Talk:Tyrker

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This is a very poorly written stub. Not only are there alarming flaws in the command of the English language, but no one in their sound mind believes that Leiv's camp was in Newport R.I.!!!! --Sparviere (talk) 04:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

== Origin ==2011 (UTC)

From the Grænlendinga Saga: Hann talaði þá fyrst lengi á þýzku ... First he spoke German (þýzku) for a long time ...

Dietrich (new High German) > Dirk (short form) > Thirk (old Low German) > Tyrkir / Tyrker — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.221.44.7 (talk) 10:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find it a bit odd that the previous discussion regarding the origin of the subject of this article is so belligerent in nature. This article previously entertained the theory that Tyrker's origins maybe he been Hungarian, but was promptly erased without any trace or mention of the fact, and the new article simply states without proper context that Tyrker was likely a German and undeniably spoke German upon being overcome with excitement with his discovery of the grapevine.

The source for the claim that he spoke German (the more modern rendering of the Greenlandic Saga) is obviously not contemporary (and even the original, which I could not find, is nonetheless said to been written perhaps 200 or even 300 years after events transpired) and furthermore the translation/rendering of þýzku to mean "German" is debatable and it is equally plausible that it actually referred to Turkish. It would not make sense why the saga didn't refer to this speech as saxneskr, and immediately recognized it. Also, if the former theory is accepted, then it raises more questions than answers since the Norse were described as being bewildered by Tyrker's speech, which seems odd since one would expect at the very least some mutual comprehensibility since these were both Germanic tongues that had even less divergence at the time. Given this, in light of the lack of evidence, I think its best to forgo making any conclusive summations about Tyrker's homeland or native language, which has been variously interpreted to have been German, Hungarian, Slavic, or even a genuine Turk throughout different scholarly circles. I believe it is Wikipedia's job to make available all such theories to the average reader, so if no one is opposed to it, I will rewrite the article to account for all these viewpoints (since all are, in my opinion, equally plausible). SwedishNoodlesToo (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but no. There is almost zero serious scholarly debate about the German origins of Tyrkir, as the terms referring to him are unambiguously only used for Germans in saga contexts. "þýzku" is literally only used to to refer to the German language (and yes, it's is rendered like that in Flateyjarbók), and so is "Suðrmaðr" primarily as well - for reference here's the relevant articles from the Cleasby/Vigfusson dictionary:

suðr-maðr = m. a southerner, esp. a Saxon, German, as opp. to a Northman, Magn. 528, Fms. viii. 248, xi. 303, 354, Fb. i. 540, Karl. 288, 355, passim.

Þýzkr = Þýðverskr, only in late vellums; Þýzkan söðul, Fms. xi. 443.

Þýðverskr, adj., but better Þýðerskr, often spelt Þyeskr; the v and r are due to a wrong notion as to its origin, as if it came from -verjar (= men) instead of the inflex. iskr, as is seen from the German form; [O.H.G. Diutisc; mid.H. G. Diutisch, Tiusch; low Lat. Theotiscus;; Hel. Thiudisk; mod. Germ. Teutsch, Deutsch; Engl. Dutch; these forms shew that v and r are in the Norse wrongly inserted; the old Icel. word was evidently borrowed from the Germ. through the trading people, perhaps in the 11th or 12th century; it does not therefore appear in a genuine Norse form, for then the inflexive iskr should have been assimilated to the preceding root word, so forming a monosyllable; the mod. form Þýzkr is in this respect correct; the root word is Goth. þiuda = þjóð, see Grimm’s Dict. s.v. ii. 1043; in Ulf. þiuþisko = ἐθνικως] = German; Þýðerskir menn (Þýðverskir, Þýverskir, Þýðskir, v.l.), Fms. viii. 248; Vindum ok Þýðeskum mönnum, x. 45, v.l.; Þýðerska menn, 47; en Þýðeskir menn segja, Fas. i. 332; Þýverskir, Fb. i. 355. l.c.; Þýveskr, Ann. 1342 C; svá segir í kvœðum Þýðærskum, Þiðr. 304; frá sögn Þýðærskra manna, 334; Þýðeskum kvæðum, 231, 330, 352; Þýðeskra manna sögur, 180; í Þýðersk tunga, 1, 302, 304.

The theories about him being anything else are usually crackpot theories relying on wrong etymologies regarding the name and don't have any real footing in scholarly research. Similarly, your theories about why he's not called "saksneskr" or why they could not understand his speech (which is by the way quite silly considering how at the point the saga was composed Old Saxon had already evolved into the much less mutually intelligible Middle Low German) violate WP:NOR. 2A02:8108:96C0:2640:B0F3:8D7E:45B5:FA22 (talk) 14:15, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other non-English Wikipedia pages make note of the possibility of his German or Hungarian origin. I'm not sure why bringing up these possibilities is considered fringe or crackpot. I suspect nationalistic purposes vis-a-vis who from Europe was in North America first, etc.

Furthermore, the sources you have listed as proof is just an Icelandic-English dictionary, and not any original text corresponding to article. The source is also quite old, so I am going to revert the change and attach relatively more recent sources that entertain all the aforementioned possibilities of Tyrker's origin.

By the way, my statement about Tyrker not being called saksneskr was more just a anecdote I wanted to bring up and discuss, and was never meant to be a justification for the edit, although it is my fault that I didn't provide sources in my previous edit. I will be sure to remedy that. SwedishNoodlesToo (talk) 00:27, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Cleasby-Vigfússon dictionary is, despite its age, the standard English-language reference work for Old Icelandic, in which the saga is composed. Using a 1927(!) source and then claiming that it's more recent when the Cleasby-Vigfússon has been revised multiple times since it was published for the first time is quite frankly disingenuous - however feel free to cross-check Zoega's, Baetke's or Fritzner's works, all of which will corroborate the same thing, just in a slightly less elaborate manner. This has nothing to do with nationalism and everything with accuracy, unless you count the proponents of a non-German origin who attempt to claim the discovery for their own. 95.90.185.155 (talk) 17:56, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]