Talk:Baltic Finnic peoples

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As a lay person with bad skills in english I will not try to edit this article, but one general remark must be made: If we want to make correct conclusions of the origin of the Baltic Finns, we should not disregard either the results of linguistic research or the results of genetic research. To claim that baltic finnic langues have been spoken in their current area in periods, when, according to the results of current linguistic research, they have not been spoken there, is thus doomed to be incorrect (at least if the linguistic research results won't chanche, which of course could be possible and has happened many times, but however at least now the results seem quite convincing, but of course they will be modified all the time and maybe also radically in some respect in some future stage). On the contrary then, such wiews should be found, that will not disregard either the results of genetic research, archaeological research, or the results of linguistic research or results in still other fields. And this, as far as I can see as a lay person, is excactly what has been tried to do in recent years by the younger generation of fennougrists, some of which are cited here, but not all. And because this recent research is cited in this article only randomly and not comprehensively, the overall picture in this article remains incomplete and partly misleading. If in some occassiopn I should have time, I could try to find some references but of course it would be better if this was done by someone who knows somewhat more about the subject. But the main message of this recent research, however, could be that populations may have changed there languages for several times. So it is well possible that there is continuity of settelement but the language has changed. --Urjanhai (talk) 11:03, 20 March 2013 (UTC)


 * But luckily enough, the main arguments of the recent linguistic research and the criticism upon continuity theories have already been summarised in an other article: Proto-Uralic homeland hypotheses. The current view on the subject may of course change as well as it has done many times before, but at least also this article should be updatet at least to these results. And still there is much more reseach that has been carried out recently especially about the palaeo european substrate in uralic languaseges and saami laguages by for example Janne Saarikivi and Ante Aikio and also summarised by Jaakko Häkkinen in many occasions.--Urjanhai (talk) 12:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * And as Juha Janhunen has recently stated, there has been under the recent years a growing concensus on these issues among these younger scholars, on which he also agrees.--Urjanhai (talk) 13:06, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Where are Baltic Finns Curonians who later assimilated to Balts? --85.253.61.49 (talk) 01:36, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Hey, is really necessary to start this article from Mesolithic period? Mesolithic goes to archeology, we don't have any evidence about the linguistic affiliations of people living on middle stone age. 94.101.2.146 (talk) 12:44, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Renaming the article to "Finnic people"; Updated proposal: "Finnic peoples"
Google search results for "finnic people": 175,000 results. Google search results for "baltic finns": 38,000 results.

I suggest rewording the article title to "Finnic people"

SørenKierkegaard (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * From Article titles: "Wikipedia generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)" and "When using Google, generally a search of Google Books and News Archive should be defaulted to before a web search, as they concentrate reliable sources (exclude works from Books, LLC when searching Google Books)". Google Books gives me for "finnic people": 1 060 results and for "baltic finns": 2140 results. --Minnekon (talk) 21:42, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * This suggestion can be supported by the fact that big part of the Finnic people/Baltic Finns have not settled near the Baltic sea and the Baltic sea is only partly related to the history of these people.--Velivieras (talk) 14:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that argument relates to Wikipedia policy for article titles. Anyway, nearness of something is not "fact", but subjective assessment, and whole argument can be considered a form of etymological fallacy. --Minnekon (talk) 21:42, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I support the argument of Velivieras. Also added the fact that nobody uses "baltic finns" in everyday speech. Finnic people is used as default. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 07:17, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Your support is based on what? What is the source of "the fact that nobody uses "baltic finns" in everyday speech"? Anyway, usage in reliable sources is more important in Wikipedia than usage in "everyday speech". --Minnekon (talk) 10:25, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I looked little bit to the terms used in Finnish and as a result of this I really cannot tell which would be most suitable. Term Baltic Finns (Itämerensuomalaiset) is used in academic literature and especially in linguistics in which people speaking (Baltic) Finnic languages (Itämerensuomalaiset kielet) are a subgroup of Finno-Ugric people. Someone with better understanding of the issue should comment.--Velivieras (talk) 08:16, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Terms used in Finnish literature apply to Finnish Wikipedia, not to English Wikipedia. --Minnekon (talk) 10:25, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course, for english terms, you should look at recent english language litterature. Older litterature in english may refer with "finnic" to that part of "fenno-ugric" peoples that are not ugric ore somne groups of them (see: Finnic languages (disambiguation)), but these older definitions for "finnic" may be somewhat outdated. However "baltic finns" and "finnic" in that sense are two different categories. Then "finnic" may refer to baltic finns too (and this may be more proper, because there is no dispute regarding the fact which peoples belong to this group), but to find out which name is most used currently one must lok to current litterature in english.--Urjanhai (talk) 17:14, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * But because these older meanings for "finnic" seem to be mostly outdated, therefor it seems that at least in linguistic context the term "Finnic" seems to be used solely. (See my comment below.)--Urjanhai (talk) 17:25, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not a linguist, but the link I gave above in an other thread seems to use the term "Finnic" for the liguistic group.--Urjanhai (talk) 17:22, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Can we say that we have reached an agreement towards renaming the article as "Finnic people" ? Besides the fact that the term is used more, it can also be supported by the fact that although Estonians are Finnic people, they would not be defined as "Finns", which is what the current title is leaning towards. There is only a single nation in the world that can be defined as "Finns", while Finnic people is an umbrella term suitable for using in context with all other Finnic nations as well.
 * Edit: Encyclopaedia Britannica is using the term "Finnic peoples", which seems to be the most suitable of all, as "peoples" refers to several ethnic groups, instead of "people" that refers to a single ethnic group. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 08:04, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Edit 2: Google Scholar also returns the most results for "Finnic peoples" - 608 results. This is followed by "Baltic Finns" with 408 results and "Finnic people" by 211 results. The results seem to be clear. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I came here from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Moving_"Baltic_Finns"_to_"Finnic_peoples", because, as an admin interested in linguistics, I fit user:Bishonen's suggestion as someone who could do the move. However, I see no consensus. So far, we have the following arguments: It seems to me that #1 has been refuted by #3, which has not been refuted. #2 only examines one article. Still, if the defining article picture File:Lenguas fino-bálticas.png is correct, which situates the Karelians far from Karelia and the Baltic Sea, then "Baltic Finns" would feel to me less natural and precise. I think a way out of this dilemma is to follow the prescription of WP:COMMONNAME: "When there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by these sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering [the WP:CRITERIA] directly." It might also make sense to spot check the dates of articles using one or the other term; if a change of terminology happened fairly recently, then it would be an argument for the newer name. &mdash; Sebastian 16:32, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) pro Finnic people: More Ghits (put forward by user:SørenKierkegaard)
 * 2) pro Finnic people: Used in Janhunen's article (the clearest on this seems the beginning of chapter 6, where the term is contrasted with Samoyedic.) (put forward by user:Urjanhai)
 * 3) pro Baltic Finns: Prevalent in Google Books, which confirms with WP:UCRN (put forward by User:Minnekon)
 * Could you please check your answer. First off you used "Finnic people" twice in your answer and did not mention "finnic peoples". Second, your deduction on Google Books hits is wrong. Results:

Google Books:

Baltic Finns: 3600 results

Finnic people: 2520 results

Finnic peoples: 4760 results

Google Scholar:

Baltic Finns: 403 results

Finnic people: 201 results

Finnic peoples: 609 results

Third, the source to (a single) Janhunen's article has 0 mentions of "baltic finns", "finnic people", or "finnic peoples"

The overwhelming result, from every source that Wikipedia suggests to base naming rules on, is to use Finnic peoples as the name for the article. Also Encyclopaedia Britannica uses that term.

Edit: In addition to everything above, we already use [Finnic languages], [Finnic mythology], [Finnic culture], [Finnic]. It makes absolutely no sense to keep using "Baltic Finns" if "Finnic peoples" the most widely used term in literature. The current name of this article does not follow the Wiki naming conventions. Also the University of Tartu uses this term.

please comment SørenKierkegaard (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * "Finnic peoples" seem indeed more common. When I made my earlier comments, I compared only initially suggested term "finnic people" and did not realize that Google does not include "finnic peoples" to it. My search engine gives for some reason a bit different numbers than SørenKierkegaard got, but proportions are quite same. I also want to point out that some of those "finnic peoples" are actually "baltic-finnic peoples" or "balto-finnic peoples", but not too often. "Baltic finns" also return few false hits. In summary, "finnic peoples" is slightly more common than "baltic finns" or much more common if we treat "finnic people" and "finnic peoples" as same term (just with different grammatical form). --Minnekon (talk) 18:09, 6 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Wonderful! We seem to have consensus for the updated proposal "Finnic peoples". I will do the move tomorrow. &mdash; Sebastian 19:07, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * If the scientific field and e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica uses term "Finnic peoples" that is most likely the best option for the article also. Velivieras (talk) 07:03, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 6 February 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. &mdash; Sebastian 07:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Baltic Finns → Finnic peoples – "Finnic peoples" is the most commonly used term when analyzed by Google search, Google Books search, Google Scholar search. It is also the default term on all other Finnic-related articles in Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and in University of Tartu. In addition to all literature, it is also the most suitable as an umbrella term because "Finns" generally only refer to people living in Finland. The article in question comprises several different nations with a Finnic background. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 17:52, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Support: Sounds reasonable and well researched. A bit of offtopic question, but should Volga Finns be merged into Finnic people as well then? Manelolo (talk) 14:09, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, because, as Volga Finns explains, they are not Finnic people in this new sense. &mdash; Sebastian 17:42, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Without any grasp of the actual terminology used by experts (linguistic or genetic) and looking at it objectively, the explanations and article naming is kinda bad for a layperson as it stands. Volga-Finns are not Finns, but then there are Finnic people (aka Baltic Finns) which includes Finns? Needs to be much more clear and have some cites and objective scrutiny for the terminology. Manelolo (talk) 20:26, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The terminology is connected to the language. It's actually really clear if you follow the table here. Also the terminologies are clearly separated in research literature. I do agree that we should improve the article now to make the naming conceptions clear. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I wholeheartedly agree with your first three sentences, Søren. Only your last sentence is unclear to me: Agree with which statement? Which article? This should be a new section in the appropriate talk page, not a re-re-re-reply to an off-topic comment here. &mdash; Sebastian 22:06, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The move is done; however, we still have Category:Baltic Finns. Shouldn't this be renamed, as well? Please comment at Category talk:Baltic Finns. &mdash; Sebastian 17:51, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank You. Yes, I believe that category should be renamed as well. Also, moving this article back to it's correct name revealed the old talk page. I don't know if it's doable but it would be helpful to copy over the discussions from this talk page to the Finnic peoples' Talk page. Thank you again. SørenKierkegaard (talk) 18:18, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * That would be doable, but I think there's a more elegant solution: Archive both, and link to both archives from both talk pages. If there is anything that still needs to be discussed, start it as a new topic on the appropriate page and link to the old discussion. &mdash; Sebastian 22:06, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm just going to move Talk:Baltic Finns to Talk:Finnic peoples/Archive 1. Seems to make the most sense after reading this. Steel1943  (talk) 02:53, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well done, you're right, Talk:Baltic Finns needs no content other than a redirect to this talk page. &mdash; Sebastian 07:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Follow-up on move
Comment: After I married this talk page with its parent page, I noticed something odd: Why does Talk:Baltic Finns Talk:Finnic peoples/Archive 1 Talk:Baltic Finns have so much talk page content for a redirect with no edit history? Was a cut-paste move done somewhere? Was edit history suppressed/deleted?? Steel1943 (talk) 02:49, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * (Update page name after I moved the page and my comment was refactored. Steel1943  (talk) 11:38, 8 February 2018 (UTC))


 * It may have something to do with this edit. Steel1943  (talk) 02:52, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Since 2003-06-10, when the old article was first created as a disambiguation page, it had 451 edits, many of which may have been included in that edit. This would make it harder to track the origin of those. Should we do something about that? &mdash; Sebastian 06:50, 8 February 2018 (UTC) (edited 06:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC))
 * I'd say for now, it'd probably be best to restore the edits at Baltic Finns (move them there if necessary), then tag it a R from merge. From what you said, some of the content you found was merged into this page, so the edit history probably needs to be retained per WP:CWW. Steel1943  (talk) 13:35, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be the best, and it's probably something I should do. But after the problems that came up at Category talk:Baltic Finns my current time budget for Wikipedia is already exhausted. Moreover, I fear that without a solution for those, there is a chance that we may end up having to undo this move. Can we please first solve those? &mdash; Sebastian 10:30, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not consider the two issues related since the edit history should probably be restored regardless. Any fixes in relation to the category mishap can occur and be determined as the linked discussion progresses, whereas the edit history restoration can happen at any time. Steel1943  (talk) 13:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. The necessity for the edit history merge already arose in 2011 (with the edit you cited above, when user:Termer brought over text from Finnic peoples to what was then the Baltic Finns article). The only thing relating the two issues is that the merge is harder because the move hid the old edit history. Since I haven't done any edit history restoration in a long time, I have to read the instructions first, and I plan to do that next week. &mdash; Sebastian 08:55, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * From my understanding of edit history restorations, the steps would look like this:
 * Move Finnic peoples to Finnic peoples (temp) without leaving a redirect. (Do not move Talk:Finnic peoples.)
 * Move Baltic Finns to Finnic peoples without leaving a redirect. (Do not move Talk:Baltic Finns.)
 * Delete Finnic peoples. (Do not delete Talk:Finnic peoples.)
 * Restore all of the edits at Finnic peoples. (This will include the ones created by you recently with your page moves; these should probably be retained per WP:CWW.)
 * Move Finnic peoples to Baltic Finns without leaving a redirect. (Do not move Talk:Finnic peoples.)
 * Move Finnic peoples (temp) to Finnic peoples without leaving a redirect.
 * After those steps, the edit history hiding in the deleted edit history of Finnic peoples should be moved to Baltic Finns, and Finnic peoples should be restored to its current state. Steel1943  (talk) 13:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience, and for the steps. If I understand you correctly, you are thinking of something like the process at WP:HISTMERGE or WP:HISTMERGE (apart from the exclusion of talk pages). But unfortunately it seems to me that we are dealing with WP:HISTMERGE, because we have a long overlap between the histories - from 2010, when Termer created the first article "Finnic peoples" (as can be seen in this article's history) till 2015, when the last edit of the now deleted article was done. To make matters worse, the deleted history is already very fragmentary, as can be seen from the last edits displayed (My annotations in green ): I had tried to undelete the history to "Talk:Finnic peoples/OldVersion", as recommended in WP:HISTMERGE, but I got a database timeout error, and then I got cold feet since I wasn't sure that that would give me the opportunity to enter a different name, and I didn't want to mess up things more than they already are. Since I have no experience with anything even remotely as "troublesome", I think it would be better to ask for someone with relevant experience at AN/I. &mdash; Sebastian 23:09, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * 2015-12-04T19:21:37 . . (26 bytes) (better) The diff for this appears as one from a "Revision as of 2015-12-04T10:04:34", which was a whole article starting with "The Baltic Finns..." to a redirect to Baltic Finns.
 * 2015-08-23T19:03:52 . . Prinsgezinde (19 bytes) (←Redirected page to Finns) (Tags: Mobile edit, Mobile web edit)  As in the edit of 2015-12-04T19:21:37, this diff is from a "Revision as of 2015-07-18T09:10:12", which, here, too, was a whole article starting with "The Baltic Finns...".
 * 2012-09-14T05:59:29 . . Tuohirulla (26 bytes) (rv, see talk page. this entire article is a one-man crusade to create his own imaginary "ethnic" or whatever group. please anyone with time and expertise, interfere) Same as the above two, referring to a full article starting with "The Baltic Finns...", this time as "Revision as of 2012-06-17T09:47:22". I could not find a talk page discussion from September 2012 in the talk page histories of Finnic Peoples and Baltic Finns or in Talk:Finnic peoples/Archive 1.
 * 2012-04-24T03:18:37 . . m (10,763 bytes) (TypoScan Project / General Fixes, typos fixed:, → , (2) using AWB) This diff does show the "Revision as of 2012-03-25T08:58:55", as the list does. At this time, the article began "The Finnic or Fennic peoples (also referred to as Finnic tribes ...".
 * 2012-03-25T08:58:55 . . m (10,767 bytes) (ISBNs (Build J/))
 * It's not a history merge since one of the pages currently has no history. The steps I laid out just restores the history that I believe you had deleted and puts it at the other title (the redirect.) Steel1943  (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * ...Ah, but now I see the complication. In other words, you are uncertain which of the edits were present at that title's edit history when it was deleted. (In a situation such as that, I probably would have done a "round-robin" move of the pages instead of deleting one of them to move the other.) Steel1943  (talk) 00:01, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * There are 451 deleted edits hiding underneath Finnic peoples. You don't want to restore those while the article is sitting there. The current article will need to be moved to some temporary location, such as Draft:Finnic peoples, so the deleted history can be restored and moved to its proper home. I'm looking into this; it will likely take some time to sort it all out... seems like quite a complex case! wbm1058 (talk) 00:25, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * While I see that there was some prior discussion, the RM was started 17:52, 6 February 2018 and the page was moved just two days later, depriving the wider community of proper notice and the full 7-day discussion period. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it appears that a round-robin may have been the best bet here. Sigh. I'm a little frustrated. This sort of move is right up the page-mover's alley as they use a special script for round robins that most admins are not familiar with. This would have been an ideal close for a page mover. Most admins are not familiar with round robins as the actual need for them is generally pretty limited. I still need to get up to speed with the history, and what's up with the talk archives. wbm1058 (talk) 00:51, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both of you for your replies, and also to yours at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' guide/Fixing cut-and-paste moves, Wbm1058. I can see how this is frustrating and I wish I had known of round-robin moves before. I had no idea about those complications when I saw the message on AN/I; people there were only talking about the need for subject matter knowledge. &mdash; Sebastian 01:11, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to revert the recent page moves so that the deleted history of the content fork can be recovered. wbm1058 (talk) 01:57, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * 23:12, 14 August 2006‎ moved Finnic to Finnic peoples: disambiguation...  Baltic Finns was never on that disambiguation page.

There is only one entry in the deletion log: 17:46, 7 February 2018 deleted page Finnic peoples (G6: Deleted to make way for move)

So I think it's safe to restore everything. Virtually no overlap in the talk histories, so Steel's move to archive 1 may be an OK solution. wbm1058 (talk) 02:35, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Wbm1058 for restoring the edit history in a proper manner. On a semi-related note, I went ahead and restored the name of the page post-move. As probably seen above, I had no stake in an opinion in the actual move request itself. In fact, now that the page histories have been restored, I have no quarrel if Talk:Finnic peoples/Archive 1 were to be moved to Talk:Baltic Finns to make all of this appear as a true round-robin move. Steel1943  (talk) 03:06, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * In fact, I went ahead and moved Talk:Finnic peoples/Archive 1 to Talk:Baltic Finns so that the talk page content is remarried to the page with the edit history it refers, Baltic Finns. Steel1943  (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Summary of page histories

 * A page was started at Finnic on 10 June 2003. It started as a pseudo-disambiguation between the languages and the peoples.
 * It gradually evolved to become an article about the peoples and on 14 August 2006 Finnic moved to Finnic peoples and a new disambiguation was started at Finnic.
 * A fork was started at Baltic Finns on 3 October 2008.
 * This is the last version of Finnic peoples (24 April 2012) before it was redirected into the newer fork at Baltic Finns. As Steel pointed out above, there had been at least one earlier instance of content copying from Finnic peoples to Baltic Finns on 15 May 2011.

This isn't the first time I've seen such activity in an ethnic group article, and alas, probably isn't the last. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:32, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Related ethnic groups
Hi, how are Finnic peoples related to Balts in ethnic terminology? I mean genetically, maybe - but this page is not about genetics. See the Dutch people as an example - they have "Germanic peoples" and then very close neighbours from inside that grouping under related ethnic groups, because the Dutch are germanic people. I don't understand why "Balts" are listed under "related ethnic groups" here. Blomsterhagens (talk) 17:21, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect redirect
Someone has renamed the article from "Finnic peoples" to "Baltic Finns" without any consensus on the talk page. It was decided with overwhelming consensus a while ago to keep the page as Finnic peoples. I cannot undo that move on my own. Can an admin step in and help please? Blomsterhagens (talk) 14:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

We had a long and fruitless discussion about this on my talk page, where it became clear that User:Blomsterhagens doesn't know the lit and can't be bothered to check, and isn't even sure what this article is about. "Finnic" and "Balto-Finnic" are often synonyms, but often they're not. The Volga Finns, Permians and even the Saami have been categorized as "Finnic". Possibly this is due to changing classification of the Uralic language family, or to whichever linguistic source an author chooses to use, rather that to any ethnographic conception. (But then it's common to substitute linguistic classification for ethnicity, even in otherwise RS's.) There were dozens of incoming links to "Finnic peoples" where it was the Volga Finns or Volga Finns + Permians who were referred to. I cleaned those up where I could. Sometimes in our sources "Finnic" means generically Baltic, Volga and Permic. This is common in historical sources and often it seems in genetics. Many of the remaining incoming links to 'Finnic' are ambiguous. Some speak of "Finnic and other Siberian peoples", which suggests they don't mean the Baltic Finns, or at least not just them. Anyway, given the very common use in the lit of 'Finnic' to mean something other or something more than just the Baltic Finns, having this article at 'Finnic peoples' will require that we police the incoming links for the lifespan of Wikipedia. I'm not going to do that, and since it appears the incoming links had never been cleaned up, I doubt anyone else would. Even if we had a volunteer, it wouldn't last forever. So we need an unambiguous name for this article. I don't really care what it is -- "Finnic peoples (...)" with some dab would be fine. But moving it back to plain "Finnic peoples" in contradiction to our other articles and their sources would be damaging to the encyclopedia. — kwami (talk) 22:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I did not find any academic sources, claiming that saami people, permians or volga finns are finnic peoples. If you can find one, then please provide it or revert your changes. And check your attitude. You're changing entire terminologies with zero sources and without discussing this on the talk page before. Even after spending more than an hour discussing with you, you have still not provided an academic source to back up your claims. Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:16, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You can't even be bothered to read the sources in the leads of the articles that you're changing to contradict those sources! It's clear that you're utterly ignorant of the topic and simply don't care. I've told you where you can find sources. I'm not going to spoon-feed you. — kwami (talk) 22:24, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You can huddle personal insults as much as you want. As I have told you several times already - I have read those sources and have not found anything to back up your claim. The burden of proof lies on you to link to the claim you're making. Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Summary: Volga Finns, Saami people and Permic people are not Finnic peoples. They do not speak Finnic languages. The creation of a new Finnic peoples disambiguation page was incorrect. Baltic Finns is a less-common synonym in academic sources for Finnic peoples - as has been established on this talk page before. These changes from the last couple of days should be reverted. "Baltic Finns" should be renamed back to Finnic peoples, as it has previously been. The user who did the renaming has not provided any sources to explain their actions. Blomsterhagens (talk) 23:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Here's a source from the University of Helsinki, placing Finnic specifically in the area of Finland and Estonia in the iron age. Blomsterhagens (talk) 09:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Here is a source from the University of Tartu, talking about Finnic peoples. 1) It talks about Finnic peoples and Finnic languages in the same context, clearly defining one through the other. 2) Finnic languages are defined as Estonian, Finnish, Ingrian and Votic. Blomsterhagens (talk) 09:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Here is a source from the Council of Europe. Quoting: "The Finnic peoples are the Finns, the Karelians, the Vepsians, the Izhorians, the Votians, the Estonians and the Livonians. All live in the Baltic region between Scandinavia and Continental Europe. Their languages are fairly closely related and speakers of one can usually understand the others rather well. The Karelians, Vepsians, Izhorians and Votians live within the borders of the Russian Federation." Blomsterhagens (talk) 09:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 14 October 2019: Finnic peoples | Updated proposal: Baltic Finnic peoples

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: page moved per consensus. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Baltic Finns → Finnic peoples – An editor moved the page without any discussion or consensus on the talk page. The article was previously named Finnic peoples after a consensus on the talk page. "Finnic peoples" is the accepted, most commonly used definition in academic literature, as is evident in both google scholar and google books. The editor who renamed the page has not provided any sources to justify the move. Blomsterhagens (talk) 09:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose The reason I moved the article back was that many of our sources, and therefor many of our articles, use "Finnic" in the old ethnic sense of all the Finno-Ugric peoples who are not Ugric -- that is, the Volga Finns, Permians, Saami, etc. I discovered this when I tried to clean up the hundreds of links to "Finnic peoples". In many cases I could tell what was referred to, but there remain a few dozen links to the dab page either where the word "Finnic" was being used generically, or where I couldn't tell which meaning was intended. This isn't just a problem with old historical sources, but with modern genetics sources as well. Therefor, if we move 'Baltic Finns' to 'Finnic peoples', we will have a constant problem of our articles being linked to the wrong 'Finnic'. That would require eternal policing, which is not practical. We therefore IMO need an unambiguous name. I don't particularly care what that name is, as long as it's not something that creates recurring problems for our readers. BTW, there are plenty of sources, e.g. at Finno-Permian languages, which our proposer ignores and then claims don't exist. Also, while it's reasonable to name language-family proposals after ethnicities, the reverse has it backwards. That's because doing it that way would require people's ethnicity to change every time someone comes up with a new hypothesis for language classification. People's self-identity does not usually depend on such things.
 * BTW, I think I'm the one who moved 'Balto-Finnic languages' to 'Finnic languages', which may be the reason the ethnicity article followed. But again, language hypotheses are not ethnicity. If we want the language and ethnicity articles to have the same name, then I suggest we revert my move of the language article, and follow the Enyclopedia Britannica in calling them the 'Balto-Finnic languages'. — kwami (talk) 19:44, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I have not ignored Finno-Permian. As I have linked before Finno-Permian is considered a separate group in all classification trees for Uralic languages. Blomsterhagens (talk) 19:49, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Then why do you keep saying "if there are sources"? And no, it's not a separate group in all classifications. In fact, it's been largely abandoned, based as it was on ethnic rather than linguistic features. That's the reason so many linguistics have switched from 'Balto-Finnic' to 'Finnic' languages. But that's linguistics. It has nothing to do with ethnography. Ethnographic, historical and genetic sources continue to use 'Finnic' in the broad sense of the term, as the incoming links to 'Finnic peoples' demonstrate. — kwami (talk) 19:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Because the topic here is that you want to separate "Baltic Finns" and "Finnic peoples" into separate articles, without linking a direct source which says this is the common way of how it's done in academia. I don't think it's right that you want to change terminology just because there are issues with incorrect linking inside Wikipedia. You reverted my edit when I added a "sourced needed" tag to your claim on the Finno-Permic article. I opened the source in the end of the paragraph there and indeed, Rein Taagepera says that "Finnic has often been used to designate all Finno-Permic languages, based on an earlier belief that Permic languages are very much closer to Finnish than Hungarian". But he goes on to say, that "What I call Finnic is in such nomenclature "Balto-Finnic", which unintentionally suggests a tie to the indoeuropean baltic languages". To me it is clear from this, and the entire Uralic languages article, that all modern sources treat "Finnic" as a synonym to "Baltic Finns". *If* that used to not be the case, then yes that should be mentioned somewhere. And why can't both the Finnic peoples disambiguation page and this article here be called "Finnic peoples"? If you need a disambiguation page, why not slightly rename the title of the disambiguation page? It achieves the same goal, but leaves this article's terminology untouched. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:07, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Again, you're confusing linguistics with ethnography. Yes, those comments are all pertinent to linguistics, and they (along with similar sources) are the reason I moved 'Balto-Finnic languages' to 'Finnic languages' a few years ago. But they're largely irrelevant for this article, which is ethnographic. For this we need ethnographic sources. Indeed, that same source notes the "east Finnic" peoples of Russia, who are not Balto-Finnic. As User:Wbm1058 noted on your talk page,
 * Take a look at :
 * Russians in northern European Russia share moderate genetic similarities with Finnic peoples, who lived in modern north-central European Russia and were partly assimilated by the Slavs as the Slavs migrated northeastwards. Such Finnic peoples included the Merya and the Muromians.
 * In this context the article seems to refer to Volga Finns, not Baltic Finns.
 * And that follows the wording of the sources. There are dozens of articles like that, with dozens of sources. — kwami (talk) 20:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, this find is a good one. And I have produced numerous sources all throughout this talk page, linking to sources talking about ethnicity. See the sources to University of Tartu and the European Commission. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:15, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it would've been helpful for you to have actually read it when I pointed it out to you the other day, rather than denying that it existed. — kwami (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment If we substitute the current linguistic sense of 'Finnic' for the ethnographic one, and move this article to 'Finnic peoples', we're going to need some way to clean up the incoming links (something which no-one had bothered to do before I started this chore), and a way to keep them cleaned up. That's no small task, and it will be an interminable one. — kwami (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Both the university of Tartu and the European Commission treat Finnic peoples (ethnicity) as a synonym to Baltic Finns (ethnicity). See the linked sources above. If it differs in some older sources, then fair enough. That should be addressed. But renaming this entire article for that purpose is not proportionate to the linking issue at hand. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't see any ref to the EC above. I'd be curious to see it. — kwami (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Copy-pasting from above: Here is a source from the Council of Europe. Quoting: "The Finnic peoples are the Finns, the Karelians, the Vepsians, the Izhorians, the Votians, the Estonians and the Livonians. All live in the Baltic region between Scandinavia and Continental Europe. Their languages are fairly closely related and speakers of one can usually understand the others rather well. The Karelians, Vepsians, Izhorians and Votians live within the borders of the Russian Federation." Blomsterhagens (talk) 09:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Copy-pasting another source from the University of Tartu here: : Another clear source from the University of Tartu is here, map 97. It clearly marks the areas of the Finnic peoples. It also clearly notes that the Finnic people are often also called "Baltic Finns", thus again confirming that these two terms are synonyms. Blomsterhagens (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * To repeat myself, that does not mean they're synonyms, in the sense that one can be substituted for the other. All it means is that they're alternative names, which our articles have always stated. Some people restrict the word 'Finnic' to the (geographic) Baltic peoples, others use the term in a much broader sense (even including the Ob-Ugric peoples, the Khanty and Mansi, among the 'eastern Finns'). So the Finns-Estonians-Vespians may be called "Finnic" or "Baltic Finns" depending on what you call the other Uralic-speaking peoples that have been classified as ethnically Finnic. If you call the Mordvins and Komi "Finnic" then you can't very well specify the Baltic Finns with just the term "Finnic". But yes, our articles have noted for years that the term "Finnic" is preferred in Finland for the Baltic Finns. But it's still an ambiguous term when we use non-Finnish sources. — kwami (talk) 20:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Not just in Finland, also in Estonia. But anyway, the issue of confusion that you brought out is fair. But using "Finnic peoples" to mean "Baltic Finns" is the most common usage. So what about making the disambiguation / broad-concept page title to be something else? Why do we have to necesssarily change the page with the most common usage? Alternatively, I'm fine with "Finnic peoples" as the disambiguation page title and "Baltic-Finnic peoples" as the title for this page. At least it has "Finnic" in it then. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:50, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Edit: If a broad-concept article of "Finnic peoples" is created, I'd be happy to help in writing content for it. Blomsterhagens (talk) 20:55, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I have no problem calling this article "Baltic-Finnic peoples" if that's acceptable to others. As for writing a broader 'Finnic' article, I have no problem with that either, though it might run into problems with the changing scope of the word 'Finnic' over time. E.g., the Mari are (or were?) among the 'western Finns', which would thus seem to be a broader term than 'Baltic Finns'. "Finns" in the broadest sense includes all the Uralic peoples but the Magyar and the Samoyeds. But I suspect that it was always an external conception, that the various peoples called 'Finns' did not think of themselves as the same people or even related, at least not to the exclusion of other peoples. I could be wrong about that, though. — kwami (talk) 21:03, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I would be happy with Baltic-Finnic peoples being the end result for this page. And the broader issues you brought out with the terminology over who is "Finnic" would be an excellent topic for the broader-category "Finnic peoples" page. Regarding the word "Finns", then that word is in everyday language very specifically used only for the modern-day Finns, meaning the people living in nowadays Finland. That's why the word "Finnic" is so important for all Finnic people as a unifying term. Finns is very narrowly connected to only one country. It's the same in Estonian for example: "Finnic peoples" in the context of "Baltic Finns" is translated into "läänemeresoomlased" in estonian academia, where "läänemere" is "the west sea" and "soomlased" is "finns". But the word "soomlased" itself only applies to modern finns in estonian. That's why "Finnic" is important. Blomsterhagens (talk) 21:18, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Edit: On Finnic languages, the issue has been solved elegantly. "For other uses", the page offers a link to Finnic languages (disambiguation). This is the best of both worlds. Why not do the same? In that case, this article can keep existing as "Finnic peoples". I would strongly prefer this option, because it solves the problems from both sides. Example: Finnic peoples (disambiguation) Blomsterhagens (talk) 21:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * But if for whatever reason that I don't currently understand, that would not work, then I'm fine with Baltic-Finnic and creating a new broad-scope article for Finnic peoples. Blomsterhagens (talk) 21:48, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Another option for this page: Finnic peoples (proper) Blomsterhagens (talk) 21:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Edit: Re baltic-finnic, I'm changing my preference to Baltic Finnic peoples - as "Baltic-Finnic", when using the "-" is less used in google scholar and can also denote a mixture of several ethnicities. "Baltic Finnic", without the "-", is more common. Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Edit: I updated the move request to "Baltic Finnic peoples". I take back my preference for the disambiguation page, because if the Sami people are indeed considered as Finnic in some sources, then a general Finnic peoples page should indeed be inclusive of them. Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:30, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

That is a more accurate name. Since we agree and we're the only two people here, I went ahead and moved the article per your suggestion. Re. 'Finnic peoples' as an article on the history of the various ethnographic uses of the term 'Finnic', I agree that could be a useful article. Re. your earlier comparison to the language dab page, I think that's a little different, as linguistic sources are generally pretty clear which scope they mean -- and if they aren't clear we shouldn't use them. In contrast, historical and genetic sources that are otherwise RS's can vary considerably and often even speak of 'Finnic peoples' without defining what they mean. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Edit - It does appear that some sources do indeed categorize the languages differently. I don't know if this also applies to ethnicities then. Example from Britannica in 1996. An official stance from the university of helsinki or tartu would be of great help to solve this question. Blomsterhagens (talk) 13:58, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Update: The classic / traditional / most common grouping already exists on the Uralic languages page. There is also a proper overview of all academic sources there. The previous questions with "Permic" and "Finno-Volgaic" are thus also answered. I consider this question to thus be solved. If we are to assume that "peoples" are grouped the same way as "languages", then "Finnic peoples" is clearly its own singular group, being the most-used synonym of "Baltic Finns". Could someone please revert the renaming that was done. Especially because the editor that did this has not provided any reasoning or academic sources for there move here. The traditional classification is clearly seen here. Blomsterhagens (talk) 15:34, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Another clear source from the University of Tartu is here, map 97. It clearly marks the areas of the Finnic peoples. It also clearly notes that the Finnic people are often also called "Baltic Finns", thus again confirming that these two terms are synonyms. Blomsterhagens (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
 * *If* the main reason for the rename was, as the editor claims, that there are many links on Wikipedia pointing to this page but that mean some other grouping of Uralic peoples, then another solution might be to keep this page correctly as the Finnic peoples page, but create another "Finnic peoples (disambiguation)" page. We should not be renaming articles into something that is not academically correct just because of incorrect linking in wikipedia. Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Baltic Sea Finns
The existence of "Baltic Sea Finns" is based on controversial/fringe theories put forward by Kalevi Wiik, theories that are very far from mainstream (a quote from the article about Wiik here on en-WP says it all: ""Wiik's controversial ideas are rejected by the majority of the scholarly community, but they have attracted the enormous interest of a wider audience."), and we're writing an encyclopaedia, not a history blog. Do a search for "Sea Finns" in this pdf, and you'll find that it's based on a book by Wiik. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 22:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The source I linked to and which you mentioned above is from the Finnish Migration Institute, with 3 pages worth of contributors. This makes it credible, regardless of what your own personal opinion is about kalevi wiik. The only question should be whether the linked source is credible or not - and it absolutely is. And here is source 2, source 3, source 4. Also, what problem do you have with this term? You do realize that "Baltic Finns" is just a shorthand for "Baltic Sea Finns", do you? Or where exactly do you think the word "Baltic" came from? Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:44, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm finding a fair number of sources at GBooks that seem to use this longer form of the name to better distinguish them from the Balts, and none of them mention Wiik. Of course, I can't be sure they have nothing to do with Wiik. But just because some fringe scientist uses a term, that doesn't mean the term is invalid. — kwami (talk) 23:17, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The little used term "Baltic Sea Finns" is misleading since it gives readers the impression there were "Baltic Sea-Finns" (the most logical way of reading it), that is a seafaring Finnic people, fitting in with Wiiks fringe theories about Finns being the original population of Scandinavia (later switching to a Germanic language), and should thus be avoided. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 07:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't even know how to begin answering this. That claim is completely off-topic to what is being discussed. What the heck is "Sea Finns"? What do you think is "Baltic" in this case then? The word "Baltic" directly comes from the sea - that's why that word is used. There are enough credible sources using this term, so this is a non-issue. Blomsterhagens (talk) 11:59, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * In the same way as in Finnish, the equivalent for "Baltic Finns" is "itämerensuomalaiset", directly translated to "east sea Finns". It's not "eastern sea-finns" (also: how did you even come up with that?). "Itämeri" in Finnish is the baltic sea. Technically, the term "Baltic Sea Finns" is the most exact translation to English for how this ethnic group is most commonly named in native Finnish and Estonian languages. It's just that the sea is not called "baltic sea" in those languages, but the eastern / western sea. Blomsterhagens (talk) 13:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Many languages form compound words (such as "östersjöfinnar") that can't be misunderstood, but the English language doesn't, which complicates things and often lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings (equivalent to writing "en svart hårig sjuk sköterska" instead of "en svarthårig sjuksköterska", to give an example in a language I believe you understand...). And this is, after all, the English language Wikipedia... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 15:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "Sea Finns" follows the same lines as for example the Norwegian Sea Sámi that are, or at least were, seen as a separate group, different from the Mountain Sami/Forest Sami, so it's a standard English language construction, which in turn means that most native English-speakers probably will read "Baltic Sea Finns" the way I pointed out in my first post above. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 15:53, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This is off-topic. We list content based on credible sources, not on how we personally "think" someone might misunderstand something. And again, just out of personal curiosity - what exactly do you think is the alternative understanding for the word "Baltic" in Baltic Sea Finns? Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * In the English language "Baltic", as in a "Baltic port", a "Baltic cruise ship/Baltic cruises" (1, 2, 3, 4) or anything else with Baltic in it refers to something connected to, in or around the Baltic Sea (while the "Baltic Sea" is the sea itself...), so there's no need for the "Sea" in "Baltic Sea Finns", which is why just "Baltic Finns" is a far more commonly used term than "Baltic Sea Finns" (I would even go as far as saying that "Baltic Sea Finns" is nothing more than a bad translation of "itämerensuomalaiset"...). There's simply no need for "Sea" in that term, as you would have known if you had been a native English speaker. I know it's not the same in several other languages, but this is the English language Wikipedia, so we don't care how it is used in other languages. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 17:08, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You don't have to just take my word for it, BTW, but can also check Google Translate's translation of itämerensuomalaiset. Google has problems with words with double meanings, though, so their translation of "östersjöfinnar" might not be appreciated by Finns... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 17:54, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Tom's correct that 'Baltic' normally refers to the Baltic Sea, but of course it could also refer to the Balts or the Baltic countries. I never thought of it being 'Baltic Sea-Finns', and that seems a rather tortured reading, but I suppose some people might get confused -- though it's hard for me to imagine that anyone would take it to mean they came from across the sea. But that's why we have the lead, to clarify such things. If it weren't a proper name, we'd just hyphenate: Baltic-Sea Finns. We could do that anyway, maybe as a parenthetical: Baltic Sea Finns (Baltic-Sea Finns). I'm not sure the potential for confusion is great enough to bother, but that should presumably help. The main question is whether this wording is common enough to include in the lead. I did an ngram search, and it didn't find any instances of 'Baltic Sea Finns' or 'Baltic Sea Finnic'. 'Balto-Finns' got a bit of traction in the mid 1980s, but had pretty much died out by 2004 (though the data ends in 2008). 'Baltic Finns' was the dominant wording from 1800 to 1969, when 'Baltic Finnic' took off, then plummeted, the came back to near parity with 'Baltic Finns', but much of that will be referring to the languages. If you plug in 'Balto-Finnic', that takes off in the 1960s, but again is presumably for the languages. From here, our current title doesn't get any hits, 'Balto-Finnic peoples' and 'Balto-Finns' gets a few, but 'Baltic Finns' is dominant. (The singular forms in 'people' don't get any hits.) Of course, that just in what Google Books has scanned, which may or may not be representative. Why the phrase 'Baltic Sea Finns' shows up in a GBooks search but not in Ngram I don't know -- perhaps Ngram only searches books that are wholly available, whereas a GBooks search also gets snippet views? — kwami (talk) 18:43, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * My entire point was that if we all know that "Baltic" refers to the sea, then why is he suddenly concerned about the word "sea"? For anyone who understands that "baltic" means the sea, the added word "sea" is not an issue. And vice versa, if some people confuse "baltic" with baltic states or Baltic peoples, then imho that's an added reason to keep the "baltic sea finns" term. Blomsterhagens (talk) 18:55, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That could have been true if it hadn't been for the fact that Sea Sámi is an established term for a subdivision of the Sámi people who live off the sea (fishing etc off the northern and northwestern coast of Scandinavia)), and not reindeer or hunting. So anyone who has seen that term is likely to interpret "Baltic Sea Finns" as Finns living off the sea in the Baltic... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 19:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The issue isn't whether the term makes sense or not, or who uses it, but whether it's common enough that readers will come here to look it up and be confused if they don't find it. I've had this problem with obscure 19th-century language names in New Guinea. I'd create redirects once I ID the language, so people get to the right place, but not explain them in the article, because if I did, 90% of the article would be a list of alt names rather than a description of the language itself. (And also because there are hundreds and hundreds of such names, and I don't have the time.) And they're so obscure -- maybe mentioned once in something published in 1820 -- that I can't imagine anyone would need it. But then someone will object on the talk page that the rd brought them there but they don't see the name in the article. In this case, though, it should be pretty obvious what's going on if s.o. looks up 'Baltic Sea Finns' and is directed to 'Baltic Finns'. The question then becomes, is it notable enough to include? I wouldn't bother, but Tom's arguing not that it's too obscure, but that some debunked linguist uses it. But that not reason to exclude the term, though if it really is associated with that hypothesis, then an explanation of that fact can be added. At that point, I think we might want to move it out of the lead into a dedicated section on naming, and leave only the primary names in the lead. — kwami (talk) 19:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Fair. 1) If Tom can prove, using clear sources, that the term is somehow clearly associated / mainly known through some fringe hypothesis / debunked scientist, then the term can be moved away from the lead. 2) I agree that if the list of alt-names gets too long, they should not all be included in the lead. It isn't extremely long though yet. Even if we also add Western Finnic peoples, the lead would still have less alt names than the Swedish-speaking population of Finland. I do agree that if we somehow end up with even more alt-names, then at some point a separate list makes sense. I do think it's important to keep at least one alt-name in the lead which makes it clearer that the word "baltic" is not in this case connected to Baltic peoples. Whether that's "Baltic Sea Finns" or "Western Finnic peoples", both help with that.  Blomsterhagens (talk) 19:35, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

We should stick to international academics, not local nationalists from ethnic groups with clearly migrant DNA. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 15:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The only question here is, what the correct name in english to the peoples in question, the exictence and definition of whom is clearly beyond doubt. Then, the only way is to look at realiable sources written in english by reliable scholars and what is the word that is used in these reliable sources. The term that is currently used of this language group (and thus also the peoples, becauce the language group is only undisputed and reliable way to define the group of peoles as well) seems to be "finnic".

In finnish language the word is "itämerensuomalaiset" which translates literally to "Baltic sea finns", but only because in finnish language there are no separate words wor "finnic" and "finnish", and therefore the clarification "Baltic sea" is needed in the finnish language word when spreaking about the whole group of peoples or languges.) But whether or not one should use some expression like this in english is beyond my competence as a non native speaker of english and not being a scholar in this field either. (I only study language history as a hobby.)

But however, what is the most essential point, is that terms like Finno-ugric and finnic, finno-permic, volga finnic  etc. and the term "Finnic peoples" itself (i. e. in other meanings than that used in this article) are no longer undisputed as names of language groups (and thus as names of groups of peoples) within the uralic language family, although some of them may still be valid as areal terms. This is explained for example here: (a draft for a chapter in some forthcoming book, I guess). Undisputed are only the seven subgroups of the uralic language family (one of which is "finnic"), but how these should be grouped into larger subgroups within the language family or should they be grouped into larger subgroups at all, or to what extent, is under dispute. And, because this is the case, then the primary meaning of the term "Finnic" seems to be more and more the Finnic languages (or here the Finnic peoples in the sense of this article, whatever should be the correct name of the article in English in the English language Wikipedia) because the referents of the other meanings of the term "Finnic" are or at least may be disputed and some of them may even be or turn to be obsolete. --Urjanhai (talk) 15:42, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

But still, if the primary meanining in the current reasrch situation would be more and more like that what I assumed above, in older sources other meanings still may occur. (And as said, I am an amateur, not a professesional either in english language or linguistics.)--Urjanhai (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Please move this page back to "Finnic peoples"
I just saw this move and didn't notice the discussion. The term "Baltic Finnic" will end up confusing the group with Baltic peoples and is very rarely used... H2ppyme (talk) 10:45, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Two more problems that I see - the corresponding languages are still called Finnic languages on Wikipedia (as they should), while this article here barely even mentions (long down the line) that they are "often simply referred to as the Finnic peoples", which they are almost universally. H2ppyme (talk) 10:53, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that the word "Baltic" is deeply problematic for ethnic / linguistic articles about "finnic peoples", because it implies a false connection to Baltic languages or Baltic people. Just "Finnic peoples" would be much more clear. Blomsterhagens (talk) 18:25, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

West Finnic peoples

 * West Finnic peoples seems to also be a (less-used) alternative term. Also here. Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Also Western Finnic peoples, which seems to be a more modern usage. Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:35, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Western Finnic seems to also apply for languages. Blomsterhagens (talk) 16:36, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Not a synonym. It may be a descriptive phrase -- the more westerly of the Finnic peoples/languages. If 'Finnic' has the broad sense, then it may be approx synonym to Balto-Finnic, but could also include at least Sami, and if 'Finnic' has its narrow sense, it means western Balto-Finnic. E.g., from your examples,
 * "it may be reasonable to reconstruct a native thunder-god for Western Finnic (Baltic-Finnic, "Volgaic," and perhaps Saamic)"
 * "As docent he not only lectured on metrics, but also on Estonian and word formation in the 'western Finnic languages' (= Balto-Finnic, Lappish and Mordvin)" [and this from a Finnish author published in the USA]
 * "Finnish and the other western Finnic peoples (e.g., Estonians, Saami, and others)"
 * "the western Finnic languages Livonian, Estonian and Finnish" (as opposed to eastern Finnic languages like Udmurt), but then it has "in Russian-influenced eastern Finnic, especially in Vepsian", and "Southern Finnic languages (Estonian, Votic and Livonian)"
 * "The border between Eastern and Western Finnic also divides Finnish into its two primary dialect groups: Eastern and Western."

though also though that same source also says,
 * (4) the Western Finnic group, to which the Finlanders, Chud, Vess, Ests, and Lives belong ; to this group may also be added the Laplanders. [that's arguing that linguistically Sami is closest to Balto-Finnic, so this counts as synonymous]
 * WESTERN FINNIC PEOPLES -- Alt[ernative] des[ignation of] Balto-Finnic peoples.
 * information on the Baltic and Western Finnic peoples
 * (just a comment - without knowing the wider context, I'd interpret the sentence above as "baltic peoples and western finnic peoples"). Blomsterhagens (talk) 19:36, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

which suggests they are not alternative terms.

But most either don't allow a preview or don't define the scope of the term/phrase. — kwami (talk) 19:16, 22 October 2019 (UTC)


 * So maybe this is better to be used on the Finnic peoples page? Blomsterhagens (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Why don't we just move this page back to "Finnic peoples" to not create an extra confusion? Why should "Baltic Finnic peoples" speak "Finnic languages"? H2ppyme (talk) 06:19, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The original reason for the move was that under the term "finnic peoples", sometimes sources can be ambiguous if they mean just the finnic peoples by the baltic sea, or also finnic peoples elsewhere. Sources differ in how the term is used. Although finnic peoples is without a doubt the most common synonym for "baltic finns", etc. The solution can be that the current Finnic peoples disambiguation page should be built out into a full article. Blomsterhagens (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I do deeply dislike the use of "baltic" for "finnic peoples" as the main title, because it adds to the confusion between "baltic finns" and Baltic languages / Baltic people. Maybe "Baltic Sea Finns" or "Western Finnic peoples" would be a better version for this page. Blomsterhagens (talk) 18:22, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * "Finnic peoples by the Baltic Sea" can also be an option. Blomsterhagens (talk) 18:27, 7 December 2019 (UTC)


 * As an amateur in linguistics and a non native user of english I would prefer the usage that occurs in recent reliable sources in english in linguistics withouth having to make original research in naming. In the examples above the term "Western finnic" when speaking about finnic, mordvin and saami language group may be a little oldish, currently the expression "Westren uralic" is preferred, as far as I can remember without checking in the litterature as an amateur. But in any case there will be recent reliable sources in english. This is a term that may occur, because the current view seems to be that these three language groups are closely related genetically. But of course the word "western" also may be used also in less spesific and more general sense in some other contexts. And in some contexts there might be something to be said about the western members of the Finnic language group in the sense of the current article, regardless of what should be the name of this article in english (but this, I think is unusual). Just now I do not have time to go trough the litterature. User:Yupik as a professional in linguistics might be able to say something.--Urjanhai (talk) 18:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)


 * But the above said, I would guess that "Western Finnic people" as the name of this article would for sure be incorrect and even original research, because the term. "Western Finnic" as far as I can understand as an amateur, currently means (at least primarilly, I would guess as an amateur) same as "Western uralic" prople or languages, and these in their turn mean Finnic (in sense of this article, whatever should be the correct name in english) + mordvin + saami as a wider group.--Urjanhai (talk) 18:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Deletion of sourced content for WP:MEDRS
WP:MEDRS is not meant to cover genetic ancestry research which is not linked to any specific medical information, therefore sourced content on the genetic ancestry of Finnic ethnic groups can not be removed for that reason. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Definition?
Before starting this long-winded discussion, you should rather define, or better read the definitions you talk about. One cannot vote about a definition.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:5508:6824:BCFA:951F (talk) 10:59, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Theories of origin
This chapter is full of views and assertions, which are of no use for the reader. Obviously the authors have not been able to understand and describe the arguments. You are obviously unaware of newer glottochronological results (Starostin 2004, Honkola 2013), or biogenetic results (Lamnidis 2018, Tambets 2018), all speaking for an East - West decline. HJHolm (talk) 11:14, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Who is "you"? YOU are an editor too, so instead of making useless comments about assumed abilities of others editors, go ahead and edit what needs to be edited. –Austronesier (talk) 11:22, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Working on many publications, I have not the time, so be content for some hints. Sorry. 2A02:8108:9640:AC3:EC4B:2DBC:3202:1679 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Finnic peoples which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:04, 23 August 2023 (UTC)