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loki1232 said:
Various things. First, it would give them an opportunity to get some better warships built off the Irish design (i'm presuming that the dragonships are galleys). Second, they would have a small chance to convert to christianity early, due to a priest on the Irish ship.

I mean it wouldn't be a huge event, but then again the irish player wouldn't be paying much gold (like 50) and they'd get some VP's for it.

There's still the issue of the Vinlanders heading west before the Irish arrive in Vinland in the 1440s. One must believe that they would have tried to head back east (the Irish AND the Vinlanders) and we don't want this to happen.

I also rather like the notion that when the irish arrive in the mid 15thC, they are the 'First Contact'.

VPs are kinda worthless. ;)

But, hey, l;et's see the events!
 
Hey I've got a question i hope someone here could help me with: What is a good name for the mixed Norse Skraeling people? I mean what should they call themselves?
 
loki1232 said:
Hey I've got a question i hope someone here could help me with: What is a good name for the mixed Norse Skraeling people? I mean what should they call themselves?

If I understand things correctly Skraeling roughly means "the skrawnly/ragged/thin people" and refers to the ancestors of the Boethuk First Nation (which is now extinct) of Newfoundland (the "Island" you guys have been referring too :p). However the word "Kalaalleq" was adopted by the Greenland Innu as a self descripter.

Wikipedia suggests that this word descends from the Norse word, Skraeling. Calling the Vinlander-Boethuk mix Kalaalleq would reflect not only the Beothuk and Vilander mix but also a greater Vinland-Beothuk-Greenland-Innu melting pot. It suggests that while much Norse diction was picked up by the people First Nations, the descendants of the Norse picked up the FIrst Nation tones and inflection...
 
loki1232 said:
Hey I've got a question i hope someone here could help me with: What is a good name for the mixed Norse Skraeling people? I mean what should they call themselves?

They could continue to call themselves Norsemen or Vinlanders and speak Norse even if a majority of their ancestry ends up North American. Look at modern-day Mexicans for example (admittedly they took a local name, but only because 'New Spanish' sounds lame as a demonym).
 
Another idea would be to take a word or two from the old norse and put them together. According to the first dictionary that pops up in google, there are five different words for "people"; someone with more knowledge about the language can pick the one. Because my keyboard cannot do the thorn or the other strange letter, I'll be writing th for the sound at the begining of through and dh for the sound at the beginning of their. The words are firar, folk, lidh, lydhr, and thjodh. Some useful words for picking a name:

settlement - bygdh or landnam
settler - landnamamadhr
beyond - utan
boat - batr, skip
mighty - throttigr
nobility - drengskapr
sailor - farmadhr
seafarers - flotnar
Brave - bitr, froenkn, godhr, hraustr, snrallr, vaskr (I'm sure they all mean different things)
Or for a Christian twist, there are several words for servant which I can't discern between, so I will list them all: huskarl, skossveinn, sveinn, thegn, and thjonustumadhr.
There were more "Skraelings" on the Island than the Beothuk, so it might not be so fitting to think in terms of their language specifically. The others, supposedly, and probably including the Beothuk, spoke an Algonquin sort of language.
 
There were more "Skraelings" on the Island than the Beothuk, so it might not be so fitting to think in terms of their language specifically. The others, supposedly, and probably including the Beothuk, spoke an Algonquin sort of language.

IIRC (this tag applies for all that follows in this post), the 'Skraelings' of Greenland were an Innu speaking people, whereas the "Skraelings" of Newfoundland are thought to have maybe been (oh the uncertainty) the ancestors of the Beothuk, which were Algoniquin. Indeed I don't think there is much evidence to say that the two 'Skraelings' were culturally related except for the fact that the Norse gave them the same name. Also there is no reason to suggest that the Beothuk came to Newfoundland before 1000, and at that time the First Peoples settled on Newfoundland could, in fact, be culturally Innu.

There are also the Dorset preceded the Innu in much of Northern Canada and are known as the "Tall People" in Innu oral history. They had a distinct culture though it is thought that they were driven away by the Innu who were better suited for the Artic climes. The term 'Skraeling' however dennotes the lighter build of the Innu in comparison to the reportedly bigger and physically stronger (though techonologically inferior) Dorset. I don't think that the Dorset should come into play here.

I don't think a mixed Vinland-'Skraeling' culture would retain the Norse language in the same way that the Spanish colonies did. If Vinland is to be truly isolated from Europe the lack of continual contact suggests that the Norse would be on their own, forced to adapt their ways to that of their new Wifes, Fathers-in-law, ect whose local knowledge would be far superior to that of the Norse. Words for natural formations, animals, plants, ect would naturally be Kalaaleq in this envisioning of events. Perhaps the language would be closer to the one used by the Metis in construction--that is French Nouns and Cree Verbs (replacing Norse for French and Innu/Algonquin for Cree, or visa versa).

To use Kalaaleq we'd have to assume that the Greenland colony also merged with its native population in a similar way, and that the Skraelings of Newfoundland were culturally related to the Innu 'Skraelings' of Greeland. The Beothuk, in this scenario, never established a foothold on Newfoundland--or if they did we could see them as a poorly integrated minority within the Kalaaleq nation marked by sporatic events along the line of the various revolting minority ones that exist for European nations.

The Norse names would satisfy the requirments of options A or B, but not C, for which I think we need to use a Metis-esque construction. While Kalaaleq may not be the best, as it is used by the Innu of Greenland to this day as a self-identifier and would would require the Greenlanders to have integrated into the Innu society there and for these peoples to have migrated and then dominanted the Newfoundland colony, which also integrated with a culturally similar Aboriginal people.

Again, all this is based off of memory spiced, occassionaly, by a quick fact check to Wikipedia which is not always the best place to do fact checks.

Cheers.