Pub Poll: Culture Names (+)

[unmerged(8632)]

Culture progress

BTW (1) yes culture is changing (2) one culture doesn't have to be packed together, we have islands of different cultures in larger states were they historically existed.

More on the effects later today, from Borealis...

 

[kurtbrian]

This is devotion!

you being on this forum during the weekends!

 

[Leonatos]

Hi,

The first culture group comes down to this : The population was Saxon, mainly, and the rulers of that population where both Frankish and Gothic, (Gaul and Germanic). The Franks (Gauls... I dont know if Frank is an english word, but in the dutch langauge we call them the Franks, and Charles the Great was their king around 800..) were a christian community, that have influenced, by sending missionaries, all the saxon territories to the north. William the Conquerer (1066) also had the Frankish culture. Famous names will be Willibrord who christianized most of the low countries, and Bonifatius who worked in west Germany. The question is : does the culture of a region display the Ruler's culture, in which case western europe will be Frankish/Germanic(Gaul/Gothic). Or does the culture reflect the populations' culture, in which case it would have to be Saxon.
Do not underestimate the Saxons here, their rituals and traditions have been practiced for a long time, and eventually 'merged' with Christian culture, forming the new culture, and eventually resulting in the Protestants... (refusing to accept the Roman church, viewed upon as some kind of "elite" class of foreigners...)

Also, a large part of eastern Germany would also fall under Saxon, should the population determine the culture.

The area around the Mediterranean consists mainly of Roman/Latin influence. These places were the last to fall in the Roman Empire, but their influence remained very very strong there. The knights that fought the morrish people in Iberia were strongly connected to the roman church, and much less to the frankish empire to the north. They only started to develop their own (iberian) culture after they were able to fight back the morrish people and when Leon was founded. So in this period of time, the main culture in Italy and Spain would be Latin.

The "byzantine" culture doesnt exist. This is the Eastern Roman Empire... and basically, this is where the Romans' influence initially stayed the strongest, even stronger than in Italy. Only, their culture slowly merged with Greek and the Saracens in the east. This is the part of the Roman Empire that was not destroyed, and then started a slow decay. That is the reason their culture was influenced strongly by other cultures. A much better description would be "greek" indeed. It IS greek, it's just not the same greek as ancient greek, but greek nonetheless.

Slavic is a good description for most countries in the East, about the same as Saxon would be to describe the population's culture in western europe. Although largely "barbaric" (no offence, but I need SOMETHING to describe it... I know it's not adequate but ow well, Pagan then ! ) the German's started to cultivate them (in the north) and the Byzantine empire started to go north, into russia etc...

So I guess, it's whether you want to use population influence, or their ruler's influence. It makes all the difference =)

Greetz
Leonatos

 

[unmerged(9622)]

Originally posted by BarristerBoy
I'm glad that Khimaira seem to be on the same page on this.

The lesson on the different terms in Russian has been quite fascinating, but we are stuck with the fact that we are discussing the English names for these cultures. As well, we can't ignore the modern meanings of any names we use, no matter what their historical appropriateness might be. Saracen was a term used at that time, but modern sensibilities prohibit its use.

My modern sensibilities say that Russian is an offensive term if used for all eastern slavic people. As a different example: I also get offended if, as a Canadian, I get called an "American", just because the two countries are similar.

For my example, the more appropriate term is therefore "North American". we need to find that equivalent term for the eastern slavic group.

I am damn pleased to hear that my origin is a kinda offensive term in here - prove me im mistaken -

A bit of contradiction then:

the thing is we are not discussing what is offensive for other people - who cares actually who you are - ukrainian, canadian, or Alien who came to Earth to visit McDonalds. We speak about certain span of time - thus the end of 11th century and further - thus if im not confused by my sources - there are no Ukrainians, Belorussians or Russians - and if take the idea implied by Sergei - we can at least conclude that it sounds reasonable to leave Russian as a generic and common term for those eastern slavic tribes living within the boundaries of Kievan Rus. Otherwise we can reduce the whole thing to absurdity - i can otherwise claim that there should be Radimichi, Vyatichi, White Croats, Slovene Ilmenskie - and so on and so forth - but the GENERIC! term for all these tribes is Russian. So if the term Rus doesn't suit and doesn't satisfy developers for some reason - let Russian be then.

If we would speak about North America, i'd recommend we clarify the terms too - Canadian seems to me a bit of a made-up term - who has seen any? This is a segregated society of two nations plus Innuits and other minorities - therefore i would advise to call Innuits Canadians - and let leave French and English what they really are - just French and English. American is a fake too - it seems to me that Great American nation (don't think im trying to be hard on them or trying to offend them) but anyway it seems to me that the term and the idea of GAN (Great American Nation) bears resemblance to ideas of present-day Turkish national policy and Soviet ideas with respect to this question. As i remember Turkey is believed by its government to be a monocultural countries - and Kurds are believed to be bad Turks.... Soviet Union had also quite a familiar idea of solution of national question - there are no Tatars, Russians, Estonians - there's a new ethnic unity - a megaethnos - Soviet people! - Thus, Americans i guess are using the same path the Soviets used - i wonder where it might in the end lead to!

 

[unmerged(9622)]

Originally posted by Wasa


According to my (western) sources (Christiansen for example) the Prussians were Baltic..and as such very different from slavs or germanic peoples/languages

Well, well, well - i think we are misled by the topic aside. We should make ourselves clear - what are we talking about??? Nations or languages?? If nations - no objections to! But languages are quite another thing - if we compare three linguistic groups as proposed - we can find certain moments when the latters Baltic and Slavic - (mainly eastern Slavic - im not going as far as Serbian or something) do coincide in many respects. That's the study of the sophomores in any of Russian linguistic universities - pity that it's not available outside RF. Another source for Comparativistics is works by Smirnitsky i believe. ----------- I would recommned you to look up for the works in Comparative Linguistics and not the study of Baltic languages taken out of the historical context of Development.

 

[unmerged(8632)]

I think it is important to keep in mind the sole purpose of having a "culture" in the game -- not to define religion (for it is separate, and Samoeds can be too devout Christians!), not to define language or administrative borders, but to define a mindset, a way of life, a set of views and values and customs.

It is a generalisation to extent, but after all even religion in the game is a generalisation since Orthodox Moskva is miles away from Orthodox Siberia. If you come to a province where people have siesta while your troops work 0600-1800 and then drag home to sleep, merging both into a single system takes time and afflicts certain economic penalties while in transition. This is precisely what the culture factor is for. And if we can come up with "medieval", historically-accurate but also good-for-game (which means fun and flavour) names, that's issue solved.

PS To those who consider the exact placement extremely important, think that by the time you as a player reach those parts of the world the culture division could be totally different since you will be seeing the results of conquests and alliances already happened .

 

[unmerged(1057)]

Originally posted by Khimaira


Well, well, well - i think we are misled by the topic aside. We should make ourselves clear - what are we talking about??? Nations or languages?? If nations - no objections to! But languages are quite another thing - if we compare three linguistic groups as proposed - we can find certain moments when the latters Baltic and Slavic - (mainly eastern Slavic - im not going as far as Serbian or something) do coincide in many respects. That's the study of the sophomores in any of Russian linguistic universities - pity that it's not available outside RF. Another source for Comparativistics is works by Smirnitsky i believe. ----------- I would recommned you to look up for the works in Comparative Linguistics and not the study of Baltic languages taken out of the historical context of Development.

Yes, what are we talking about? I thought it was languages..perhaps I misinterpreted the topic..

according to one dictionary:

Baltic languages


a subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The Indo-European subfamily to which the Baltic languages appear to be closest is the Slavic. Because of this, some linguists regard Baltic and Slavic as branches of a single Balto-Slavic division of the Indo-European family. The Baltic tongues are thus named because they are spoken in an area bordering on the Baltic Sea. The principal ones are Latvian (or Lettish) and Lithuanian (together native to about 6.5 million people in Eastern Europe) and Old Prussian (which ceased to be a living language during the 17th cent.). The early common ancestor of the various Baltic languages, both living and dead, is traditionally referred to as Proto-Baltic. It is thought that Proto-Baltic broke off from the other Indo-European languages before 1000 B.C. A further division into East Baltic (to which Latvian and Lithuanian belong) and West Baltic (which claims Old Prussian) is believed to have taken place before 300 B.C. The Baltic languages are said to be the closest of the living Indo-European languages to Proto-Indo-European—the original parent of all the Indo-European tongues—both phonologically and grammatically. They show a high degree of inflection in both the noun and verb systems. The earliest surviving text in a Baltic language may be dated c.1400, but by the 16th cent. documents had become fairly numerous.

 

[unmerged(1057)]

Originally posted by sergei
I think it is important to keep in mind the sole purpose of having a "culture" in the game -- not to define religion (for it is separate, and Samoeds can be too devout Christians!), not to define language or administrative borders, but to define a mindset, a way of life, a set of views and values and customs.

It is a generalisation to extent, but after all even religion in the game is a generalisation since Orthodox Moskva is miles away from Orthodox Siberia. If you come to a province where people have siesta while your troops work 0600-1800 and then drag home to sleep, merging both into a single system takes time and afflicts certain economic penalties while in transition. This is precisely what the culture factor is for. And if we can come up with "medieval", historically-accurate but also good-for-game (which means fun and flavour) names, that's issue solved.

PS To those who consider the exact placement extremely important, think that by the time you as a player reach those parts of the world the culture division could be totally different since you will be seeing the results of conquests and alliances already happened .

Hmm...I just want to make a remark..The "culture" in EU2 have been ´debated almost constantly since the release of that game..It seems that you must make some explanation in the manual or something, of how it´s supposed to be regarded..

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Re: Samoeds

See? I told you that it's not about language and religion!


Khimaira, nobody, including you (well, except Snowball consultant) supports calling Eastern Slavic culture "Russian"...

And the talk about Canadian, American and Soviet megaethnoses is bit off-topic here. Anyway, let's wait for more info from Borealis...

 

[Eochaid]

Originally posted by Khimaira


I am damn pleased to hear that my origin is a kinda offensive term in here - prove me im mistaken -

A bit of contradiction then:

the thing is we are not discussing what is offensive for other people - who cares actually who you are - ukrainian, canadian, or Alien who came to Earth to visit McDonalds. We speak about certain span of time - thus the end of 11th century and further - thus if im not confused by my sources - there are no Ukrainians, Belorussians or Russians - and if take the idea implied by Sergei - we can at least conclude that it sounds reasonable to leave Russian as a generic and common term for those eastern slavic tribes living within the boundaries of Kievan Rus. Otherwise we can reduce the whole thing to absurdity - i can otherwise claim that there should be Radimichi, Vyatichi, White Croats, Slovene Ilmenskie - and so on and so forth - but the GENERIC! term for all these tribes is Russian. So if the term Rus doesn't suit and doesn't satisfy developers for some reason - let Russian be then.

If we would speak about North America, i'd recommend we clarify the terms too - Canadian seems to me a bit of a made-up term - who has seen any? This is a segregated society of two nations plus Innuits and other minorities - therefore i would advise to call Innuits Canadians - and let leave French and English what they really are - just French and English. American is a fake too - it seems to me that Great American nation (don't think im trying to be hard on them or trying to offend them.)

I just read what you wrote, and not only is it OT, but also a very narrow-minded vision. You say that there is no such thing as a Canadian or American culture, but that is not true.

American culture is a mix of several pre-existing cultures (English of course, but also French, Spanish, Native and African) facing the Frontier phenomenon and an isolated situation in the eightieenth and nineteenth centuries.

Just as Russian culture is a mix of several pre-existing cultures such as low-slavonic, Kievian, Norsc and Mongol. The distinct Russian culture appeared during the fourteenth and fifteenth century, when the whole region was under the rule of the Golden Horde.

The only difference between the two cultures is that Russian culture is older than the American or Canadian ones. But then Russian culture is younger than the Greek culture or the French culture.

If you want to discuss this further, I will pleased to do so, but please PM me instead of posting OT remarks on this Thread.

Sergueï, sorry for interrupting this thread by this post. I'll come back to the subject in my next post

 

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>nobody (except

Consistency... There are several tribes united under what is currently "Nomadic", though they are entirely different -- the important factor is that they can be considered to be having a "similar" lifestyle when compared to, say, Norse or Celtic. Same applies to the Eastern provinces that include Russia. It is a fact that the term covers several separate groups, so the question is not in dissecting them to prove this fact -- it is rather to come up with a proper name for that term, both correct and flavourish. I wonder if, were we still to live in USSR, the term "Russian" would bring any counterarguments -- since then it would be certainly not associated with any state, like it is now. Anyway, the names are up to Borealis and Greven to settle and it's been great seeing so many interesting arguments in this thread. I am more than certain that as a result of this the final list of cultures will bear at least a few improvements .

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by sergei
>nobody (except
Consistency... There are several tribes united under what is currently "Nomadic", though they are entirely different -- the important factor is that they can be considered to be having a "similar" lifestyle when compared to, say, Norse or Celtic. Same applies to the Eastern provinces that include Russia. It is a fact that the term covers several separate groups, so the question is not in dissecting them to prove this fact -- it is rather to come up with a proper name for that term, both correct and flavourish. I wonder if, were we still to live in USSR, the term "Russian" would bring any counterarguments -- since then it would be certainly not associated with any state, like it is now. Anyway, the names are up to Borealis and Greven to settle and it's been great seeing so many interesting arguments in this thread. I am more than certain that as a result of this the final list of cultures will bear at least a few improvements .

Sergei, you live in Moscow, capital of Russia. It's not strange that you don't find such term unfair, but anyone attached to Ukraine, like me or Barrister Boy will.

Surely, the term is more 'flavour' than plain Eastern Slavic, but...

 

[Eochaid]

Here's my own humble contribution to the thread:

(1) Germanic

North France, England, Lowerlands, Western Germany

(2) Slavic

Eastern Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary

(3) Rus

Novgorod, Northern principalities, Kiev

(4) Latin

Italy, Southern France, Christian Spain

(5) Norsc

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland

(6)Greek

Bizantium, Georgia, Cyprus, Greek Island

(7)Muslim

Northern Africa, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Muslim Spain

(8) Celtic

Ireland, Scotland, Cornwal, Wales, Brittany

(9) Altaïc

Turks, Cumans, Mongols, Pazhinaks

(10) Forest Pagan

Obodrites, Livs, Prussen, Mordva, Chuvash

(11) Samoed

Samoeds

 

[unmerged(2833)]

btw, as we now know that culture more or less means lifestyle, we could think of names that describe lifestyles, and not languages or ethnicity...


for example, instead of Altaic, Turkic or something, let's get back to original Sergei proposition, Nomadic. It perfectly describes what it's supposed to describe.

I think Norse, Latin (Mediterraen would be good, but it's not because it could include Greece and such), Levantine (though it should include Saracen cultured provinces, too...). Saracen is better than both Arabic and Islamic, in such case.

Celtic is good too, i'm not sure about Germanic, and both Slavic cultures. For now i can't think of anything better than E&W Slavic, and Germanic, actually (though i'm not sure about Teutonic. I can't attach it to anything but Teutonic Order, and Germanic should include Scandinavia, too)

The Forest Pagans is tough one. I fell like good name is buried deep in my head, but i can't remember it

In one word, we are in deep shiite

 

[unmerged(255)]

Originally posted by DarthMaur
btw, as we now know that culture more or less means lifestyle, we could think of names that describe lifestyles, and not languages or ethnicity...


for example, instead of Altaic, Turkic or something, let's get back to original Sergei proposition, Nomadic. It perfectly describes what it's supposed to describe.

I think Norse, Latin (Mediterraen would be good, but it's not because it could include Greece and such), Levantine (though it should include Saracen cultured provinces, too...). Saracen is better than both Arabic and Islamic, in such case.

Celtic is good too, i'm not sure about Germanic, and both Slavic cultures. For now i can't think of anything better than E&W Slavic, and Germanic, actually (though i'm not sure about Teutonic. I can't attach it to anything but Teutonic Order, and Germanic should include Scandinavia, too)

You're making a valid suggestion DM, yet I couldn't help but notice that you're only describing the Altaic culture as "nomadic" while keeping the other flavor names. Just looked a little odd to me (yes I strongly support Altaic or Turkic at this point, rather than nomadic)

 

[Havard]

Originally posted by Eochaid
(5) Norsc

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Normandy

I assume you ment Norse nor Norsc?

And Normandy was no way a Norse area. The rulers were, yes, but they had adapted the French way of life in all ways except a little Norse rage when it come to agression

 

[kurtbrian]

I know I wouldn't be comfortable with Denmark having Norsc culture....

 

[unmerged(6160)]

On the Russian argument I think maybe we could call it Viking/Slavic Rus, Rus, Slaviking or something like this. Russia in all sense of the word means The Baltic area to the Black Sea east to the Pacific.

P.S. What religions are in the game?

P.P.S. When will screenshots be released, as Ruler of the north approved yet?

 

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Re: Samoeds

Originally posted by sergei
Re: Samoeds, time to explain why we decided to make them into a separate culture with their own visuals, etc. Yes, there are only a few provinces with their culture (3 out of roughly 1000 to be exact). Yes, it doesn't strike us as the culture that played key role in medieval times. But wouldn't it be, well, at least a litte shade of cool if you could, starting the game as one of their tiny counts, still manage to conquer the world and spread the culture -- reflected by Igloos -- all over the Europe, including the African continent? And then send around the screenshot?

But igloos belong in Greenland... AFAIK, the "samoeds" in Scandinavia always relied on tents (or other kinds of buildings) made from natural resources of a non-snow character, such as reindeer skins and wood.

 

[unmerged(8632)]

About the igloos... We scrapped them when we did more research into what samoeds actually used, and made those thingies... Sorry for misleading. These are skin-based, kind of vigvamish... But couldn't put a proper English name on that. Anybody volunteers to help?