Talk:Finns

% of Blondes

Many sources like antropologic books say that Finland and Finns haven't most % of blondes in the world. Look here: % of people with light hair (light blond, dark blond and light brown, without red) Fischer Scale 9 - 26:

Vepses - 61% Estonians - 56% Poles - 55% Northern Bielorussians - 53% Finns - 51.5% Latvians - 50% Norwegians - 50% Lithuanians - 47.5% Northern Russians - 47.5% Southern Russians - 30%

From:

1. Coon, Carleton, The Races of Europe, Chapter IX, The North.

2. Bunak, Viktor Valrievich, Origins and Ethnic History of the Russian People, various charts.

3. Dyachenko, V. D, Anthropological Composition of the Ukrainian People, various charts.

You can find it also http://dodona.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=informative&action=print&thread=11099 and on many www in internet.

I know that we can find map of LIGHT hair colour in the internet and half of Finland are marked on the highest %, but this is map od LIGHT colour (light blond, light blond and LIGHT BROWN). So, look to the books. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.19.192.165 (talk) 11:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Finns have no way the highest percentual of blondes in the world and the article that is used to sustain this "thesis" is highly dubious; a risearch that shows that blondes will disappear within 200 years. At least they didn't say within 50 years as already said in articles of the same dubious credibility about the supposed disappearability of blondes in the future. It is impossible to foresee the mutation of population genes so it is bullshit. Not credible the article ---> not credible every single part of it especially when it says, without specifying from what source, that finns woul be the blondest nation. Denmark is way more blond than southern Finland that is the blondest part of Finland and i can post tons of photos of dark finns starting from "Turklike" Yari Litmanen to say one from the "center" of Finland. So I modified the article and put at least the Danes and the Swedes "blonder" than Finns —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.6.33.233 (talk) 21:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

This article does not need any dubious old reseaches about the percentage of blonds in Europe.

"i can post tons of photos of dark finns" -87.6.33.233

Really, is that so? I could also post tons of pictures of dark Swedes and Danes. Is that really your line of argument? deliriumus (talk) 16:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Bottom line is that Finnish women are HOT. I hope Finns don't sully their unique genes, we need more hot Finnish girls in the future, not less. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.130.104 (talk) 16:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

That list is somekind of slavian propaganda. It completely rules out irish, scottish and norwegian by counting out the light redheads. It also lists the grey haired slavians as blondes, witch they are not. So does it list light brown as blondes and that is not truth completely truth either, there is some light browns that have blonde in them (like my mixed finnish hair, witch started out as blonde) and then theres some that dont have (like most south europeans, who have just ligher unicoloured version of brown). I can only guess that this study has been made to identify slavians with sarmatians and finnish. If a real, honest study was to be made, you would find out that the high % of blondes in finland are because of lack of sun in northern part of the globe and migration from svea tribe from svealand, sweden. The high % amount of light haired people in finland, or higher than in sweden, is most likey because finnish came to north earlier. Even more earlier than the swedish gota tribe, witch settled below svea tribe. And who are, dark haired. And that contributes a lot to avarage hair colour of swedish. In finland, the new genes came moustly from finnish migration from karelia 1938-1946, and therefore had the light grayish slavian hair colour on them. By that, its contributing to the % amount of light haired finnish. ... In reality, avarage finnish hair colour is light brown ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.155.176.155 (talk) 01:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

In reality, what people in their ignorance call "light brown" is usually dark blond. The average German (from families with deep Central European roots at least) is dark blond, with a notable north-south gradient just like the maps show. The average Finn, according to my experience, is significantly lighter-haired; more like medium blond. Most Finns are some shade of blond, light, medium or dark, so much that dark blondes and blonds are often known as musta, i. e., black, because truly dark hair used to be rare in Finland.

Slavs are also very frequently some shade of blond – even light blond is relatively common, and in Russia, red and reddish hues too – except Southern Slavs, which align more with Southern Europeans (probably due to Mediterranean admixture). Hungary is right at the boundary: Many Hungarians are fair-haired, just like their northern neighbours, but dark hair, like in the Romanians, is not uncommon, either. At least that's my general impression. The maps are broadly correct according to my experience. (Anecdotical observations only, but anyway ...) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@153.19.192.165 No Swedes in that list? --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 00:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Could we have a modern photo?

having a stone age, shite quality pic is useless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.59.87 (talk) 12:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. One old picture of a Finnish family does not represent the Finns. It also makes the article look like an old anthropology article. deliriumus (talk) 15:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Swedish Finns

I removed the pictures of Swedish Finns since they have their own article. J.K Nakkila (talk) 17:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The Swedish-speaking Finns are a subcategory of Finns. Thus, they belong to this article, also. --MPorciusCato (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

And I also like to note that this article includes the Swedish-speaking Finns, so they clearly fall under the topic of this article. --MPorciusCato (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That is highly debatable, this article does not tell about Finns ass citizens of Finland but as ethnic group. In fact, this article just shortly mentions them and says "Finland-Swedish minority have been seen to fulfill the major criteria for a separate ethnic group: self-identification, language, social structure, and ancestry." J.K Nakkila (talk) 12:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The ethnic group concept is not as monolithic as you think. It is quite possible for a person to belong to several ethnic groups. Swedish-speaking Finns are an ethnic group, some think, but the majority of Swedish-speaking Finns also identify as Finns. The word "Finn" does not mean, in the English language "a speaker of Finnish language". Neither does word "suomalainen" mean that in the Finnish language. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

In addition, if you read the discussion above, you see that the current scope of the article has been reached after extensive discussion, where your view was in a clear minority. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

"majority of Swedish-speaking Finns also identify as Finns." this is bullshit. Do you have sources that say that those persons I deleted self identified as Finns? If not, they should be removed. J.K Nakkila (talk) 19:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Your demand is rather odd. Do you seriously doubt, for example, that a Finnish president would not have self-identified as a Finn? Please note that in current Swedish, Finn is translated as finländare. And as a proof for the self-identification of the majority: [1]--MPorciusCato (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I really don't see your point, why couldn't Finnish president self identify himself as Swedish Finn rather than Finn? The term finländare is used to describe all inhabitants of Finland, they use the term Finne to describe those who speak Finnish language [2]. Also, your source does not say anything about ethnic self identification of Swedish speakers. J.K Nakkila (talk) 18:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there is a difference between "finländare" and "finne". Finland-Swedes are "finländare" but not "finnar". I can't understand why it's so dangerous to say that some "finländare" are Swedes. It reminds me of the way nationalist Turks claim the Kurds are not a separate ethnic group but mountain Turks. Sounds very much like the claim that Finland-Swedes "are a subcategory of Finns".

It's also interesting to see that Tornedalians are mentioned in this article. If the article is about ethnic Finns, which I thought, it's correct but not if it's about Finnish citizens. Närking (talk) 19:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

As you see, Table 4.3 in the reference I gave above, gives the answer to the self-identification question:

Att vara finlandssvensk betyder för dig

1. att höra till en egen kultur som skiljer sig från den finska

2. både att höra till en egen kultur, men också att vara en finländare bland alla andra

82 % of the sample chose the latter one. This shows that the overwhelming majority of Swedish-speaking Finns consider that they belong to both groups: "finlandssvenskar" and "finländare". And in English, finländare means "Finn". Word finne translates as "Finnish-speaker". This has already been discussed several times and a consensus has been formed. --MPorciusCato (talk) 12:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Finland-Swedes are "finländare" (citizens of Finland), but not "finnar". Närking (talk) 21:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, this is article about Finns as ehtnic group, not as citizens of Finland. Culture and ethnicity aren't same things, any tatar, russian, estonian or any other immigrant could say the same thing, but they aren't same ethnic group. The Table which you referred clearly talks about cultural group, not ethnicity. Also you have still failed to provide sources to whether or not those individuals which I removed identified them selfs as Finns (as ethnic group). J.K Nakkila (talk) 15:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Please read the discussion at the "Move request". There, we have discussed in detail the concept of "Finns as an ethnic group". Swedish-speaking Finns are part of that ethnic group, unlike Sami or Tatars. Please do not mix ethnicity with language. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

"Finland-Swedish minority have been seen to fulfill the major criteria for a separate ethnic group: self-identification, language, social structure, and ancestry". This reads in the article. J.K Nakkila (talk) 09:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

+ CIA Factbook lists Swedes as seperate ethnic group. J.K Nakkila (talk) 12:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep. I do not contest that Swedish-speaking Finns form an ethnic group. That is readily seen from the self-identification question I gave. However, the same ethnic group identifies as a part of larger Finnish ethnicity. There is no contradiction here. --MPorciusCato (talk) 15:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no "larger Finnish ethnicity". You don't have any sources to back your claim up. J.K Nakkila (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This same debate over population groups in Finland has been going on in Wikipedia since its foundation. It is remarkable how poorly the discussion here seems to reflect the actual situation in Finland as understood by the majority of people across linguistic groups. Obviously, there are minority ideas concerning the relationships between Finland's constituent populations (Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers as "nation-builders" but more widely also Sami speakers, recognised national minorities, religious groups etc. etc. could be added). How the country and its eveyday life deal with this issue clearly assumes a LINGUISTIC rather than ETHNIC subgrouping between Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers. This can be seen by the adoption of the slogan "one people, two languages" not only by the Finnish speakers but also by i.e. representatives of the Swedish speakers (like the Swedish People's party in its last celebration of the Swedish day or their language manifestation [3]). This mainstream interpretation of the situation is obvious on practically every level of today's Finnish society, on the streets, in politics, educational institutions, in the minds of the majority of the people, in terms of ideological defining of the nation (whether nations-states are justified or not is another issue), in terms of interpreting history (with the period of "national awakening"), how the educational system deals with these issues, in essence how Finland (legislation) and its people (every day life) come in terms with this issue, is clearly based on LINGUISTIC and not ETHNIC sub groups. It is unfortunate that the Wikipedia articles concerning this issue get repeatedly hijacked by people outside of the mainstream with too much time in their hands. Clarifer (talk) 14:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This has gone too far. There is not only too much about "swedish speaking finnish" under every gategory and the total lack of other finnish minorities in those. But there is also swedish terms and translations given as they where finnish when talking about "finnish speaking finnish". This whole article is now something that swedish would be telling to brazilian in english. These arent facts anymore, they are oppinions... 1. There is no finnish tribe named "ostrobottians". That is swedish name for finnish place named "Pohjanmaa" and its translation to english is "Northernland". There is no seperate dialects there like the article says, theres just variations of one dialect and then swedish. Finnish actually call members of that tribe "pohjalainen" witch translates to "northener" and means "northern finnish". 2. Theres no finnish tribe named "tavastians", that is also swedish name for "hämäläiset". Same with the placename "tavast" and Häme". Most of the people living there dont speak swedish and they dont know what "tavast" means. If you ask their tribe name they tell you "hämäläinen" or "pirkkalainen". Yeat, theres no mentions about "Pirkka" in the article, alltought the word is swedish origin, it is far more common than tavast will ever be. 3 The whole subdivisions thing looks like something that racial extremist from sweden has put up... - "Forest Finns (Metsäsuomalaiset) of Sweden"... This is degenerating term norwegian king used. Those would be from finnish tribe "savolaiset" witch is correctly translated and explained in the linked document. - "Finnish immigrants to Sweden (ruotsinsuomalaiset)" ... That would be "Swedens Finnish" in english. No reason to degenerate them with "immigrant", just as finnish dont degenerate finlands swedish. - The whole text in the bottom is just down right bullshit. Finnish identify with their tribes in everyday life. And the charesteristics do show strongly. Aparently the guy who wrote it isnt finnish. As far as witching dialects and city dialects, that what was described happens in two cities in finland: helsinki and espoo. The rest of the finland speaks their own dialect quite freely. There hasnt been any "revitalixing", it has allways been like this and continues as such. The only reason why savolainen changes his dialect to formal finnish in helsinki is that the people in helsinki understand. He will change back to savo dialect when he talks with someone else. Aparently the foreign guy who wrote that article hasnt been outside the capital area of finland. - This list is also missing quite a few ethnic finnish groups like ingrians are. futher more it seperates the ingrians and the finnish that migrated there but writes "igrian finns" and "ingrians". Those arent seperate groups like that. Theres ingrians who are finnish tribe and then theres finnish imigrants from other tribes. Later is not an ethnoc group but rather "finnish in ingria" so it shouldnt be presented as ethnic group. Ingrians how ever, should. - Theres quite an hole in knowledge about karelian language and karelians too. First thing; Karelians are finnish as much as hämäläiset and pohjalaiset. And more finnish than swedish speaking finnish. Karelian language is finnish language, yet so far develobed that the dialects are hard for modern finnish to understand. But the language structures and bases are from same language, witch was also called finnish. the seperation to two different languages is too strong here and it is not explained. And the list is missing karelian dialects completely, theres whole lot of them, some still spoken. - Same ignorance goes on with the sami people and their language. ethnicly, they are fenno ugric people from finnish branch. genetically they share a lot of similarities with finnish. this is also overlooked a lot, instead we have some empty talk about what swedish speaking finnish call themself. Sami people where here before finnish people, but that doesnt make sami people less minority of finnish. It maybe, that historically, the sami people are actually the "fenni" taticus mentioned. Finnish and estonians might have shared other name that its more similar to suomi, zeme, hääme. - There is also no finnish tribe "norbottens". Mäenkieli is their language, but I do think they refer to themselfs as swedens finnish. - Also tis whole line "Finns are traditionally assumed to originate from two different populations speaking different dialects of Proto-Finnish (kantasuomi)." doesnt hold truth. If its someones research then present the research link and write it down as theory. As far as I know the common belief is that theres one proto-finnish, from witch languages like hungary, estonian, sami... seperated and more to modern dates: kven, karelian, finnish seperated. I checked source links there and they where about ww2. neither of them had anything to do with this and the one about heimo:s is far fetched oppinion at best. (Not all books are true, theres no superman for example.) What goes on about reconstructing and nationalism isnt true either. And the comparison to israelic tribes from ancient world is just idiotic in wiki. We want facts here, not new mysteries.

Theres also metions of uralic a whole lot w/o sources. I hae read the sources of that thinking. There was also theory about finnish being mongols there. They where made by elitistic rasists whitout any attempts to do anything more than raise votes from similar people. In reality, theres no Uralic language group. There is fenno-ugric, and the ugric part still exist near ural mountains. And it is common thesis that finns where spread all the way from ural to finland and baltic at one point.

The genetic thing is wildy generalixed. It basicly tells that "finnish are like europeans". and that is not true. The unnessesary part of swedish speaking finns is again present. Alltought that maybe good but I would like to see similar from other finns aswell or no zero research like that.

With all the definitions, they are just waste of space and untrue. It is only the politics when you start typing swedish words in 10:s here. The term for swedish speaking finns is "suomenruotsalainen" but because its long the finnish speakers usually shorten it to "ruotsalainen". When theres a fear that it gets mixed with swedish coming from sweden, we say "ahvenanmaalainen" (place name for åland) or "rantaruotsalainen" (eng. coastalswedish)". Swedish say "finlandsvensk" when they mean this minority, when swedish moves to finland he still says he is "svensk" or "swedish". So that kind of leaves the "finland swedish" all to the minority. It cant be that repulsive to use that name, we "suomalaiset" have been using stupid swedish name "finnish" for years now.

I'm between two here. Either this needs to be fixed completely by someone who knows about finland. Or this needs to be deleted completely because its missleading in so many ways and completely untrue in another.

If you insist on making "swedish view on finnish" article. Please do so in swedish wiki. In english speaking one, write it so that the finnish speaking areas have finnish names with english translation and the swedish speaking area has swedish name with english translation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.155.176.155 (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Highly exaggerated numbers

Quite certainly there are not 8 million Finns in the world. Not even if you include Kvens, Ingrians and Tornedalians. I don't have sources on that, but I think it is obvious. Try adding up all the regional estimates (that also seem to be quite high) mentioned in the article and you will not get 8 million. 62.78.213.135 (talk) 16:09, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I changed the number to 6.5 million, which is near 4.8 + 0.5 + 0.7 for Finnish speaking in Finland, Sweden and (ethnic Finns? in) USA. The different figures differ in definitions, so a real number is hard to get without a good source. --LPfi (talk) 16:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Karelians, Kvens and Tornedalians

Kvens and Tornedalians are said to be of "Finnish descent", which seems dubious, as they (at least the Tornedalians) have lived in the respective area before Finland existed as a country, or the area where they might have come from was regarded as part of Finland (as a part of Sweden). I do not know how to rephrase, though.

All Karelians are counted as Finns in the main fact box. In the article Karelians in the historic province of Karelia are said to be counted as Finns. The Russian Karelia is much larger than what belonged to the historic province, and the population was resettled in Finland when the area was seeded to the USSR, so counting the Karelians should have some other rationale (the Karelian language is close enough to Finnish to be counted as a dialect, but I think counting them as Finns is at least disputed).

--LPfi (talk) 16:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

New montage

I changed the montage to this one but it was noted to me, that before such a big change it should be discussed here on the talk page. I did the new image based on the image used on the article British people. So does anyone oppose changing the image or have some suggestions, questions or corrections to the montage itself? Jontts (talk) 05:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

File:32 Finns.png Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:32 Finns.png, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests January 2012 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 18:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Genetic uniqueness of Finns

I added to the end of the lede which states that Finns are genetically "strikingly different" to other Europeans. They are actually not. They derive from the same pool, however, they often stand out from clusters because Finns are thmeselves so genetically heterogeneous (as already stated in body of article). These features are thus due to drift, bottleneck etc in the the prehistory of Finnish population demography; however, they are no more distant to Europeans than other Europeans are amongst themsleves. Slovenski Volk (talk) 06:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between "different" and "separate". Finns are not genetically separate, but have higher internal differences than the rest of Europe combined. This is completely expectable in distributions like this, since it's the exact same thing with human genetics in general: Africans have more internal variety than the rest of humanity combined. Waves of migration tend to distribute homogeneous genes widely, so the distribution is not "random". --vuo (talk) 15:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

5 million 500 thousand finns in finland

Swedes aren't Finns, Russians aren't Finns, Somalis aren't Finns. Nationality is not the same thing as ethnicity, which this page apparently ignores. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.189.66.225 (talk) 08:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

OH HEY LOOK WHAT I FOUND RIGHT IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH "They are also used to refer to the ethnic group historically associated with Finland or Fennoscandia, and they are only used in that sense here." WIKIPEDIA? LYING THROUGH IT'S TEETH? NOOOOO THAT ISN'T POSSIBLE!64.189.66.225 (talk) 08:39, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Word for them in Swedish

I want to point out that the same words are used Swedish and Finland-Swedish. The later is simply the easternmost dialect of Swedish. However, far from everyone here in Sweden is aware of Finland’s Swedish-spoken minority. Those which are not may refer to both as “finnar” (singular “finne”).

2013-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Demographics of Finland

There is a separate article on demographics of Finland. Someone has been adding a lot about Somalis in Finland etc., which is distinct topic, and that needs to be removed and moved to the demographics article as appropriate. Somalis in particular retain their ethnic identity and cannot be considered "Finns". Finland is a multiethnic country and should be considered as such. --vuo (talk) 14:57, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem with this article is that it refers to Finland Swedes as being "Finns", which they have never been, are not and will never be. The Finland Swedes are a Swedish minority living in Finland, i.e. they are Swedes. I do not understand why there are pictures of Swedish people in the article's infobox and the oft-recurring references to Swedish people, which belong to another ethnic group than the Finns. --JasonGarrick (talk) 03:11, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Yours is a fringe interpretation of the situation in Finland. Most people in Finland (in both language groups) today see the situation analogically to Ireland: there is an Irish nation (Irishmen) who speak Gaelic and English. The difference between Finland and Ireland is of course that whereas language shift turned Ireland almost completeley English-speaking, Finland remained Finnish-speaking for the most part. To state that Finland's Swedish speakers of today are Swedes is like saying that today's English-speaking Irishmen are in fact Englishmen. Some of course are, most are not. Clarifer (talk) 07:21, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Most of the English-speakers in Ireland today are the descendants of people who switched their language from Gaelic within the past few generations. This does not parallel the situation in Finland at all: the Finland-Swedes and the ethnic Finns are descendants of two *different* ancestral groups (i.e., broadly speaking, the two groups reflect 1) the population who came to Finland from Sweden in the Middle Ages and later, and 2) the population that was already there when the other group arrived). Though there has been some intermarriage and language-shift over time, the present-day difference between the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations of Finland reflects a historical difference between these two groups. (Whereas in Ireland, the present-day difference between English- and Gaelic speakers often belies their historical relationship. There are also virtually no monolingual Gaelic speakers, so the Gaelic and English speakers are less likely to be socially separated.) Additionally, even if 100% of Finland's residents believed that the distinction between ethnic Finns and Finland-Swedes was purely linguistic (not ethnic), that would not make it true. Language differences are one of the factors that serve to actualize ethnic differences: you generally associate with the people you know how to communicate with, and are thus more likely to marry and form future generations with them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavril09 (talk • contribs) 11:31, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Your comment mirrors 19th century national romantic thinking. Ethnicities are formed by self-identification in the process of ethnogenesis. Outside parties cannot impose a theoretical model on a people, claiming that it would represent the question of ethnicity better. --MPorciusCato (talk) 17:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect, I'm not sure about the significance of self-identification here: I could identify as (e.g.) an Italian-American however much I like, but if I have no Italian ancestry, if most of my interactions are with non-Italian-Americans, and if I marry (and thus invest my resources with) a non-Italian-American, then my self-identification seems a bit hollow at best. Also, I would suspect that a great deal of people in Finland (and many other countries) don't self-identify as belonging to any ethnicity in particular, i.e. the question is not of interest to them. That does not mean that they have no ethnicity, it means that ethnicity is more than the labels one chooses to describe oneself with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavril09 (talk • contribs) 20:32, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Language differences are one of the factors that serve to actualize ethnic differences: you generally associate with the people you know how to communicate with, and are thus more likely to marry and form future generations with them.

This would make sense in a situation where people are generally monolingual. But are Swedish-speaking Finns generally monolingual in Swedish? Certainly not. Just like Gaelic-speaking Irish virtually all speak English just as well, so do Swedish-speaking Finns also speak Finnish. So MPorciusCato's criticism was correct. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:10, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

1) There are certainly concentrations of Finland-Swedes who do not speak Finnish fluently. I remember reading that they are estimated to be 40% or more of the Finland-Swede population, though that figure could be out of date. 2) Bilingual Finland-Swedes can choose to associate with, marry, and form families with people who speak Swedish, and many continue to choose this option. By contrast, most ethnic Finns (i.e. the group that you and others might call "Finnish-speaking Finns") are not fluent in Swedish and thus do not have this option. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavril09 (talk • contribs) 03:41, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

'Finns' is not the same as 'Baltic Finns'

'Finns' to 'Baltic Finns' is the same as e.g. 'Germans' is to 'Germanic peoples'. (The relevance of such linguistically oriented categorization of peoples is in itself debatable). Clarifer (talk) 09:05, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Nationalist wishful thinking?

The idea of the ancestors of the Finns having gotten there less than two thousand years ago sounds like a nationalist pipedream of the “we were here first” type. (If so, it would have been made up by Scandinavians wanting to be descended of the first inhabitants of Fennoscandia.) Contrary to popular belief hunter-gatherers were not stupid. If there were any accessible land able to support them they would have gradually spread into it. For this reason I think present-day Finland was populated by Cro-Magnons within a few centuries after the ice melted away. A later wave of farmers reached the same area about 1500 BC. It was in the encounter between these two that the Finnish people came into existence. Eventually, the last Cro-Magnons interbred with their farmer neighbours resulting in the different Arctic peoples of Europe.

2015-01-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.158.174 (talk) 20:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Er, to me it seems rather the opposite: the Finns (well, some of them) have a hard time accepting that they were not first in Finland. But they definitely were not – a Saami substrate is clearly in evidence even in the south of Finland and Karelia, according to recent research by Ante Aikio. Instead, the thinking has lately reverted to the old consensus that the Finns (well, at least their language) came to Finland only about 2000 years ago (from Estonia or Ingria or thereabouts), as it has been realised that apparent archaeological continuity in Finland cannot be trusted and does not prove anything. Instead, some scholars now think that Indo-European-speaking people actually preceded Uralic-speaking people in Finland (Corded Ware from about 3100 BC on), and Uralic-speakers did not arrive before the 2nd millennium BC, certainly not before 2000 BC (per Petri Kallio). But since at least Heikkilä says that the Uralic-speakers, unlike the Indo-Europeans of Finland, already had Bronze-Age technology, and that this technological advantage explains why Uralic-speakers could assimilate Indo-Europeans here, I don't see how this should be embarrassing to Finns somehow, as you seem to imply. In any case, neither were the first Uralic-speakers in Finland the direct predecessor culture to the modern Finns (they were rather "Proto-Saami" than "Proto-Finns"), nor were the Indo-Europeans of Finland "Proto-Swedes" (Heikkilä implies that their language was equally akin to Baltic than to Germanic, and in any case millennia earlier than the emergence of distinctively Baltic and Germanic languages), and biologically speaking we're all mixed anyway, so any political implications cannot be read into it. (Unless you are a fanatic, ultra-nationalist idiot who insists on forcing political implications into everything, even if scholars strongly discourage it explicitly.) Note how the scholars contributing to this "new synthesis" – Petri Kallio, Jorma Koivulehto, Jaakko Häkkinen, Ante Aikio, Mikko Heikkilä – are all very much Finns themselves, not outsiders who might have some kind of anti-Finnish agenda. On the other hand, you seem to be Swedish, and moreover, I'm not sure what you're actually arguing for or against anyway. There were definitely people in Fennoscandia prior to the arrival of the Corded Ware people (who are generally thought to have been Indo-European-speaking), the archaeological record is clear enough; but they were a thin hunter-gatherer population that was completely assimilated by subsequent waves of migration (some traces of their languages may still be evident in substrate words and features found in the Saami languages). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke Exactly. Y-haplogroup N-Tat is Asian and young. --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 10:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

@YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII: You mean Haplogroup N-M231?

A general reading tip is Aikio 2012 for more detail on the prehistory of Finland and the underlying methodological issues. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:25, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: I actually meant the (M46/Tat+, P105+) branch of it. --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 12:23, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

A small correction to what I said above: Aikio is ethnically Sami, and natively speaks Northern Sami in addition to Finnish, but is a Finnish citizen and hardly anti-Finnish in outlook. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:28, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect to J. Koivulehto (who died in 2014), his research was extremely slanted towards finding an IE origin for almost any given Finnic or Sami word, and a large percentage of his proposals involve semantic (and sometimes morphological) difficulties. For example, he proposed that a Finnic word meaning "take" was from a Germanic word meaning "turn" (allegedly via the meanings "wrench" > "wrest"), that a Finnic word for "boat" was related to an IE word meaning "wood", that Sami "fall" was connected to North Germanic "meet", and so on. His usual method of arguing for these kinds of connections was to find a handful of cases of a parallel semantic development (sometimes approximate parallels) in Finnish or elsewhere, usually ~2-4 examples, and to conclude on this basis that the semantic gap entailed in his proposal was no longer a problem. But, this methodology tells us nothing (as far as I can see) about the likelihood of the alleged semantic change: it tells us that such a change *could* have happened, but it gives no compelling reason to think that it *did* happen to the words in question. Koivulehto used this methodology often enough over the course of his career that it's still unclear to me how much solid work he added to his field.

The other researchers you mention are successors to Koivulehto, and generally seem to respect and build on his work (although they seem somewhat more open to non-IE etymological proposals than he was).

All this has nothing, necessarily, to do with having a pro- or anti-Finnish agenda. Rather, the issue is the desire to come up with new advances in a field where the available evidence has (I suspect) already been "wrung dry" of almost all the solid conclusions it can yield. There are only about 40 attested Finno-Ugric languages, none of which has attested records going back more than 850 years, and most of them began to be written down within the past 500 years. Unless there are highly conservative languages in each branch of Finno-Ugric, this lack of old data means that there is a corresponding lack of clear, unambiguous comparative evidence in the Finno-Ugric lexicon. (By contrast, one of the reasons why Indo-European is so amply reconstructible is that most of its branches have been well-attested for over 1500 years, and several for at least 2500 years.) This in turn means that modern-day Finno-Ugricists will have to content themselves with "I don't know" as an answer to most remaining questions in their field (unless new methodologies of investigation/analysis are developed), and to accept that their proposals will almost always be weaker and more tentative than their predecessors'. This is not an appealing situation for people who came into the field with the hope of making new discoveries, and any trend that appears to offer a way out of this impasse will be (with all due respect to these researchers) understandably attractive, regardless of whether this trend is scientifically sound or not.

This issue is compounded by the small size of Finno-Ugric studies as a field: there are probably no more than a few hundred people (that could be a big overestimate) working in Finno-Ugric linguistics right now, and much of the research in it is published in Finnish and Hungarian, which few people outside Finland or Hungary are able to speak or read. This is a potentially ripe climate for theories to prosper unchallenged: if more people around the world examined the work of Koivulehto and his successors, there would probably be a greater diversity of opinion around its merit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavril09 (talk • contribs) 08:56, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

So what? Even if a sizeable portion of Koivulehto's etymologies don't stand up to scrutiny – what exactly would that change? (And I think most Finno-Ugrists/Uralists like those I mention acknowledge that many of these proposals are not all that certain – these people are far from blind Koivulehto-worshippers; Koivulehto is important, but contrary to what you seem to suggest, he's not considered a god or something, in fact, Aikio is explicitly sceptical of his suggestions of early Northwest-Indo-European loans in Finnic in his linked essay, which you clearly haven't read; not sure why you think attacking Koivulehto, instead of actually engaging with the arguments of his putative "followers", achieves a lot – this smacks of the "poisoning the well" fallacy: they're blind Koivulehto-followers, so you can dismiss them and need not pay attention to them.) There are still plenty of obvious cases of old Indo-European loans in Uralic. In fact, research has moved on considerably since Koivulehto and refined the picture, despite your negativity. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say, or mean to imply, that Koivulehto was "worshiped" by present-day Finno-Ugricists. Of course, each of Koivulehto's etymologies, and those of his successors, has to stand or fall on its own merits. My doubts come from having read many of K.'s and his successors' proposals, and not finding them convincing.

As to your statement that there are obvious early-IE loans in Uralic: at least in Finnic (the main branch of Uralic I am familiar with), I have not seen a single convincing example of IE loans that predate Indo-Iranian (possibly even Iranian). The often-cited words for "water" (Finnish vete- : IE *wódr) and "name" (F. nimi : IE *Hnómn) are possible examples, but not obvious in the least. It could be, however, that there are more convincing examples in other branches than Finnic -- I am open to having my mind changed on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavril09 (talk • contribs) 03:10, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

It is correct that I am a Swede. I consider a people indigenous to an area if their cultural ancestors live there in the 15th century. With this definition, Sami, Finns and Swedes are all indigenous to Finland. Also, I think both the Germanic and Baltic peoples descend from the Beaker culture. Have any traces of this culture ever been found in Finland? If not, I don’t think there were any significant number of Indo-Europeans in present-day Finland before the Middle Ages.

My idea was that agriculture reached present-day Finland approximately 2500 B.C. (not 1500 B.C. as I previously wrote). About two thousand years ago – when the cultural ancestors of the Finns are claimed to have settled there – the southern and south-western part of the country already had farmers. Having lived with agriculture for 2,500 years these would certainly have developed a culture very different from the foragers populating the rest of the country. These foragers can be considered Proto-Sami since the Sami are known to have adopted pastoralism much later. So which were the farmer living in parts of Finland 4,500 – 2,000 years ago? If the cultural ancestors of the Finns really immigrated from Estonia and Ingria that late the preceding culture might lack living cultural descendants.

2015-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.144.9 (talk) 18:08, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

With this definition, Sami, Finns and Swedes are all indigenous to Finland.

Well, yeah, I guess. Does anybody really contest that? The issue you brought up was a different one. Don't move the goalposts. I said that the Finns (as in Finnish-speakers) weren't the first in Finland, and they were definitely not. Aikio has shown that Saami(-speakers) must have inhabited even Southern Finland not long ago, and argues that they must be late arrivals in that essay I've linked for your convenience.

Also, I think both the Germanic and Baltic peoples descend from the Beaker culture.

Why do you think that? I don't know any scholar who agrees with you there, by the way. At least it's not a common idea. Geographically, the fit is very poor. Germanic and Baltic can be traced to Iron-Age Northern Germany and Poland, and that's only at the margin of the Beaker area. So, it's completely irrelevant whether remains associated with the Beaker culture have been found in Finland. It's just not a good reason to think there were no Indo-Europeans in Finland. In fact, there is a tendency to think that the Beaker phenomenon wasn't even primarily carried by Indo-Europeans – it seems to originate from Iberia, which was Indo-Europeanised relatively late, like Western Europe in general probably, but in the case of Iberia it's actually pretty clear. It's the Corded Ware that is usually identified with Indo-Europeans, and there is new genetic evidence that supports the link. And, lo and behold, the Corded Ware is also found in Finland, and quite early at that, about 3100 BC, in fact even earlier than in Scandinavia (about 2800 BC), as Heikkilä points out.

As fare as I'm aware, there is no evidence that (linguistic) Saami were present in Finland already in 2500 BC, and it looks increasingly unlikely. Also, Saami – like early Finno-Ugric peoples in general – were never primarily agriculturalists, but mainly foragers (this is clear from both lexicon and historiography). And as Aikio points out, there are early Germanic loanwords in Saami that are not present in Finnic and point to direct contact of early Germanic with Saami. This can only have happened in Southern Finland, as Saami was not spoken in Scandinavia before 500 AD.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cultural ancestors". I'm talking about ethnolinguistic groups.

You should really read Aikio's essay that I linked. You'll find it hard to argue with, and it will clear up quite some confusion. He's very cautious and circumspect in his conclusions. And Heikkilä's presentation too. I'm not sure why you don't read the stuff I've linked too (and instead engage in gratuitous speculation). I don't do that just for decoration. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Seima-Turbino phenomenon has been connected by some with the spread of Uralic languages, at least to the western direction.

Hmmm. It's unclear what ethnolinguistic group could originally have been its carriers. There is no evidence that Uralic ever spread that wide in the Bronze Age. Certainly there is no trace of Uralic in Southeast Asia. So, yeah, perhaps the western direction only. My bet is on Indo-European, though, especially Indo-Iranian. They were mobile enough and the cultural attributes, place and timeframe fit. Though they are unlikely to have reached as far as Vietnam or Thailand, as well. China, perhaps. Considering the Uralic/Indo-European overlap, however, it is entirely possible that Uralic speakers were involved in the wave. It's still a mystery, though. Chance is that the Southeast Asian connection is spurious, or was only indirect, mediated through native cultures of China, without steppe people actually ever reaching Southeast Asia in person. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the articles about ethnic groups

Seemingly there is a significant number of commentators which support the general removal of infobox collages. I think there is a great opportunity to get a general agreement on this matter. It is clear that it has to be a broad consensus, which must involve as many editors as possible, otherwise there is a big risk for this decision to be challenged in the near future. I opened a Request for comment process, hoping that more people will adhere to this proposal. Please comment here. TravisRade (talk) 23:03, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

That is not an RfC and it doesn't follow the RfC process. It's just a collection of opinions and has no authority. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:17, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

The RfC was opened correctly. please comment at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Proposal_for_the_deletion_of_all_the_galleries_of_personalities_from_the_infoboxes_of_articles_about_ethnic_groups. Dkfldlksdjaskd (talk) 09:29, 17 December 2015 (UTC)