Nordic peoples

Nordic peoples

Total population
c. 526 million (2020)
Regions with significant populations
Acrea 170,900,000 Æþurheim 129,700,000 Shalum 100,000,000 Delkora 73,900,000 Northern States 15,760,000 Cacerta 13,100,000 Ossoria 9,000,000
Languages
Nordic Gothic Venetian Northian
Religion
Valstígr Vallyar Fonδaiš Wīštā̊

The Nordic peoples are a group of ethnicities in Tyran who trace their lineage back to the Nordic-speaking regions of Eracura. Nordic, if taken as a single language, is one of the most widely spoken languages in Tyran. Although various Nordic regional and national dialects are the predominant mother tongues for the greater majority of Nordic peoples, it also encompasses a variety of languages spoken including Gothic, Venetian, and Northian and is not considered an ethnolinguistic group.

Modern Nordic peoples are descended from populations who originated in northeastern Eracura, in what is now modern-day Acrea and Nordkrusen, with the largest being the Acrean-Nordlander subgroup which spread to assimilate or expel other groups in the area, eventually spreading into Delkora. Various Nordic peoples practice a variety of religions, though almost all are formed from Old Nordic religion, with the largest being Valstígr and Vallyar.

Etymology

The term "Nordic" comes from the ancient Acrean and Nordkrusite term Norðmenn, meaning Northmen, the word most commonly used by other ethnolinguistic groups in Eracura to describe the peoples of North Acrea and Nordkrusen.

History

Origins

The Nordic peoples have a largely agreed-upon single ethnogenesis, in a region spanning across Northeastern Eracura around the Gulf of Åland. The proto-Nordic peoples are considered to be descendants of the Erani-Eracurans diffused amongst local populations.

Classification

Ussterians

Main article: Ussterian

Languages

Northian

Phylogeny of Nordic-Northian languages, according to Stanton et al. (2002)

Northian, an Erani-Eracuran language, has been argued to be a Nordic language, and their hypothesized, albeit disputed, common ancestor is Proto-Nordic-Northian (PNN). Where this language was spoken is hard to define, though most authorities that support its existence place it in the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BCE, in or near Acrea. According to Stanton et al., around 3,500 years ago, dialects of PNN separated into two groups, the Nordic languages identified with the Nordic Iron Age and the Northian languages identified with the Register Pottery Culture in Silua and Shalum. Not all scholars accept Stanton's theory, on the grounds that PNN as reconstructed is too similar to PEE to be considered the product of shared innovations.

If Nordic and Northian are connected via Cowgill's law, it seems some laryngeals, when flanked by a sonorant and *w, become /k/ in both families. While /k/ remained in situ in Elder Nordic, it would have become /s/ in Galic Northian by regular sound change. Though the correspondence is not exceptionless, examples in agreement between the two branches outnumber those in variance considerably, leading some authorities to identify a relation between the two language families. On the other hand, the two languages share no identifiable grammatical innovations or other phonetic ones, and this contrast has led others scholars to consign the apparent reflexes of Cowgill's law as an aerial effect or an unrelated reflex of Erani-Eracuran laryngeals.

The oldest attested Northian texts are a scattered body of hymns, known as Gales, that are at the fundament of the Fonδaiš Wīštā̊ religion. The language of the Gales is called Galic Northian. Gales are mainly found in the Didaskalic material, words attributed to wise men living in the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, in Epic poetry from the 7th to 2nd century BCE, and later, in more compendious ritual texts that describe the exact context in which Gales were used. Though most Gales are found in ritualistic prose, they also show the most evidence of later editing. It is evident that the Gales were not well understood by the priests that chanted it, though this probably had the effect of preserving the archaic text against later emendations.

The communis opinio is that the oldest Gales (Period I) must have been given a thorough redaction circa 1500 BCE, while the time of their original composition cannot be known certainly. Some authorities, on the basis of such archaic word-forms like accusative singular θxā̊ "into the Earth", whose perfect congnates could be found in branches as distant as Anatolian, posit a date of composition of 3000 – 2500 BCE. However, as Cramer points out, Northian is very good at the conservation of allomorphs, so the presence of a few that escaped analogical replacement does not require an excessively early date of composition, which cannot be supported by history. Period II and III Gales have been dated to around 1350 BCE and 1200 BCE; after this period, it seems the Gales were canonized, and new compositions thence were no longer added to the canon.

Religion

Fonδaiš Wīštā̊

Main article: Fonδaiš Wīštā̊

Fonδaiš Wīštā̊, literally "known ways", is a belief system that venerates both natural and anthropomorphic deities and the community, ceremonies, and study that manifest it. Fonδaiš is thought to have developed during the Middle Bronze Age by Northian-speaking ancestors of Ussterians, with heavy influence from the Erani-Eracuran religion, and venerates above others six paired gods—Ziiōš, θaɣā, Hāuuərə, Mā, Agnō, and Āfš—representing the deified Sky, Earth, Sun, Moon, Fire, and Water. The Bronze-Age form of the religion is not well attested, and classical Fonδaiš is effectively built around the teachings of the three Didaskaloi, priest-philosophers who lived between 800 and 650 BCE, which is understood to have reformed the religion's theology in fundamental ways.

The human being is considered to have two aspects in Fonδaiš philosophy. On the one hand, humans are constrained by their material bodies and cannot exist without them, thus partaking in the finite, material world. On the other hand, humans have rational minds capable of understanding things and thereby create imperfect things out of the materials at their disposal, thus partaking in the infinite, spiritual world. Various parts of the human condition are distinguished in Fonδaiš philosophy as of either material or spiritual origin. Sex, for example, is considered to be of material origin; thus, there is no difference in how the faculty of thought operates between members of the sexes. The manner in which the two aspects of human beings intersect with each other is called the "human condition", in the sense that humans are "built" by two aspects.

While the Bronze-Age beliefs of the Hamruvunts are likely to have been centred on deities with naturalistic human qualities, this is not the case by the age of classical Fonδaiš. Gods are considered beings of abstract thought and power or are equivalents to power. The Didaskaloi themselves did not conclude whether the gods were persons in the sense that humans can only exist as distinct persons from each other, i.e. each person being limited to one body and its faculties and cannot natively understand the world by the faculties of a different person, even though that person is also human. If the gods were separate persons, then they must also have separate domains and faculties, leading to different (and possibly conflicting) thoughts and actions, etc. Sometimes the gods were summarized as the godhead divdās and considered one entity in some contexts.

It seems, by the extension of the thesis that the gods could be considered unitary in terms of the godhead, which is not personal, humanity θxāmatās is also partly unitary. Thus, all humans could be said to be one being on some level that does not involve their faculties, which are personal. The idea that humanity θxāmatās consists of godhead divdās and material personality, and those two things only, is the doctrine of bi-inclusionism. The contrary idea that θxāmatās in terms of its impersonal unity behaves like divdās but is not and does not contain divdās is called exclusionism. These two doctrines have been supported by various scholars over centuries.

A key thesis accepted by the Didaskaloi is that human beings owe no worship or sacrifice to any deity; all the world, as it was created and even now being regenerated yā̊ yaēni "from year to year", is for their use and enjoyment, free of conditions. Accordingly, Fonδaiš followers, called Hakiyā "allies", aknowledge this work of creation and regeneration and give thanks to the deities, and they do so out of their own free will, for the love of Truth, and not out of a superstitious fear of punishment. Since humans are not bound to serve any god, and since they do it out of their free will if they do it at all, a person's religion is thus wholly and solely an exponent of their wisdom and morality; the Didaskaoi ask the Hakiyā to "understand all the gods" and see whose worship is closest to the Truth, each according to their natural judgement.

The Fonδaiš gods, as described by the Didaskaloi, are transcendent and do not possess physical forms or exist in the physical world. Sacrifices, as understood by the Didaskaloi, are not of worldly goods, since the material world is created by the gods and therein is nothing that the gods cannot themselves create. Humans can make a meaningful offering in their approvals of the gods, expressed in two ways—the singing of hymns, which expresses their approving mentality, and the re-enactment of the work of creation and regeneration. Many of Fonδaiš ceremonies are dedicated to the "consecration of elements", which changes the hyposthasis of worldly materials into their spiritual counterparts and precursors; similarly, humans are consecrated by ceremonies to manifest their spiritual character, which is identified with the Godhead in ceremony.

Classical Fonδaiš also includes the veneration of the twin gods of the numina, Aithar and Wosma, responsible for effecting hypostatic transformation. However, historically, it seems these two gods had independent cults not part of the classical theology where they had other functions.