Karin Bojs: Kajs Finnish Swedish has made a long journey

For a few years I sat in a jury for the Nordic Council. It was a self when we all jurors would try to understand each other. The Icelanders and Färingen knew Danish, and both Danes and Norwegians understood us national Swedes. For me, the Norwegian was no problem, but I have a hard time keeping up with spoken Danish and I think that Åland and the Finns also had.

Then Färingen – or if it was one of the Icelanders – said that we should take care of all our communication in Finnish Swedish. That form of Swedish, clear and a little old -fashioned, is much easier to understand than national Swedish, according to him.

These daysWhen the humor group Kaj from Ostrobothnia is exposed to the whole of Europe, it may be interesting to delve into this eastern variant of Swedish.

The Swede is an Indo -European language, more specifically on the Germanic branch.

The majority in Finland speak Finnish, a Uralian or if you want Finnish-Ugric language.

Two completely different language families with a parallel history.

The new DNA research has revolutionized the knowledge of the development of Indo-European languages. Since a few months it is clear that Three different groups Melt on the steppe just north of the Caucasus mountain range. One group came from the mountains, the other two from the steppes. They moved in different directions on the steppe, and in current Ukraine they became particularly expansive. The so -called Jamnakultur spread across large areas – including the Baltic Sea coasts – and thus also their Indo -European languages.

At the same time, further north, in the forest belt and even on the Arctic tundra, another movement went when the Uralian languages ​​spread together with New metallurgy. Among other things, to present Finland’s inland.

They probably spoke another and unknown form of Indo -European

In Finland like In so many other places, research on ancient times has been abused to claim which groups would have been in place « first » and thus would have special rights.

The most important insight from the new DNA archeology is that it is pointless to discuss which of the now living people came « first ». History has always been characterized by overlay when new groups have arrived. In principle, all contemporary people groups are the results of mixtures.

Many evidencesuch as linguistics, written history and place name research point to the fact that Swedish-speaking groups moved from present Sweden to coastal areas in present Finland during the Middle Ages, mainly in the 13th century.

But people have moved back and forth across the Baltic Sea since the hunting stone age, and even from the Bronze Age and Iron Age, such relationships are well documented. For example, archaeologist Åsa M Larsson has shown with ceramics that there was Contacts Between current Finland and present Sweden during battle ax, that is, when the Indo -European languages ​​had just begun to spread from the steppes.

Would they The groups over 4,500 years ago have spoken an early form of Swedish?

No, it’s not likely. They probably spoke another and unknown form of Indo -European.

The latest findings are that the Germanic language branch – from which the Swedish has developed – arrived in Scandinavia several hundred years later. It came here and was overlaid in some existing Indo -European language starting about 4,000 ago.

And believe it or not, but many point to the fact that the cradle of the Germanic language was somewhere in present Finland or the Baltic. This is just fresh news that is still debated among DNA researchers, linguists and archaeologists. An increasingly updated study is out on the preliminary site Biorxiveand the Dutch linguist Guus Kroonen Visited Uppsala a couple of months ago and gave a convincing lecture.

Thus, if this is true, the dialect of the Vöråbarbar has made a journey from the steppe north of Caucasia via Jamnakultur in present -day Ukraine to the cradle of the Germanic language in present Finland or the Baltic to the present Sweden. And then back to the Finnish coast.

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