The Viking and the Red Man

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{{cquote|Sherwin ''did'' have a way with language―although lacking in talent and patience as a philologist, he would have made a great dadaist poet. I for one absolutely cherish his ability to produce funny-sounding words without meaning.|||Anders Kvernberg<ref>[https://nypesuppe.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-review-viking-and-red-man.html Book review: ''The Viking And The Red Man'']</ref>}}
'''''The [[Vikings|Viking]] and the Red Man: The Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin Language'''''<ref group=note>Despite the name, the book is actually about Algonquian as a whole (which is considered to be a language family, not a single language), not just the {{wpl|Algonquin language}}.</ref> is an [[Etymology|etymological dictionary]] [[Gish Gallop|in eight volumes]] published between 1940 and 1956 by the [[Norway|Norwegian]]-[[United States|American]] Reider Thorbjorn Sherwin (1894-??) in which he attempts to demonstrate a [[Pseudolinguistics|linguistic connection between Old Norse and Algonquian]].<ref>[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001009883 The Viking and the red man; the Old Norse origin of the Algonquin language, by Reider T. Sherwin] ''HathiTrust''.</ref> The book is essentially a list of Algonquian words, where each word is followed by Sherwin's attempt to derive it from Old Norse. In short, it's an example of [[pseudolinguistics]].

==Of ghouls and... fogcomeouts?==
Sherwin's methodology consists of taking an Algonquian word (or multiple cognates of the same word in different Algonquian languages) and finding an Old Norse or Norwegian word or group of words that resembles it, with the latter often having only a tenuous semantic connection to the former. Just look at the entry for the word ''skudakumootc'':

{{quotebox|SKUDAKUMOOTC,<sup>1</sup> a ghost, apparition (Rand-Clark)<br/>
    skodda (Norse dialect), noun, fog, heavy haze that covers the earth and obstructs the view<br/>
    koma (kem, kom, etc.), verb, to come, arrive; koma uut, to get out, come out<br/>
    <sup>1</sup> skodda koma uut, "comes out of the haze”}}

The problem with this kind of methodology is that it could be used to derive any word from any language. After all, who's to say that ''skudakumootc'' isn't really from "ask the dead guy much", or the French ''est-ce que des gars meurent?'' ("are some guys dying?") Or, for that matter, that the German word ''Schadenfreude'' isn't from the English "shake the friend off"?

In reality, if Algonquian were descended from Old Norse (or if it borrowed words from Old Norse; it's not clear which of these situations Sherwin believes to be the case), then there should be [[Comparative method|regular sound correspondences]] between the two languages that could be applied to find the Old Norse equivalents of Algonquian words. But instead of showing that such correspondences exist, Sherwin prefers to merely [[Shoehorning|pile up as many Old Norse or Norwegian words as he can until he gets a result that sounds more or less like whatever Algonquian word he's currently looking at.]]

==Reception==
Unsurprisingly, ''The Viking and the Red Man'' has not been favorably received by academics, with two book reviews in scholarly journals panning it.<ref>Siebert, Frank T. "The Viking and the Red Man, the Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin Language by Reider T. Sherwin".</ref><ref>Hollander, Lee M. "The Viking and the Red Man. The Old Norse Origin of the Algonquin Language. By Reider T. Sherwin".</ref>

==See also==
*[[1421 theory]]
*[[Juan Móricz]]
*[[Welsh Indians]]

==External links==
*[https://nypesuppe.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-review-viking-and-red-man.html Book review: ''The Viking And The Red Man''], a partial refutation
*[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015066317176 The Viking and the Red Man, Volume 5]
*[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015066317325 The Viking and the Red Man, Volume 6]
*[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015066317473 The Viking and the Red Man, Volume 7]

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Books]]
[[Category:Nationalist pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Native American woo]]
[[Category:Pseudolinguistics]]
[[Category:Woo]]

Categories: Books, Nationalist pseudohistory, Native American woo, Pseudolinguistics, Woo