# Nordic <> Scandinavian



## FMSaigon

Sorry for nit-picking, but as a new user I automatically clicked Nordic forum and started scrolling down to browse for Finnish questions (I noted the moderator was also using a Finnish username). Later I figured out there is a separate Finnish forum. As far as I know there is a very clear definition that Nordic means Scandinavia + Finland, if I recall I learned this year 5 in elementary school.. 
Anyway, further educating myself on Wikipedia I see their term is North Germanic languages, sometimes called Scandinavian languages.. sometimes referred to as Nordic languages.. in Scandinavia, Scandinavian languages exclude Icelandic and Faroese. (perhaps you should add 'not Finnish' to the description, if this is the term you choose to use?) Thanks


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## AutumnOwl

It's true that when speaking of Norden/Nordic countries in a geological and geopolitical sense it's the countries it means the countries on the Scandinavian peninsula and Finland, but when it comes to the study of languages in schools in Sweden, be it at primary level or at universities, when talking about the Nordic languages it means the study of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic and Faroese. Here's a link to the Swedish National Agency for Education and their page about Nordic language studies: http://www.skolverket.se/skolutveckling/larande/sprak/nordiska-sprak It also says that there are other languages in the Nordic countries that are not Nordic languages, Finnish is one of them, the Samic languages are other ones. So to call this forum Nordic languages is correct according to educational system here in Sweden (and probably also in the other Nordic countries).


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## NorwegianNYC

'Nordic' is a geographical, political and cultural term. 'Scandinavian' pertains to language, but also to the countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway as one. 'Continental Scandinavian' is essentially the same language (and internationally it is often considered so), whereas 'Insular Scandinavian' consists of Icelandic and Faroese - not mutually intelligible with each other, nor the continental variants.


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## Sepia

FMSaigon said:


> Sorry for nit-picking, but as a new user I automatically clicked Nordic forum and started scrolling down to browse for Finnish questions (I noted the moderator was also using a Finnish username). Later I figured out there is a separate Finnish forum. As far as I know there is a very clear definition that Nordic means Scandinavia + Finland, if I recall I learned this year 5 in elementary school..
> Anyway, further educating myself on Wikipedia I see their term is North Germanic languages, sometimes called Scandinavian languages.. sometimes referred to as Nordic languages.. in Scandinavia, Scandinavian languages exclude Icelandic and Faroese. (perhaps you should add 'not Finnish' to the description, if this is the term you choose to use?) Thanks



"The Nordic Countries" are a political entity - a cooperation between Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. It was even before the EU a free trade zone and a zone of free movement without passports or residence permits required from the citizens of the member countries.

Linguistically, why would you add Finnish to Scandinavian? - it is not even an Indo-European language.


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## myšlenka

FMSaigon said:


> Sorry for nit-picking, but as a new user I automatically clicked Nordic forum and started scrolling down to browse for Finnish questions [....]


The term _Nordic_ is perhaps imprecise in itself. However, the forum _Nordic languages_ is sorted under _Other Germanic Languages_ so I am surprised you expect to find Finnish in that group.


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## Ben Jamin

myšlenka said:


> The term _Nordic_ is perhaps imprecise in itself. However, the forum _Nordic languages_ is sorted under _Other Germanic Languages_ so I am surprised you expect to find Finnish in that group.


It would be better to call it "North Germanic Languages".


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## Sepia

Ben Jamin said:


> It would be better to call it "North Germanic Languages".



That would exclude Finnish. I don't see Nordic as a linguistic group rather than the languages that are the official languages of De Nordiske Lande. And it is clear what that means, I suppose?


....


When I come to think of it - if the Nordic threads should really cover all languages from the Nordic Countries the question would not only be if Finnish would be included but also if Inuit would be since Greenland still more or less is a part of Denmark and Greenland-Inuit is an official language along with Danish up there. 

However, when you look at their official government website it is not really clear who they belong to.


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## AutumnOwl

Sepia said:


> When I come to think of it - if the Nordic threads should really cover all languages from the Nordic Countries the question would not only be if Finnish would be included but also if Inuit would be since Greenland still more or less is a part of Denmark and Greenland-Inuit is an official language along with Danish up there.


In that case shouldn't also the four other Swedish minority languages besides Finnish be represented here: Sami, Yiddish, Romani and Meänkieli?


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## NorwegianNYC

Depending on how one counts this (it varies), the North Germanic languages consist of:

The Insular Scandinavian languages: Faroese, Icelandic
The Continental Scandinavian languages: (1) Norwegian, Swedish, Danish // (2) Swedo-Norwegian (East Scandinavian), Danish/Scanian (South Scandinavian)
Partly recognized regional languages: Guthnish, Dalsmål (or Dalecarlian)


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## Gavril

Ben Jamin said:


> It would be better to call it "North Germanic Languages".



Seconded.


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## AutumnOwl

Gavril said:


> Seconded.


So you mean that the Swedish National Agency for Education should change its name for its curriculum for studies in Norwegian and Danish?


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## Gavril

AutumnOwl said:


> So you mean that the Swedish National Agency for Education should change its name for its curriculum for studies in Norwegian and Danish?



I was only saying that I (like Ben Jamin) would prefer for this forum to be called "North Germanic languages", since in English the term "Nordic languages" covers more languages than just North Germanic.


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## AutumnOwl

In Swedish we can say _nordiska språk_ or _språken i Norden_, for me the first means Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, the second means all the languages spoken in the Nordic countries (Finnish, Samic, Meänkieli, Yiddish, Romani and others), the English term Nordic languages doesn't seem to differentiate these two meanings.


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## Gavril

AutumnOwl said:


> In Swedish we can say _nordiska språk_ or _språken i Norden_, for me the first means Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, the second means all the languages spoken in the Nordic countries (Finnish, Samic, Meänkieli, Yiddish, Romani and others), the English term Nordic languages doesn't seem to differentiate these two meanings.



Regardless of how these Swedish terms are used, I think that most English speakers will understand "Nordic languages" to mean the languages of the Nordic countries, and if these countries are understood to include Finland, then the Nordic languages will be understood to include Finnish. Since this message board discusses only the indigenous Germanic languages of the Nordic countries, then "North Germanic languages" is a more accurate name for it.


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## AutumnOwl

But it might confuse those of the Nordic countries who don't have English as their native language and are not familiar with linguistics. To them the term North Germanic languages might very likely be understood as the German spoken in the north of Germany, and not as the languages in the Scandinavian countries. That is how I would have interpreted it if this had been named the North Germanic Language forum when I first visited the Wordreference forums. (And the forum named Suomi (Finnish) should change its name to Suomen kieli, as Suomi means Finland and there are two different official languages in Finland.)


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## Havfruen

What about calling it "Continental and Insular Scandinavian languages" ? or "Continental and Insular Scandinavian / North Germanic languages"? 

It is worth noting that whatever the name, the languages included are listed as a subtitle.


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## Gavril

AutumnOwl said:


> But it might confuse those of the Nordic countries who don't have English as their native language and are not familiar with linguistics. To them the term North Germanic languages might very likely be understood as the German spoken in the north of Germany, and not as the languages in the Scandinavian countries.



With all due respect, this kind of confusion seems much less likely to happen than confusion created by the current name "Nordic Languages": there have already been several cases (besides that of the original poster in this thread) where the term "Nordic languages" had misled people to think that this is the forum for asking Finnish-related questions.



> (And the forum named Suomi (Finnish) should change its name to Suomen kieli, as Suomi means Finland and there are two different official languages in Finland.)



Suomi (uppercase) = Finland
suomi (lowercase) = suomen kieli = the Finnish language



Havfruen said:


> What about calling it "Continental and Insular Scandinavian languages" ? or "Continental and Insular Scandinavian / North Germanic languages"?



Is "Insular Scandinavian" widely understood to include Icelandic and Faroese?


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## Sepia

AutumnOwl said:


> In Swedish we can say _nordiska språk_ or _språken i Norden_, for me the first means Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, the second means all the languages spoken in the Nordic countries (Finnish, Samic, Meänkieli, Yiddish, Romani and others), the English term Nordic languages doesn't seem to differentiate these two meanings.




Why would you include Yiddish, Romani. Do they have any history of belonging to these areas?


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## FMSaigon

Lively discussion here, I should disclose that I am actually quite fluent in Finnish and Swedish. Nordic excluding Finnish feels strange but if that is the native usage, I would say less confusing than North Germanic, which would be equally confusing to everyone I imagine. Scandinavian languages would be easier to understand, I suppose not many people would look elsewhere for Icelandic..


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## NorwegianNYC

Well, the languages ARE North Germanic. 'Scandinavian' is just a colloquialism.


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## Sepia

NorwegianNYC said:


> Well, the languages ARE North Germanic. 'Scandinavian' is just a colloquialism.



Exactly. You can't base terminology on the thesis "that somebody might misunderstand it and think it means something else". 

If they don't know that the syllable "ic" at the end makes Germanic mean something different than German there is really nothing one can do about that. Except that someone should pick up an encyclopedia and read what it means.

And still "Nordic" and "Scandinavian" mean different things.


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## jonquiliser

Well, the institution for studying nordic languages in the university of Helsinki used to be called like that - nordic languages / nordiska språk, meaning the germanic languages spoken in the Nordic countries. For whatever weight it might or might not have.


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## Gavril

jonquiliser said:


> Well, the institution for studying nordic languages in the university of Helsinki used to be called like that - nordic languages / nordiska språk, meaning the germanic languages spoken in the Nordic countries. For whatever weight it might or might not have.



According to the university's website, this department is now called "Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies" in English, and "Finska, finskugriska och nordiska institutionen" in Swedish.

In other words, it seems as though a different word than "Nordic" has been chosen to translate Swedish "nordisk(a)" into English in this case as well.


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