Orang-orang Jermanik Utara

Orang-orang Jermanik Utara, orang-orang Nordik, dan dalam konteks Abad Pertengahan, orang Nordik, adalah sebuah kelompok linguistik Jermanik yang berasal dari Semenanjung Skandinavia. Mereka diidentifikasi dengan kemiripan budaya, garis keturunan bersama dan penggunaan bahasa Proto-Nordik secara umum dari sekitar 200 M, sebuah bahasa yang sekitar 800 M menjadi bahasa Nordik Kuno, yang pada gilirannya kemudian menjadi bahasa-bahasa Jermanik Utara pada masa kini.

Orang-orang Jermanik Utara diperkirakan muncul sebagai suatu kelompok sosial berbeda di yang kini merupakan Swedia selatan pada awal abad-abad Masehi. Beberapa puak Jermanik Utara disebutkan oleh para penulis klasik pada zaman kuno, khususnya Swedi, Deni, Geti, Guti dan Rugii. Selama Zaman Viking berikutnya, penjelajah pelaut Jermanik Utara, umumnya dirujuk sebagai Viking, menjarah dan bermukim di wilayah-wilayah Eropa dan sekitarnya, mendirikan beberapa entitas politik penting dan menjelajah Atlantik Utara sejauh Amerika Utara. Kelompok-kelompok yang muncul dari ekspansi ini adalah orang Norman, Nordik–Gaelik dan orang Rus'. Orang-orang Jermanik Utara pada Zaman Viking memiliki berbagai nama di antara berbagai budaya yang mereka jumpai, tetapi umumnya dirujuk sebagai orang Nordik.

Dengan berakhirnya Zaman Viking pada abad ke-11, orang-orang Jermanik Utara berpindah agama dari paganisme Nordik asli mereka ke Kekristenan, sedangkan masyarakat puak mereka sebelumnya terpusat ke dalam kerajaan-kerajaan modern Denmark, Norwegia dan Swedia.

Kelompok-kelompok linguistik modern keturunan dari orang-orang Jermanik Utara adalah orang Denmark, Islandia, Norwegia, Swedia, dan Faroe. "[T]he pages of history have been filled with accounts of various Germanic peoples that made excursions in search of better homes; the Goths went into the Danube valley and thence into Italy and southern France ; and thence into Italy and southern France; the Franks seized what was later called France; the Vandals went down into Spain, and via Africa they "vandalized" Rome; the Angles, part of the Saxons, and the Jutes moved over into England; and the Burgundians and the Lombards worked south into France and Italy. Probably very early during these centuries of migration the three outstanding groups of the Germanic peoples — the North Germanic people of Scandinavia, the East Germanic branch, comprising the Goths chiefly, and the West Germanic group, comprising the remaining Germanic tribes — developed their notable group traits. Then, while the East Germanic tribes (that is, the Goths) passed gradually out of the pages of history and disappeared completely, the North Germanic, or Scandinavian, or Norse, peoples, as they are variously called, became a distinctive people, more and more unlike the West Germanic folk who inhabited Germany itself and, ultimately, Holland and Belgium and England. While that great migration of nations which the Germans have named the Volkerwanderung was going on, the Scandinavian division of the Germanic peoples had kept their habitation well to the north of the others and had been splitting up into the four subdivisions now known as the Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Icelanders. Long after the West Germanic and East Germanic peoples had made history farther south in Europe, the North Germanic tribes of Scandinavia began a series of expeditions which, during the eighth and ninth centuries, in the so-called Viking Age especially, led them to settle Iceland, to overrun England and even annex it to Denmark temporarily, and, most important of all, to settle in northern France and merge with the French to such an extent that Northmen became Normans, and later these Normans became the conquerors of England." Kelompok-kelompok ini sering kali dirujuk secara kolektif sebagai orang Skandinavia, meskipun orang Islandia dan Faroe kadangkala tidak termasuk dalam definisi tersebut.

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Category:Orang-orang Jermanik awal