Originally Posted by
earth Most of Western and Southern Finland was originally settled by Swedes, and Finland in its entirety used to be a part of Sweden. The first official language of Finland was Swedish. Swedes built the cities in the West and South and all over the place, and started the oldest Finnish universities. "Finland" and "Finn" are Swedish words.
Oh boy, oh boy.
Well, there was a recent study that revealed that Swedes actually know very little about Finnish history and Finland, and the younger they were the worse their ignorance.
Applying your "logic" here on NA, basically you're trying to claim that present day North American indigenous peoples are of English origin as evidenced by the fact that most of them speak English and that North America was "originally" "settled" by the English.
FYI, Finland was settled by Finnic and Sami peoples. The very reason why Finland is not your fellow Indo-European Scandinavian country but a Finno-Ugric country totally a breed apart. The Swedish occupation of Finland did not began until after some 10,000 years later, in the Viking age. The small groups of Swedes who settled in Finland married and assimilated with the native Finnish-speaking Finnic peoples of the land. My DH is not a Swedish-speaking monolingual Finn: he's a bilingual Finn whose mother tongue is Swedish and whose home and everyday language is Finnish, which he speaks fluently. That's the reality.
The reason why the native Finno-Ugric people of Finland adopted Sweden as their language is the same one that made the Native North Americans learn English, French, and Spanish, the native peoples in the British Raj and British-occupied Palestine learn English, and the Finns in the Grand Duchy of Finland to ditch Swedish in favor of Russian. Because those were the languages of the conquerers and occupiers with bigger swords and guns.
Also FYI, Finland's name is
Suomi. Suomi is populated by
suomalaiset who speak
suomea and
ruotsia and saamelaiskieliä.
Originally Posted by
earth The population of Åland is ethnically Swedish and Swedish-speaking. Genetic studies have showed that Swedish-speaking Finns have greater affinity with Swedes than other Finns.
Yes, the population of Åland is something else. Unlike Finland, Åland is and has never been Finnish and Finnic.
Originally Posted by
earth Genetic studies have showed that Swedish-speaking Finns have greater affinity with Swedes than other Finns.
"
Genetic studies", now really? Are we talking about eugenics or something? Like, my kids have 1/89th of Swedish "blood" or something that inexorably makes them like the Swedes even against their own will?
Surely you mean linguistic studies. And FYI, Erik Allardt et al found exactly that language alone does not affinity make: geography and geopolitics do. The Swedish-speaking Finns in the Helsinki area identified most strongly with Finnish-speaking Finns of the same area and had the weakest affinity with the Swedes. Historically, a bourgeois Swedish-speaking Nyland family like my DH's had close ties to Germany, not Sweden, followed by St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Baltic states. In the Torne river valley on the Swedish border, both the Finnish-speaking Finns, Swedish-speaking Finns, and Sami-speaking Finns identified more strongly with their neighbours the Swedes across the river, regardless of mother tongue.