The Nordics
For people living in the Nordics or have any relation to Nordics of any kind or if your a fan of Nordics
- created by eenliefde
Finland?
Return to DiscussionsFinland is part of political Scandinavia, called "The Nordic" or "Norden" usually. So members of a political body called Nordic Council form the political Nordic.
Linguistically Finland is also part of Scandinavia as Swedish is the other official language in Finland and the only official language on Aaland islands that are an autonomous part of Finland.
Strictly geographic Scandinavia is only Norway and Sweden as they the only countries on Scandic peninsula.
Scandinavia usually (in English usage) refers to Denmark, Norway, Sweden or just to the Scandinavian Peninsula. However, more boadly it can also include the Aland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland too. Conversely, the Nordic Region or Norden, besides all those countries and territories can include Greenland as well. Sometimes Finland is exluded because Finnish is not a Scandinavian language (Uralic, Finnic branch), so ethnically they are different from the rest of Scandinavians. At one time Finland was part of the Swedish Kingdom or Swedish Empire (17th and 18th centuries), Finland is a bilingual country, with both Finnish and Swedish being official languages and are being taught in school. When I lived in Finland back in the early 60's, I had to learn both. So the bottom line is, Finland geographically could and should be included in Scandinavia.
In Germany Scandinavia (Skandinavien) is the geographical name of the nordic countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. The term Scandinavia is derived from the area of Skane (in German Schonen) in the south of Sweden as I have heard there.
Have to pitch in. Are the Shetland and Orkney Islands not Nordic? Possibly Isle of Man. And the cover photo is missing the Aland Islands flag. We could argue about Karelia?
Depending on interpretation. The word Scandinavia is not used in the Nordics much, the political term is Norden/Pohjola
Linguistic Scandinavia is all areas where Northern Germanic languages are spoken (Danish, Faeroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish)
Political Scandinavia is the members of Nordic Council, which is 5 Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) + 3 Autonomous/self-governing territories (Aaland islands, Faeroe Islands and Greenland). Sometimes in cooperation are included also Baltic States, but of them only Estonia is strictly speaking politically and culturally close to the rest and Lithuania fairly distant. Latvia hovers somewhere -in-between the previous 2.
Cultural Scandinavia can be interpreted in many different ways, so I am not poking my pen into that heap.
Areas historically influenced by Scandinavia are all areas where Scandinavian influence has been strong in any given time for at leas couple of generations, like Shetlands, Orkneys, Isle of Man, Ireland, much of Eastern parts of England, some other parts of Scotland, Normandy, Ukraine, NorthWest Russia (in particular Ingermanland), Kola Peninsula, some parts of Northern Germany, entire Estonia and parts of Latvia (Curonia and Livonia).
Karelia:
The Karelian parts that historically belonged to Sweden and later Finland are unarguably parts of Nordic, that is Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia and the parts of Karelia still currently part of Finland. The eastern parts of Karelia can be interpreted as kind of a grayzone, with plenty of Nordic features but also some not very Nordic features.
There is also the only indigenous people of European Union, the Sami, older name Lapps. They live in four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia and have distinct languages (7 of them still alive, several dead) and a culture of their own, which historically includes Reindeer herding. They have decent minority and linguistic rights in Norway and Finland, a bit weaker in Sweden and are totally fucked in Russia.