# The Oldest Country on Earth. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 3, 2005, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206 "2005-11-03T00:23:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206/61 "2005-11-06T01:57:20Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Vikings are still around – there are about 17 million of them. Although their government was pretty thoroughly shattered, they are still quite distinctly Viking. They speak Viking languages, eat Viking food, practice Viking religion (well some of them do) and identify as separate from the neighboring larger cultures. The still identify along tribal lines which date back to pre-Christian times. Etc. Not in argument but for clarification: I understood that Scandinavian countries (including Denmark in that usage, probably inaccurately) considered that “Viking” meant someone who made a career of _travel_, whether the popular-myth Viking raider/conqueror or the more common but less notorious explorer/trader/fisherman group, and principally had reference to the period when the predecessors of what are now Danes, Norse, and Swedes, broken into smaller groups at that time, were burgeoning out of their homelands and journeying everywhere from Kiev to Greenland to Sicily. In other words, if you are a Danish veterinarian, an Oslo jeweler, or a Malmo bookdealer, you may well be a Scandinavian but you are not a Viking. Amundsen, Heyerdahl, Hansen, the Norse merchant marine – they did carry on the Viking tradition. But not all their countrymen did or do. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206/62 "2005-11-06T03:41:36Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Not in argument but for clarification: I understood that Scandinavian countries (including Denmark in that usage, probably inaccurately) considered that “Viking” meant someone who made a career of _travel_, whether the popular-myth Viking raider/conqueror or the more common but less notorious explorer/trader/fisherman group, and principally had reference to the period when the predecessors of what are now Danes, Norse, and Swedes, broken into smaller groups at that time, were burgeoning out of their homelands and journeying everywhere from Kiev to Greenland to Sicily. > > In other words, if you are a Danish veterinarian, an Oslo jeweler, or a Malmo bookdealer, you may well be a Scandinavian but you are not a Viking. Amundsen, Heyerdahl, Hansen, the Norse merchant marine – they did carry on the Viking tradition. But not all their countrymen did or do. Checking back to see if anyone had responded to the thread, I realized this sounds too much like a rant directed at Rune. What I meant to do was ask something like “The above usage of Viking is my understanding of what the Scandinavian countries use the term to mean. Is that correct, Rune?” ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206/63 "2005-11-06T07:53:16Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Vikings are still around – there are about 17 million of them. Although their government was pretty thoroughly shattered, they are still quite distinctly Viking. They speak Viking languages, eat Viking food, practice Viking religion (well some of them do) and identify as separate from the neighboring larger cultures. The still identify along tribal lines which date back to pre-Christian times. Etc. Have they continually practiced the same religion since ancient times? Do they consider themselves to be a separate group from the nations they live in? Do they have their own leaders who they regard above the rarely-involved national leaders? Are they interested in forming their own Viking state? Could your average Viking-descended Dane tell you from what tribes she comes from and their tribal history? Mayans wear different clothing according to what tribe they are in (and the tribes correlate with the Pre-Columbian kingdoms) on a daily basis. Do Vikings do anything similar? I’m not talking about a few yahoos reviving ancient practices as a weekend diversion. I am talking about a sustained and continuous cultural history nearly untouched by outside forces. Life in a Mayan village is not substantially different than it was 400 years ago. If you are Mayan, your life is much like your mother’s and your great-grandmother’s and her great grandmother’s. You eat the same diet of five things. You build your house out of the same rushes and use the same nailess building techniques. You make your living in the same way- weaving, slash and burn farming, and small scale herding. You get married, bear children, and die in about the same way with the same rituals (many Norse giving birth in huts nowdays?). You wear the same textiles made using the same techniques on an everday basis (not dress up for festivals) that have been handed down since time immemorial. They even still play the famous ball game, minus ritual decapitation. Could you honestly say the same about the Vikings? Are they still running around on their boats? Still wearing furs and rough cotton? Been to any good raids lately? I trust you’ll find the situation isn’t analogous, or that perhaps your understanding of the current situation of the Maya isn’t as informed as it could be. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206/64 "2005-11-06T08:34:57Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Mayan are still around- there are about six million of them. Although their government was pretty thoroughly shattered, they are still quite distinctly Mayan. They speak Mayan languages, eat Mayan food, practice the Mayan religion (often mixed with or hidden under the guise of Catholicism) and identify as separate from the Mestizo/Spanish dominant culture. The still identify along tribal lines which date back to pre-Colombian city state boundaries. They fight together as a group that considers themselves politically separate from their host nations. They have a strong, continuous culture and deeply resent being called a lost culture- especially given that people have been trying for centuries and continue today to break their Mayan identity, ruin their social structures, destroy their religion, marginalize their language and subjugate them as people. > > That said, they’ve been dominated by just about everyone from fruit companies to death squads in the last couple hundred years, so they don’t win the “world’s oldest nation” title. That sounds like a good arguement for ethnic group or culuture, but still doesn’t fit the country defintion. Neither do the Incas for that matter,since they had apparently just finished a Civil War just before Pizarro got there. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206/65 "2005-11-06T13:13:25Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > That sounds like a good arguement for ethnic group or culuture, but still doesn’t fit the country defintion. > > Neither do the Incas for that matter,since they had apparently just finished a Civil War just before Pizarro got there. They had not finished it. That’s precisely what helped Pizarro taking over by playing one side against the other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-country-on-earth/329206.md?page=3)