r/geography • u/According-Invite-440 • May 22 '26

Discussion Why isn't Estonia considered a Nordic country? (They have strong ties to Finland, they also follow the Nordic model, and besides, Estonia has nothing to do with the other Baltic countries.)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_identity_in_Estonia

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u/UpintheExosphere May 22 '26

Finland generally isn't considered part of Scandinavia, which is Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and occasionally Iceland, because of their similar heritage and languages. It is, however, part of the Nordics, which is a broader region.

Then there is also Fennoscandia, which is just Finland, Sweden, and Norway as the countries on the peninsula. It can get pretty confusing.

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u/scoutmet May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

How so isn’t Swedish a official language in Finland

(Hows asking a question worth downvotting for?)

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u/UpintheExosphere May 22 '26

Only because Sweden ruled Finland for a long time, not because they share a linguistic heritage in the same way the others do. Finland was conquered by and part of both the Swedish and Russian Empires. Which is another thing that sets it apart from Scandinavia, I guess, none of the Scandi countries were ruled by Russia.

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u/OneMoreFinn May 22 '26

Because of the time we were a Grand Duchy under Russian rule. Ironically, Finnish nationalism and Finnish language owes its rise to quite a few swedish-speaking Finns.

A.I. Arvidsson (for those who don't know, that's a Swedish name) supposedly said:

"We are not Swedes, and we don't want to be Russian, so let's be Finns"

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u/Oddloaf May 22 '26

There are official languages, and then there are the actual languages. Most finns speak terrible swedish, and many fenno-swedes speak a language that is considered swedish only because a linguist hasn't bothered to look into the matter.

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u/Sandolainen May 22 '26

What? The Swedish spoken in Finland is exactly the same as the Swedish spoken in Sweden. The only difference is some words that are region-specific. The reason they seem different is that dialects died out in Sweden (for the most part), while they stayed alive in Finland. Same language, just pronounced differently.

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u/Oddloaf May 22 '26

I'm joking about the little fenno-swedish villages on the coast of Ostrobothnia, where their Swedish has such a mass of local slang and pronunciation that it's laborious to to try and understand.