So, I've given it 2 years for all the herdy-geurdy jokes to die down.
I am all about staying true to the lore here, Scandinavia is the insperation for Norsca. In Warhammer fantasy the Norse are just plain Scandinavian vikings. We see this reflected in the references in the Spike! Journal 14 as well as a lot of tongue-in-cheek of modern references such as flat pack balls etc.
I feel that as a genuine Norseman, it is my job to build cultural bridges and enrol current and future Norse Team Managers in Scandi 101.
Let's start with the basics.
Misnomers
We don't all know Ulrika personally nor do we even know of her. We don't have Das wet Küchen. The Swedish Chef's famous exclamation 'bork, bork, bork!' doesn't mean anything. It has never been, ever seen or ever heard of Swedish.
Speaking of, let's move on to the Scandinavian languages.
People have commonly used our 'funny letters' to seem edgy or different. Motörhead is an example of bad norse symbol inclusion. It was an idea Lemmy admitted he "pinched" from his friends in Blue Öyster Cult. Metal umlauts aside, since the hygge trend became a thing, many hipster brands have emerged, throwing one of these characters into their brand name: ÅÄÖÆØ. These characters are being used aesthetically, the pronunciation being ignored. People mistakenly think that they are interchangeable with english characters, which isn't the case.
You get ÅåÄäÖö in Swedish and ÅåÆæØø in Norwegian. Finding example words are hard since we are talking about sounds not necessarily being used in English and accents do affect these vocal sounds a lot, so dependant on your geographical area your milage may vary but I've tried to include some that are close in general British pronunciation.
Pronunciation very simplified and generalised:
- Å is pronounced [o:] like the o in song alternatively when followed by two consonants is pronounced [ɔ] like the o in otter
- Ä/Æ is pronounced [æ:] like the ea in bear alternatively when followed by two consonants is pronounced [ɛ] like the e in elk
- Ö/Ø is pronounced [ø:] like the y in myrrh in alternatively when followed by two consonants is pronounced [œ] like the Nurse, heard, third
Now, armed with this knowledge, you can name your team and players without unknowingly being culturally insensitive. You can do it knowingly! However, before you do take our letters in vain, have a look at the culturally appropriated movie Midsommar so you know what the Scandinavians will do when they come for you.
And yes I know Icelandic is the closest we get to true old norse, but it is a can of worms where we can no longer generalise and easily explain things. I also doubt Games Workshop went to those lengths so I'll leave that be, for this light hearted in the box but, if you like, I can do a post on it. Let me know in the comments, they have some lovely letters such as edd: Ðð and the rune thorn: Þþ
Between Raider Lineman 1 and 3 two of the alternate heads are mislabelled: Head #12 should say #18 and vice versa! The pictures are correct but the numbers aren't. If you go by the instructions, your "Techno Viking" will have the incorrect head and the other one will have a small gap in the neck (although that one is easy enough to fill) Easy enough mistake to make as the two heads a very similar. See red alterations.
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