Blog Comics – Wordy Nordic Comic

【Indigenous People of Iceland】

When Norwegians first landed on Iceland, there was a legend that there lived an Icelandic monk. For a long time, people believed the story that there were indigenous people in Iceland, but this legend too appears to have been proven to be untrue by the latest investigation results that the oldest signs of life belonged to the Norwegians. But just the fact that such a vast piece of land remained uninhabited for such a long time is somehow quite an amazing story in itself.

【Heavy Drinkers】

Denmark is Northern Europe’s top drinker. The world’s top drinker seems to be Luxembourg, but do they really drink that much!?

T/N:

1. “Onii-chan” is a most endearing form of “brother” among all possible variants, and possibly the most embarrassing/personal.

The reason we left it in was cause the word was the very root of the jokes in these strips.

That, and it’s a little hard to find English equivalents to the word and still keep the feelings in tact.

2. “Svi” is based on Sweden’s Icelandic name “Svitjod”. Using “Swe” reminds me of a pig call.

3. It is possible that the four bubbles surrounding Norway (and Iceland) come from each Nordic- asking Iceland to call them “onii-chan”.

Telling from Iceland’s responses to each, the order (right to left) might be Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland.

4. “We’re mature adults, right?” can also be literally translated to “We’re old enough to know better, right?”

5. In most well known statistic articles or websites (most dated 2003-2008), Denmark is known to be the top drinker among the Nordics.

However, it’s being contested by Finland and recent articles suggesting it. But I won’t get into that.