by Danish, as we didn't have our own written language.
I'd say that Nynorsk is closer. But as far as I can see, only Icelandic really resembles anything at all.

Note: When Vatnaj?kull (or is it with ??) erupted two years ago I was watching the news from here. They were talking in Icelandic, with Norwegian subtitles. I could make out alot of the Icelandic, and signs and such I could understand.
Our languages isn't that distant. It is mostly the alphabet.

As I understand it after Iceland was settled and the language remained pretty much unchanged from Old Norse, while the Scandinavian languages mutated in the usual manner. In the US we have a similar situation or did in the Appalachians where they spoke what was essentiallt Elizabethan English until the advent of radio and TV.

And I really prefer that my game is in English thanks. I have enough trouble trying to figure out the controls without having to learn a whole new language to play.

Nation states are a modern idea, true. That doesn't mean nations - in the sense of large groups with a sense of shared identity - didn't exist. An Englishman in the 14the century knew he was an Englishman. A Fleming of the same period would have found it normal to be part of France but would never have considered himself a Frenchman. What they didn't have is the modern concept of nationalism: the idea that nation and state somehow have to coincide. But they knew who they were.

That being said, I don't know enough of Scandanivian history to know when "Swedish", "Danish", etc. emerged as national identities.

But Swedish is such an easy language!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY_Yf4zz-yo

Of course people have always identified with some group. But nation states made this group much, much larger. Before, the group might've been just a village, or Gilford the Genericknight's holdings. From what I understand, the closer people were to being able to affect nation-level politics, the more they identified with their nation. Which wasn't the case with common farmers, most of whom were serfs(effectively slaves bound to a plot of land) in many European nations during the Middle Ages.

In general, Skyrim and other fantasy RPGs give a very strange picture of Medieval life. Common people weren't generally free to move around and pick their own professions. They could own land, but had to spend a significant part of their time working on their lord's land, or otherwise work for them. In addition, they had to pay some of what they produced as taxes for the lord in exchange for their "protection". Much of medieval society revolved around supporting the Feudal lords. They were the state and people were obligated to serve them. Lucky serfs could buy their freedom, but it wasn't that common. In 1086, only 12% of William the Conqueror's subjects were freeholders, i.e. non-serfs and non-nobility who owned their own land.


The birth of Sweden as a distinct nation could be considered to be the point where Gustav Vasa broke it away from Norway-Denmark in around 1520 or so. The common Swede was never a serf, unlike most of the population was in many countries in medieval times, so their belief in being able to affect their own destiny would've made the the transition towards a nation state faster.
Not sure about Norway and Denmark, but I gather that generally the history of the three nations has been a constant mix of people from each conquering the other for a while, until the tide turns, and they've been sort of a single, quarrelous nation through most of it. Hell, most of the area that's now Danmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden was even ruled by a single king at one point. See Kalmar Union.

Who's Carl?

Gotta love swedish chef x) and being swedish myself...
He makes me feel proud to be swedish

It goes well beyond Roman influence. Look at the geography - Germany is right in the middle. Look at the history - everything form of human from Norse to Asian to Mediteranean to different European tribes has crossed through what is now Germany. Romans, Norse, Huns, VIsgoths, some Celts ... it's a long list. Germans are about as mixed as you can get (which as a proud mutt with a German mother is IMHO a good thing)