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Finnic peoples (Fennic, sometimes Baltic-Finnic) can be considered those peoples that speak a Baltic-Finnic language as a mother tongue. Whether and to what extent the descent of languages and their current distribution might reflect the descent of actual human populations and the genetic relationships between them is a matter of active ongoing study. In the 19th early 20th century it was assumed that to a large extent language equalled rigid and defined human groups but toward the end of the 20th century a more dynamic picture of ethnogenesis emerged.
The major modern representatives are the Finns and Estonians.
Most other Finnic languages are spoken in territories now in northwestern Russia, especially in areas adjacent to Finland and Estonia. In parts of northern Sweden, a Finnic language or a dialect (Meänkieli) has a considerable presence while more marginal Finnic-speaking minorities are found in Norway (Kven) and Latvia (Livonians).
The term Finnic is also used sometimes to describe speakers of the Finno-Permic and Finno-Volgaic languages of the Uralic language family.
History
Comb Ceramic Culture
Until the early 1980's the arrival of Finnic peoples, the ancestors of the Estonians, Finns, Livonians on the shores of the Baltic sea around 3000 B.C. was associated with the Comb Ceramic Culture However , such a linking of archaeologically defined cultural entities with linguistic ones cannot be proven and it has been suggested that the increase of settlement finds in the period is more likely to have been associated with an economic boom related to the warming of climate. Some researchers have even argued that a form of Uralic languages may have been spoken in Estonia and Finland since the end of the last glaciation.
If confirmed, the oldest archeological site in Finland would be Susiluola (Wolf cave) in Kristinestad, Ostrobothnia. Excavations are underway and if the so far presented estimates hold true, it would be the only pre-glacial (Neanderthal) site so far found in the Nordic countries and some 130 000 years old.
The earliest traces of human settlement in Estonia are connected with Kunda culture. The Early Mesolithic Pulli settlement is located by the Pärnu River. It has been dated to the beginning of the 9th millennium BC. The Kunda Culture received its name from the Lammasmäe settlement site in northern Estonia, witch dates from earlier than 8500. Bone and stone artefacts similar to those found at Kunda have been discovered elsewhere in Estonia, as well as in Latvia, northern Lithuania and southern Finland.
Finnic peoples in chronicles
The word Finn is first mentioned in the form fenni in the first century AD by Tacitus, the Roman historian. However it is possible that he was referring to the people of northern Europe in general, particulary the Lappic or Sami people. After that the name finni is used by Claudius Ptolemaeus (170 AD) and the Gothic writer Jordanes in his Getica (551 AD). The first sure mention in the western sources referring to Finns is considered to be in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf (800 AD). Information about Finnnic tribes becomes much more numerous from the Viking era (800-1050). It was not until abut 1171 that the word Finni was employed to mean the Finns.
The term Eesti, the name of the Estonians occurs first again by Tacitus, however, it might have indicated Baltic tribes. In Northern Sagas (9th century) the term started to be used to indicate the Estonians.
In a Norwegian text (11-12 century) the first mention of the name 'Kiriali referring to Karelians, as well as the term 'cornuti Finni, interpreted as referring to the Lapps or Sami people appears.
The name Sum, that is Suomi (Finland in Finnish), is found in the oldest Russian, Nestor's Chronicle (1000-1100). The names of other Finnic tribes are also listed including Veps, Cheremis, Mordvin, Permian.
The Chudes as mentioned by a monk Nestor in the earliest Russian chronicles, were the Ests or Esthonians . According to Nestor in 1030 Yaroslav I the Wise invaded the country of the Chuds and laid the foundations of Yuriev, (the historical Russian name of Tartu, Estonia). According to Old East Slavic chronicles the Chudes where one of the founders of the Rus' state.
The Northern (or eastern) Chudes were also a mythical people in folklore among Northern Russians and their neighbours. In Komi mythology, the Northern Chudes represent the mythic ancestors of the Komi people
Descendants of Finnic peoples
References
- at Encyclopædia Britannica
- Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States, p153 ISBN 0313306109
- The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, p.51 ISBN 0521472997
- susiluola
- Estonia: Identity and Independence, p.24 ISBN 9042008903
- The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics., p21-23 ISBN 0631231706
- ^ Pre- and Proto-historic Finns by John Abercromby p.141
- Pre- and Proto-historic Finns by John Abercromby p.142
- FOREST MYTHS by Pavel F. Limerov at google.scholar
See also
- Ugric peoples
- Finno-Ugric peoples
- Fenni
- Fenno-Scandinavia
- Greater Finland
- Northern indigenous peoples of Russia