Klevius history lesson about the origin of the Finland-Swedes

                Klevius Historia Finlandia

An extremely brief background/overview to why the early Finland-Swedes came to conquer the world - twice (Goths, Vikings), or more

Acknowledgement: It's extremely problematic and embarrassing for Klevius as a Finland-Swede, and as a person who brags about self-criticism being his main scientific tool, to end up with his own ethnicity as having been a major global player in the past. However, there are some mitigating excuses. So for example, what made some Finland-Swedes to become Goths and Vikings etc. were not necessarily the most sought after human characteristics. Moreover, those Finland-Swedes who didn't participate became today's tiny and on the verge of extinction Finland-Swedish community, linguistically bullied by the Finns (language) as well as the Swedes (accent/dialects).

The oldest runic inscription is Finnish

This is the oldest runic inscription found. It says HARJA which is exactly the same as 'harja', meaning comb or , brush or ridge, in modern Finnish. The word is etymologically very old and had this Finnish form when the comb was made, i.e. it cannot be confused with some non-Finnish interpretation. Moreover, the word is found in all sister languages. The possibly related Baltic (or other) words do not resemble it at all neither now nor back then. The comb was found in Denmark and is dated to 160 CE (same time as the birth of Fornjotr, king of Kvenland and Gotland).

Warning! There are many confused "scientists" out there emotionally trying to dismiss the Nordic origin of the Goths. I even stumbled on one who thought that different spellings would mean different groups. Spellings etc don't matter here. Just like 'Vikings' the 'Goths' is more of a concept than a specific ethnicity.

The name 'Goth' (in its many variants) reflects the fact that it's not only thoroughly anchored in a Finnish-Old Nordic geographical/linguistic area and context but also that Gothic is linguistically puzzling if you don't see it as an Uralic colored form of Old Nordic. Moreover, genetics is still in its cradle and hence an extremely fragile tool. Only very crude main chronologies can so far be established and even shallow dives result in progressive guesswork at best, no matter how fancy math and graphs are produced. Klevius will explain more on this exciting topic later.


To understand the confusing picture about Finnish-Old Nordic relations that seems to emerge, one has to consider the relation between Indoeuropean and Uralic/Finnish languages. Both groups stem from geographically overlapping areas. However, whereas the former was more sedentary and farming oriented the latter was more rooted in a hunter-gatherer context.

As we all know agricultural societies gathered more wealth and population. So when they moved north the Germanic tribes tended to follow a path more favorable for farming. This is how the linguistic map evolved in northern Europe, divided between the Finnish related Sami, Finns and Germanic tribes.


For those less well orientated in the topic Klevius offers the following timeline:

Before any Indoeuropean language was around (such as e.g. Old Nordic/Old Norse) the entire northern Eurasia belonged to a hypothetical Eurasiatic language family inhabited by hunter-gatherers. From this Eurasiatic/Altaic source emerged the proto-Uralic language family which came to partially rub its shoulders with the Indoeuropean farming community that emerged.

Finnish belongs to a non-Indoeuropean, Uralic language group which populated much of what is now northern Russia.

Before, and partly during the Viking age, Finnish speaking tribes still occupied what is now Slavic territories (Slavic languages are Indoeuropean).

The birth of the Finland-Swedes long before there were any Danes or Norwegians

Finland is called the 'land of the thousand lakes' and is just an extension of similar lowland river and lake systems in what is now Russia. This made the Finns masters of boating.

The northern Germanic (Indoeuropean) tribes and the Finnish (Uralic) tribes met in the Finnish and Swedish archepelago between Stockholm and Turku (Åbo). The Swedish part is still called Roslagen (compare 'rus' and 'Ruotsi', the Finnsh name for Sweden/Swedish).

Due to the fact that the agrarian Swedes/Old Nordic/Germanic were more sedentary, wealthy and populous, the Finns were the ones who had to learn Old-Nordic, not vice versa. Voila, the Finland-Swedes were born.

Due to 1) language the Finland-Swedes (Goths?) were able to communicate with all people in northern Europe, incl. the Samis, and due to 2) their widespread boating network and their less dependency on a sedentary lifestyle, a part of them became succesful tradesmen and pirates.

Trade and piracy may lead not only to wealth but also to militant power. This is how some Finland-Swedes (Goths?) managed to take over leading positions outside their home turf. This pattern is then repeated around the trading/raiding routes to an extent that feeds itself in a pattern familiar for historians studying Goths and Vikings.

PS. Dear reader, I assume you already understand the difference between linguistic and genetic traces.

More details will be filled in later on - I do have a life to live.

(intellectual copyright Peter Klevius).