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Finns or Finnish people (, ) are a Baltic Finns 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 [1] 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 language, 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 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 Finnish tribes]] (), 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 Swedish Finns, 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.
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 Finnish 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.
(in Finnish) This research also supports the earlier hypothesis that the designation Suomi started out as the designation for Southwest Finland (Finland Proper, Varsinais-Suomi) 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.
The first known mention of Finns is in the Old English poem Widsith which was compiled in the 10th century, though its contents are believed to be older. Among the first written sources possibly designating western Finland as the land of Finns are also two rune stones. One of these is in Söderby, Sweden, with the inscription finlont (U 582), and the other is in Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, with the inscription finlandi (G 319 M) dating from the 11th century.
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 had 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.
Christianity was introduced to Finns from both the west and the east. Swedish kings conquered western parts of Finland in the late 13th century, imposing Roman Catholicism. Reformation in Sweden had the important effect that bishop Mikael Agricola, a student of Martin Luther's, introduced written Finnish, and literacy became common during the 18th century. When Finland became independent, it was overwhelmingly Lutheranism. A small number of Eastern Orthodox Finns were also included, thus the Finnish government recognized both religions as "national religions". In 2017 70.9% of the population of Finland belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, 1.1% to the Finnish Orthodox Church, 1.6% to other religious groups and 26.3% had no religious affiliation. Whereas, in Russian Ingria, there were both Lutheran and Orthodox Finns; the former were identified as Ingrian Finns while the latter were considered Izhorians or Karelians.
The historical provinces of Finland can be seen to approximate some of these divisions. The regions of Finland, another remnant of a past governing system, can be seen to reflect a further manifestation of a local identity.
Journalist toured Finland in 1984 and looked into people's traditional and contemporary understanding of the heimos, listing them as follows: Tavastians (hämäläiset), Ostrobothnians (pohjalaiset), Lapland Finns (lappilaiset), Finns proper (varsinaissuomalaiset), Savonians (savolaiset), Kainuu Finns (kainuulaiset), and Finnish Karelians (karjalaiset). (1985). 9789513533861, Weilin+Göös. ISBN 9789513533861
Today the importance of the tribal (heimo) identity generally depends on the region. It is strongest among the Karelians, Savonians and South Ostrobothnians.
The Sweden Finns are either native to Sweden or have emigrated from Finland to Sweden. An estimated 450,000 first- or second-generation immigrants from Finland live in Sweden, of which approximately half speak Finnish language. The majority moved from Finland to Sweden following the Second World War, contributing and taking advantage of the rapidly expanding Swedish economy. This emigration peaked in 1970 and has been declining since. There is also Meänkieli, a language developed in partial isolation from standard Finnish, spoken by three minorities, Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset, in the border area of northern Sweden. The Finnish language as well as Meänkieli are recognized as official minority languages in Sweden.
With regard to the Y-chromosome, the most common haplogroups of the Finns is N1c, as it is carried by 58–64 percent of Finnish men. N1c, which is found mainly in a few countries in Europe (Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia), is a subgroup of the haplogroup N distributed across northern Eurasia and suggested to have entered Europe from Siberia. The haplogroup N is typical for Uralic-speaking peoples. Other Y-DNA haplogroups among Finns include I1a (25 %), R1a (4.3 %), and R1b (3.5 %). Finns are genetically closest to Karelians, a fellow Balto-Finnic group.Lang, Valter (2020). Homo Fennicus – Itämerensuomalaisten etnohistoria. Finnish Literature Society. p. 95. Finns and Karelians form a cluster with another Balto-Finnic people, the Vepsians. They show relative affinity to Northern Russians as well, who are known to be at least partially descended from Finno-Ugric-speakers who inhabited Northwestern Russia before the Slavs. When not compared to these groups, Finns have been found to cluster apart from their neighboring populations, forming outlier clusters. They are shifted away from the cline that most Europeans belong to towards geographically distant Uralic-speakers like the Udmurts and Mari people (while remaining genetically distant from them as well). Their distance from Western Europeans is about the same as their distance from Komi peoples. The Balto-Finnic Estonians are among the genetically closest populations of Finns, but they are less isolated from the European cluster than Finns. Swedes, while being distinct from the Finns, are also closer to Finns than most European populations. Finns being an outlier population has to do with their gene pool having reduced diversity and differences in admixture, including Asian influence, compared to most Europeans. In general, Europeans can be modelled to have three ancestral components (hunter-gatherer, early European farmer and steppe), but this model does not work as such for some northeastern European populations, like the Finns and the Sami. While their genome is still mostly European, they also have some additional East Eurasian ancestry (varies from 5 up to 10–13 % in Finns). This component is most likely Siberia-related, best represented by the north Siberian Nganasan people. The specific Siberian-like ancestry is suggested to have arrived in Northern Europe during the early Iron Age, linked to the arrival of Uralic languages. Finns have high steppe or Corded Ware culture-like admixture, and they have less farmer-related and more hunter-gatherer-related admixture than Scandinavians and West and Central Europeans. share more identity-by-descent (IBD) segments with several other Uralic-speaking peoples, including groups like Estonians, the Sami and the geographically distant Komis and Nganasans, than with their Indo-European-speaking neighbours. This is consistent with the idea that the Uralic peoples share common roots to some degree. Finnish genes being often described as homogeneous does not mean that there is no regional variation within Finns. Finns can be roughly divided into Western and Eastern (or Southwestern and Northeastern) Finnish sub-clusters, which in a fine-scale analysis contain more precise clusters that are consistent with traditional dialect areas. When looking at the fixation index (FST) values, the distance within Finns from different parts of the same country is exceptional in Europe. The distance between Western and Eastern Finns is higher than the distance between many European groups from different countries, such as the British people and Northern Germans. This is also noticeable in the distances of Finns from other Europeans, as the isolation is even more profound in Eastern Finns than in Western Finns. The division is related to the later settlement of Eastern Finland by a small number of Finns, who then experienced separate founder and bottleneck effects and genetic drift. Eastern Finns also have a higher portion of autosomal Siberian admixture and a higher frequency of the Y-haplogroup N1c (71.6%). While N1c is the most common haplogroup in Western Finland as well (53.8%), the haplogroup I1a is found more often there (30.9%) than it is in Eastern and Northern Finland (19%).Assessing Finnish Y-chromosomal haplogroups using genotyping array data – Towards understanding the role of Y in complex disease – Annina Preussner 2021 University of Helsinki This suggests that there is an additional Western component in the Western Finnish gene pool.Lang, Valter (2020). Homo Fennicus – Itämerensuomalaisten etnohistoria. Finnish Literature Society. p. 94. Despite the differences, the IBS analysis points out that Western and Eastern Finns share overall a largely similar genetic foundation.
Until the 1970s, most linguists believed that Finns arrived in Finland as late as the first century AD. However, accumulating archaeological data suggests that the area of contemporary Finland had been inhabited continuously since the end of the ice age, contrary to the earlier idea that the area had experienced long uninhabited intervals. The hunter-gatherer Sámi were pushed into the more remote northern regions. Aikio, A & Aikio, A. (2001). Heimovaelluksista jatkuvuuteen – suomalaisen väestöhistorian tutkimuksen pirstoutuminen. Muinaistutkija 4/2001. Retrieved 1-7-2008
A hugely controversial theory is so-called refugia. This was proposed in the 1990s by Kalevi Wiik, a professor emeritus of phonetics at the University of Turku. According to this theory, Finno-Ugric speakers spread north as the Ice age ended. They populated central and northern Europe, while Basque language speakers populated western Europe. As agriculture spread from the southeast into Europe, the Indo-European languages spread among the hunter-gatherers. In this process, both the hunter-gatherers speaking Finno-Ugric and those speaking Basque learned how to cultivate land and became Indo-Europeanized. According to Wiik, this is how the Celtic languages, Germanic, Slavic languages, and Baltic languages were formed. The linguistic ancestors of modern Finns did not switch their language due to their isolated location. The main supporters of Wiik's theory are Professor Ago Künnap of the University of Tartu, Professor Kyösti Julku of the University of Oulu and Associate Professor Angela Marcantonio of the University of Rome. Wiik has not presented his theories in peer-reviewed scientific publications. Many scholars in Finno-Ugrian studies have strongly criticized the theory. Professor Raimo Anttila, Petri Kallio and brothers Ante and Aslak Aikio have rejected Wiik's theory with strong words, hinting strongly to pseudoscience, and even alt-right political among Wiik's supporters. Moreover, some dismissed the entire idea of refugia, due to the existence even today of arctic and subarctic peoples. The most heated debate took place in the Finnish journal Kaltio during autumn 2002. Since then, the debate has calmed, each side retaining their positions.The debate (in Finnish) is accessible in Kaltio's website . Retrieved 1 July 2008. Genotype analyses across the greater European genetic landscape have provided some credibility to the theory of the Last Glacial Maximum refugia. But this does not in any way corroborate or prove that these 'refugia' spoke Uralic/Finnic, as it belies wholly independent variables that are not necessarily coeval (i.e. language spreads and genetic expansions can occur independently, at different times and in different directions).
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