You are reading a single comment by @Jingle_Jangle and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
Yeah for some reason the English-speaking world in particular often gets this wrong. Scandinavians are those who speak Germanic languages that descend from Norse. Finns, although Nordic, speak a Finno-Ugric language. Confusingly, the peninsula on which all these peoples live is called Fennoscandia. There is a gulf that splits Scandinavia and Finland but not much longer because of a very rapid rate of post-glacial land uplift. Another thing that adds to the confusion is that Finland is bilingual (Finnish, Swedish) because the Swedes were kind enough to look after us for half a millenium before losing the province to Russia in a war in the early 19th century.
So is Iceland in Scandinavia or not?
I am now getting conufesd.
Jingle_Jangle
lynx
Yeah for some reason the English-speaking world in particular often gets this wrong. Scandinavians are those who speak Germanic languages that descend from Norse. Finns, although Nordic, speak a Finno-Ugric language. Confusingly, the peninsula on which all these peoples live is called Fennoscandia. There is a gulf that splits Scandinavia and Finland but not much longer because of a very rapid rate of post-glacial land uplift. Another thing that adds to the confusion is that Finland is bilingual (Finnish, Swedish) because the Swedes were kind enough to look after us for half a millenium before losing the province to Russia in a war in the early 19th century.