Talk:Ethnic Finn

"Tavastian tribe" &mdash; englannissa "heimo" ei ole niinkään tribe. Ei se ole clankaan. Peoplehan olisi jo suurempi ryhmä, mutta ehkä se olisi parempi. --Vuo 20:49, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

About Eastern and Western Finns
[Pertaining to a revert by Tuomas] -- Well, (as you may know) in modern every-day life in Finland such a sub-division into two categories is rare, not fundamentally common or anything like that. Several other sub-divisions are used much more often. It is another thing when talking about the history of Finns, cultural evolution, and so on: there what you say probably is true. I merely think that this should be reflected in the text in some way, but I wasn't sure how to put it. --Jonik 18:01, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, not being a Finn I think I might be disqualified to take part in your dispute, but it's interesting for me as an outsider to notice some kind of collective denial in work here. Relatives in North Karelia and the Savonlinna–Lappeenranta area quite frequently explain their quarrels with them from Tampere–Turku in such terms. ("And they even laugh totally wrong!" &mdash; i.e. not at the same jokes in the TV shows!) Now, I've heard much harsh words about Laestadians and Lapps and about woodland parasites too, so I don't try to support any allegation that the East-West dimension should be the only one. But beside the centrum-periphery dimension, it sure seems pretty much still alive and kicking to me.
 * :-)) --Johan Magnus 18:20, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

'differences between ethnic Finnish and Finland-Swedish culture'
There is no such thing. Finland-Swedes are ethnic Finns. There are certainly differences between the Finnish-language and Finland-Swedish cultures, but that doesn't make the Finland-Swedes an ethnic group of their own. They're just a linguistic group, nothing more. - ulayiti (talk)  18:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I Agree. But is it really true that in wikipedias, there are no articles about ethnic groups, as a principle? We have argued it a bit in Finnish wiki. Höyhens 20:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Renaming the article?
Should this article be renamed 'Finnish people' in order to avoid the endless definition disputes on the term 'ethnic'? (Compare wikipedia articles: English people, Swedish people, Danish people.) Clarifer


 * Hmmm...Sorry, I didn't realise there already was an article on 'Finnish people'. Should this be merged with it? Clarifer

Confusion
I am really confused about the articles 'ethnic Finn' and 'Finnish people'. To my understanding the following might be worth considering here:
 * The four linguistic contexts at work in these articles (English, Finnish, Swedish and Finland-Swedish) do not make similar specifications of the population of Finland.
 * In Finnish the term 'suomalainen' is used for someone who has lived in the country of Finland for a few generations. In the Finnish language the term 'suomenruotsalainen' is used for 'suomalainen' whose mother tongue is Swedish. If one wants to distinguish (on the west-coast of Finland mostly) between Finnish and Swedish speakers, the term in Finnish is 'suomenkielinen'/'ruotsinkielinen' (='Finnish speaker'/'Swedish speaker'). Finnish for 'Swede', on the other hand, is 'ruotsalainen' and is never used for a 'ruotsinkielinen'/'suomenruotsalainen'.
 * In Swedish, on the other hand, there seems to be two usages. One uses 'finne' for 'suomenkielinen' and reserves 'finländare' for 'suomalainen' (the entire Finnish population). The other usage of 'finne' in Swedish is for 'suomalainen', i.e. the entire population of Finland (instead of 'finländare'). These two usages of 'finne' also vary between the Swedish spoken in Sweden and the Swedish spoken in Finland. This is from the Swedish wikipedia: (Dock - och detta gäller särskilt i rikssvenskt språkbruk, där man ofta är helt omedveten om distinktionen finne/finländare - används begreppet "finne" ofta synonymt med "finländare", dvs helt enkelt som beteckning på en person från Finland, oberoende av personens modersmål. Denna användning är inte heller ovanlig i finlandssvenskan, ifall utrymme för missförstånd inte föreligger.)

Now, if you look at other multi-lingual European countries (Belgium, Switzerland) the people there don't even try explaining all this to the English speaking community and there are no such articles as 'Swiss'/'Swiss people' or 'Belgians'/'Belgian people'... Anyways, my suggestion is that all this be included in an article on the Finnish people somehow. Clarifer