Finns or Finnish people (, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland."Finn noun" The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Tampere University of Technology. 3 August 2007 Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these countries as well as those who have resettled. Some of these may be classified as separate ethnic groups, rather than subgroups of Finns. These include the Kvens and Forest Finns in Norway, the Tornedalians in Sweden, and the Ingrian Finns in Russia.
Finnish, the language spoken by Finns, is closely related to other Balto-Finnic languages such as Estonian and Karelian. The Finnic languages are a subgroup of the larger Uralic family of languages, which also includes Hungarian. These languages are markedly different from most other languages spoken in Europe, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Native Finns can also be divided according to dialect into subgroups sometimes called (), although such divisions have become less important due to internal migration.
Today, there are approximately 6–7 million ethnic Finns and their descendants worldwide, with the majority of them living in their native Finland and the surrounding countries, namely Sweden, Russia and Norway. An overseas Finnish diaspora has long been established in the countries of the Americas and Oceania, with the population of primarily immigrant background, namely Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and the United States.
Terminology In Finnish, the term ( ) refers both to ethnic Finns and to citizens of Finland. Swedish, Finland's second official language, makes a distinction that Finnish does not: refers to citizens of Finland regardless of ethnicity, while denotes ethnic or linguistic Finnishness. Historically, however, also carried the civic meaning during the 19th century.
It is a matter of debate how best to designate the Finnish-speakers of Sweden, all of whom have migrated to Sweden from Finland. Terms used include Sweden Finns and Finland Swedes, with a distinction almost always made between more recent Finnish immigrants, most of whom have arrived after World War II, and Tornedalians, who have lived along what is now the Swedish-Finnish border since the 15th century."Traditionally, immigrants were described in English and most other languages by an adjective indicating the new country of residence and a noun indicating their country of origin or their ethnic group. The term "Sweden Finns" corresponds to this naming method. Immigrants to the U.S. have, however, always been designated the "other way around" by an adjective indicating the ethnic or national origin and a noun indicating the new country of residence, for example "Finnish Americans" (never "American Finns"). The term "Finnish Swedes" corresponds to this more modern naming method that is increasingly used in most countries and languages because it emphasises the status as full and equal citizens of the new country while providing information about cultural roots. (For more information about these different naming methods see Swedish-speaking Finns.) Other possible modern terms are "Finnish ethnic minority in Sweden" and "Finnish immigrants". These may be preferable because they make a clear distinction between these two very different population groups for which use of a single term is questionable and because "Finnish Swedes" is often used like "Finland Swedes" to mean "Swedish-speaking Finns". It should perhaps also be pointed out that many Finnish and Swedish speakers are unaware that the English word "Finn" elsewhere than in this article usually means "a native or inhabitant of Finland" (
The term Finn is also used in a wider sense to include ethnically or linguistically related peoples, such as the Baltic Finns.
Etymology
Historical references to Northern Europe are scarce, and the names given to its peoples and geographic regions are obscure; therefore, the etymologies of the names are questionable. Such names as , , , and / appear in a few written texts starting from about two millennia ago in association with peoples located in a northern part of Europe, but the real meaning of these terms is debatable.Gallén, Jarl (1964). "Finland och Österland". Historisk Tidskrift för Finland (4): 121–134.
The oldest known attestation is by the Roman historian Tacitus, who mentions the Fenni in his Germania (c. 98 AD); the term recurs in the 2nd century as Phinnoi in the work of Ptolemy. It remains unclear whether these authors meant only the Sámi, or a broader grouping of peoples that may have included the Baltic Finnic peoples as well.
It has been suggested that this non-Uralic ethnonym is of Germanic language origin and related to such words as ; ; and () . Another etymological interpretation associated this ethnonym with fen in a more toponymical approach, but this derivation is considered phonologically untenable. Yet another theory postulates that the words Finn and Kven are cognates. The Icelandic Eddas and Norse sagas (11th to 14th centuries), some of the oldest written sources probably originating from the closest proximity, use words like and inconsistently. However, most of the time they seem to mean northern dwellers with a mobile life style.
Current linguistic research supports the hypothesis of an etymological link between the Finnish and the Sami languages and other modern Uralic languages. There are two main competing hypotheses on the shared etymological origin of the toponyms and . According to one, Suomi derives, through a chain of loans between Proto-Finnic, Sami, and Baltic languages, from a Baltic word meaning "land," and is thereby connected to the name of the historical province as well as sápmi itself.
According to the other, more recently proposed hypothesis, Suomi and sápmi instead reflect a shared Proto-Finnic–Sami self-designation of obscure origin, rather than being Baltic loanwords; under this interpretation the origin of the shared form remains unclear, and Häme would in turn be a later loan from its Sami form.https://www.hs.fi/kuukausiliite/art-2000009054909.html (in Finnish)
Older hypotheses connecting Suomi/suomi to Finnish ("marsh") have been rejected on semantic and morphological grounds. This research also supports the earlier hypothesis that the designation Suomi started out as the designation for Southwest Finland (Finland Proper, ) and later for their language and later for the whole area of modern Finland. But it is not known how, why, and when this occurred. Petri Kallio had suggested that the name Suomi may bear even earlier Indo-European echoes with the original meaning of either "land" or "human",Kallio, Petri 1998: Suomi(ttavia etymologioita) – Virittäjä 4 / 1998. but he has since disproved his hypothesis.
Among the first written sources possibly designating western Finland as the land of Finns are also two rune stones. One, now lost, stood at Söderby-Karls church in Norrtälje Municipality, Sweden, with the inscription finlont (U 582); it is broadly dated to the Viking Age (725–1100). The only other known runic occurrence is a memorial stone at Rute church on Gotland (G 319), which on art-historical grounds (comparison of its cross form with English grave slabs at Bakewell) has been dated to the 13th century, considerably later than U 582.Snædal, Thorgunn. Gotlands runinskrifter 3. "Rute socken", pp. 2–3.
History
Origins As other Western Uralic and Baltic Finnic peoples, Finns originated between the Volga, Oka, and Kama rivers in what is now Russia. The genetic basis of future Finns also emerged in this area. There have been at least two noticeable waves of migration to the west by the ancestors of Finns. They began to move upstream of the Dnieper and from there to the upper reaches of the Daugava, from where they eventually moved along the river towards the Baltic Sea in 1250–1000 BC. The second wave of migration brought the main group of ancestors of Finns from the Baltic Sea to the southwest coast of Finland in the 8th century BC.
During the 80–100 generations of the migration, Finnish language changed its form, although it retained its Finno-Ugric roots. Material culture also changed during the transition, although the Baltic Finnic culture that formed on the shores of the Baltic Sea constantly retained its roots in a way that distinguished it from its neighbors.
Finnish material culture became independent of the wider Baltic Finnic culture in the 6th and 7th centuries, and by the turn of the 8th century the culture of metal objects that prevailed in Finland had developed in its own way. The same era can be considered to be broadly the date of the birth of the independent Finnish language, although its prehistory, like other Baltic Finnic languages, extends far into the past.
Language
Just as uncertain are the possible mediators and the timelines for the development of the Uralic majority language of the Finns. On the basis of comparative linguistics, it has been suggested that the separation of the Finnic and the Sami languages took place during the 2nd millennium BC, and that the Proto-Uralic roots of the entire language group date from about the 6th to the 8th millennium BC. When the Uralic languages were first spoken in the area of contemporary Finland is debated. It is thought that Proto-Finnic (the proto-language of the Finnic languages) was not spoken in modern Finland, because the maximum divergence of the daughter languages occurs in modern-day Estonia. Therefore, Finnish was already a separate language when arriving in Finland. Furthermore, the traditional Finnish lexicon has a large number of words (about one-third) without a known etymology, hinting at the existence of a disappeared Paleo-European language; these include toponyms such as . Because the Finnish language itself reached a written form only in the 16th century, little primary data remains of early Finnish life. For example, the origins of such cultural icons as the sauna, and the kantele (an instrument of the zither family) have remained rather obscure.
Livelihood
Agriculture supplemented by fishing and hunting has been the traditional livelihood among Finns. Slash-and-burn agriculture was practiced in the forest-covered east by Eastern Finns up to the 19th century. Agriculture, along with the language, distinguishes Finns from the Sámi, who retained the hunter-gatherer lifestyle longer and moved to coastal fishing and reindeer herding. Following industrialization and modernization of Finland, most Finns were urbanized and employed in modern service and manufacturing occupations, with agriculture becoming a minor employer (see Economy of Finland).
Religion
Christianity spread to Finland from the Medieval times onward and original native traditions of Finnish paganism have become extinct. Finnish paganism combined various layers of Finnic, Norse, Germanic and Baltic paganism. Finnic was some sort of sky-god and is shared with Estonia. Belief of a thunder-god, Ukko or Perkele, may have Baltic origins. Elements had their own protectors, such as Ahti for waterways and Tapio for forests. Local animistic deities, , which resemble Scandinavian tomte, were also given offerings to, and bear worship was also known. Finnish neopaganism, or , attempts to revive these traditions.