Finnish culture in a unified Scandinavia

Hey all, just a thought I had the other day.

In Scotland, the gaelic culture is often seen as the "native" culture that became the minority after english colonizaton/cultural erasure. While it is of course true that gaels lived in Scotland well before germanic people, the dominance of germanic peoples begun with the Scots themselves, not the english. Now obviously a lot of people know this, but the gaels are still sometimes seen as the "true scots". This is of course not to rag down on the scots or call their culture based on lies or whatever.

If a similair situation had happened in Scandinavia, and Sweden somehow became the lesser power in a union, probably under Denmark, would a similar notion happen about finnish culture? Perhaps finnish would be seen as the ur-swedish and finnish mythology, folk costume and language would become an important part of how the swedes seperate themselves from the dominating danes.
 
No.
For one thing, and apart from the furthest north where things get blurry and the Sámi have first dibs,
Finland and Sweden are more clearly demarcated than Scots-speaking Scotland and Gaelic-speaking
Scotland.
The Gaels get seen as/called the "true scots" because there was a time when most of Scotland was
Gaelic-speaking.
 
Sweden would not be a peripheral regional like Scotland was to England in a Scandinavian union, it would be an integral part of it like the Crown of Aragon was to Spain. Sweden's economy and population was far stronger relative to Denmark than Scotland's was to England. The closest analogy to Finland would be Ireland--a peripheral region conquered long ago inhabited by a rather different culture.
 
No.
For one thing, and apart from the furthest north where things get blurry and the Sámi have first dibs,
Finland and Sweden are more clearly demarcated than Scots-speaking Scotland and Gaelic-speaking
Scotland.
The Gaels get seen as/called the "true scots" because there was a time when most of Scotland was
Gaelic-speaking.

Not sure that's true. The Scottish lowlands were Brythonic then Germanic, the northern and western coastlines and highlands were Pictish then Gaelic but areas like Cumberland and Strathclyde remained Brythonic for a while. Not to mention outlying isles had been Norsified to one degree or another...
 
The closest analogy to Finland would be Ireland--a peripheral region conquered long ago inhabited by a rather different culture.
I think one got possibly make a case for a Finland-Scotland analogy (Were the Gaels of Scotland a that much less different culture
than the Irish?), but the important part is that Sweden would be more something like Northumbria (or, say, Northumbria
AND Mercia, or whatever combination makes a reasonable English approximation) than Scotland.

Not sure that's true. The Scottish lowlands were Brythonic then Germanic, the northern and western coastlines and highlands were Pictish then Gaelic but areas like Cumberland and Strathclyde remained Brythonic for a while. Not to mention outlying isles had been Norsified to one degree or another...
That parts of Scotland at earlier points did not or never did speak Gaelic does not change that at one point most of it did
or that there was continuity between the Gaelic-speakers of that time and those of the period where True Scottish Culture!™
became a thing.

Not to mention that, semantically speaking, it is hard to argue that there are truer extant Scots than the ones
speaking the language descended from that of the Scotti...
(Regardless of the origins of that term.)

Do you have another explanation for why the Gaels get seen as/called the "true scots"?
 
I think one got possibly make a case for a Finland-Scotland analogy (Were the Gaels of Scotland a that much less different culture
than the Irish?), but the important part is that Sweden would be more something like Northumbria (or, say, Northumbria
AND Mercia, or whatever combination makes a reasonable English approximation) than Scotland.

Maybe in the sense that the North of England had a huge economic strength in the Industrial Revolution, but not before then where the North of England was weaker. Sweden and Denmark were pretty evenly matched, even before Sweden grabbed Skåne. The relation between the North of England and South of England is likely comparable to what a unified Scandinavia (i.e. surviving Kalmar Union) would have. And once again, you have Finland as a peripheral region, like Wales was for England (Grand Duke of Finland was a title in Sweden, Prince of Wales in England). It could be raised to a kingdom equivalent to Sweden (like Ireland was a kingdom), which would be a fantastic way to weaken Sweden perhaps after a failed revolt (i.e Gustav Vasa).

Point is, Finland is easier to separate from Sweden than the Scottish Highlands are from the Scottish Lowlands. It's likewise easier to draw analogues to Welsh or Irish history (including potential fates of Finland, where it's mostly Swedish/"Norse" speaking with the Finns as a rural minority) than the Scottish Highlands. Culturally, Sweden already has a rich folk culture to draw upon, and it doesn't need to borrow from Finland. Odds are that by the time of romantic nationalism TTL, Swedish succession will make as much sense as Northern England leaving Southern England--just a fringe opinion, even if Stockholm and Copenhagen are often at each others throats.

Not to mention that, semantically speaking, it is hard to argue that there are truer extant Scots than the ones
speaking the language descended from that of the Scotti...
(Regardless of the origins of that term.)

Do you have another explanation for why the Gaels get seen as/called the "true scots"?

William Wallace is as true a Scot as they come, yet his surname has the same root as "Welsh" and his ancestors were Cumbrians.
 
That parts of Scotland at earlier points did not or never did speak Gaelic does not change that at one point most of it did,or that there was continuity between the Gaelic-speakers of that time and those of the period where True Scottish Culture!™ became a thing. Not to mention that, semantically speaking, it is hard to argue that there are truer extant Scots than the ones speaking the language descended from that of the Scotti... (Regardless of the origins of that term.)

Do you have another explanation for why the Gaels get seen as/called the "true scots"?

Here's the timeline as I understand it:

The Gaels of Ireland migrate into the Hebrides, forming the kingdom of Dal Riada. The kings of Dal Riada and the Gaels migrated into Pictish lands (possibly Brythonic) in the highlands of what is now Scotland. The Gaels and Picts become one people as the Gaels conquer and subdue native Pictish kings, forming the Kingdom of Alba. This process was concluded around the 10th century.

At the same time, regions such as Cumberland, Galloway, Lothian and Strathclyde were Brythonic. Lothian fell to Germanic migrants and was ruled from Northumbria while the others were firmly Brythonic for the longest time. Enter the Viking Age, where the Norse settle in Dal Riada, the northern islands and Galloway, merging with the residing Brythonic and Gaelic people and becoming known as Norse-Gaels.

Galloway, Lothian and Strathclyde were only subdued by the 11th century, which was the zenith period for Gaelic use in Scotland. However, by the 12th century an influx of English, Flemish and Norman families migrant into Scotland at the invitation of King David of Scotland, the son of an Anglo-Saxon princess who brought Anglo-Saxon language and presence into the royal court. The migrating families supplant many of the native rebellious Gaelic families, leading to families like the Bruces, Flemings, Stuarts and Wallaces among others to enter.

At this point, Gaelic is seen as an eastern or rural language for clans and peasantry, confined to Carrick, Galloway, Highland and Isles. Meanwhile, Scots or Scottish English (which had withstood the Gaelic heyday not a century prior) became the prestige language of Scottish aristocracy, replacing even Latin from the 14th century onwards. Patriotic literature like The Bruce (1375) and The Wallace (pre-1488) are written in Scots not Gaelic (which double makes sense, because both the Bruce and Wallace families were not Gaelic).

By the 16th century, Scots (or Scottish English) is firmly established as the language of Scotland, with Gaelic rebranded as 'Irish'. Scots undergoes attrition from the 16th century onwards, aligning more and more with English proper. Events like the Highland Clearances further diminish the strength of the Gaelic tongue, with Gaelic officially excluded from the Scottish educational system.

Of course, Gaelic and Welsh revival efforts in the 1800s and 1900s did happen and began reversing centuries of Englishification, with famous artists, poets and writers contributing to the reawakening of Irish, Manx, Scottish and Welsh cultural identities...

So here's how I see it. The Gaelic migrations did in fact lead to the formation of a Scottish nation, one derived from the union of Gaelic and Pictish people and the subsequent suppression of the latter by the former. However, the Gaels themselves were also united with the Norse in their original Scottish homelands, and united then with Anglo-Saxons of Lothian and Brythonics of Galloway and Strathclyde. Just as there was a linguistic shift from Pictish to Gaelic, so there was a shift from Gaelic to Scots to Scottish English. The 'realm' went from Dal Riada and Pictland to Alba to Scotland, and as it did so the Scottish identity evolved. To say that only the Gaelic Scottish are the true Scottish is a romanticization of the centralization of royal authority.

The Gaels were culturally isolated from the halls of power to be sure, but so were the Britons and the Norse. The migrants from continental Europe were assimilated into the royalist or western Scottish identity, and efforts by eastern or rural Gaelic Scots to maintain their autonomy and privilege were centered around just that and not necessarily securing their linguistic heritage. The Norse-Gaelic MacDonalds of the Isles were just as suppressed as the Norman Comyns of Badenoch, for example, and heroes of Scottish history like William Wallace weren't necessarily Gaelic in heritage. That didn't mean they were any less patriotic or Scottish, just that they were a different strain of Scottish.
 
It’ll play up more like OTL, prior to Sweden losing Finland. The Finns will probably resemble the Irish as the analogy, a distant yet close people group in the empire.
 
Maybe in the sense that the North of England had a huge economic strength in the Industrial Revolution, but not before then where the North of England was weaker.
I was thinking more in terms of Sweden not being Scotland, but basically another England or an as
comparable part of England as the one that would represent Denmark.
We probably should not be thinking to literally analogical.

Point is, Finland is easier to separate from Sweden than the Scottish Highlands are from the Scottish Lowlands.
I thought I made that point in Post #2...

William Wallace is as true a Scot as they come, yet his surname has the same root as "Welsh" and his ancestors were Cumbrians.
The veracity of any individual's Scottishness is irrelevant to the perception that True Scottishness!™
involves tartan, bagpipes, big red beards and Gaelic...

Here's the timeline as I understand it:
You know, if you have issues that the idea that
the gaels are still sometimes seen as the "true scots".
you might want to take it up with the person making the observation, and who also made the
observation that this is, in fact, inaccurate, rather than with the person who elaborated on why
the perception exists.
And maybe adress the existence of the perception, not why it is inaccurate, which is not in dispute.

To say that only the Gaelic Scottish are the true Scottish is a romanticization
Why, yes, that was the point that was being made. (Combined with "If you're trying to differentiate
yourself (your nation) from the English it makes sense to depict and emphasise the one not speaking an
English dialect and seeming to have a more romantically traditional lifestyle as the True Exemplars Of The
Nation". Which, of course, is romanticization.)
The question asked is, after all, "If Scandinavia was united with Denmark on top like England is on top of
the UK, would Sweden romanticize the Finns the way Scotland romanticizes/romaticized the Gaels?".
 
In a unified Scandinavia there is probably a unified Scandinavian language and the Finnish language becomes a suppressed minority language. Finnish for a long time was a strictly oral language ; aside from the Bible, no books were written in it until the late XIX century, when the first Finnish novel was finally written. Swedish had been the language of prestige and part of why Finnish revived was because Russia now ruled it. It's not that hard to imagine an ATL where Finnish simply never becomes a literary language, and then as society becomes literate, it declines.
 
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In a unified Scandinavia there is probably a unified Scandinavian language and the Finnish language becomes a suppressed minority language. Finnish for a long time was a strictly oral language, aside from the Bible, no books were written in it until the late XIX century. The first Finnish novel was only written then. Swedish had been the language of prestige and part of why Finnish revived was because Russia now ruled it.

So, with a far enough POD, Finnish could have become just another East Scandinavian language and OTL Finnish be a minority language known as Suomi?
 
So, with a far enough POD, Finnish could have become just another East Scandinavian language and OTL Finnish be a minority language known as Suomi?

I think so. If Sweden had not lost Finland in the Napoleonic era, the process of assimilation may have been completed and we might think of it today as Eastern Sweden, with a small patois (Finnish) speaking minority scattered around.

No.
For one thing, and apart from the furthest north where things get blurry and the Sámi have first dibs,
Finland and Sweden are more clearly demarcated than Scots-speaking Scotland and Gaelic-speaking
Scotland.

They were significantly less so 200 years ago. Two centuries of political separation have allowed Finnish culture to revive.
 
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It really depend on when the Nordic countries unite, a surviving Kalmar Union will be radical different from Sweden conquer Denmark in 1657-60, which again will look radical different from the Danish king being elected as king of Sweden in the 18th century.
 
I think so. If Sweden had not lost Finland in the Napoleonic era, the process of assimilation may have been completed and we might think of it today as Eastern Sweden, with a small patois (Finnish) speaking minority scattered around.
Demographic data supports this hypothesis: mid-18th century Finland was inhabited only by slightly more than four hundred thousand people, and only about 83% of those actually spoke Finnish, so, even without actively suppressing their native language, Sweden could have digested and assimilated the Finns without a hitch.
 
So, with a far enough POD, Finnish could have become just another East Scandinavian language and OTL Finnish be a minority language known as Suomi?

No, it would be known as Finnish by foreigners and Suomi/Suomen kieli by its speakers while the majority of people of Finland speak Norse, and would likely have activists ranging from artists, writers, etc. to outright terrorists IRA/ETA/etc. style.

They were significantly less so 200 years ago. Two centuries of political separation have allowed Finnish culture to revive.

It was still a clearly separate part of Sweden from early times, even if its ruling class were Swedes.
 
It was still a clearly separate part of Sweden from early times, even if its ruling class were Swedes.

It was certainly different, but more different than Highland to Lowland Scotland at that time? I'm not sure. We look at it now through the OTL lens where Finnish is a full national language and not just what peasants spoke to each other (when they had to write, it was in Swedish).
 
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I thought he was saying that the name "Finnish" would now be given to the dialect of Scandinavian (or Swedish) spoken in Finland, and OTL Finnish would be called by another name (Suomi?) because it would not be considered the language of the Finns anymore.
Suomi is how the Finns call themselves. If their native language was displaced that's probably how we would call them and their tongue, like we do with the Sami people.
 
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