Finnic peoples
Finnic (Fennic, sometimes Baltic-Finnic) may refer to languages similar to Finnish spoken close to the Gulf of Finland, i.e., the Balto-Finnic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric languages or, alternatively, a larger subgroup that also includes the Sami languages.
In modern Finnish and Estonian usage, the term 'Finnic' may also refer to what are perceived as culturally related ethnic groups, i.e., the settled peoples speaking Balto-Finnic languages, traditionally living in Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, Finland, northernmost Norway and northern Sweden, and their farmer-hunter culture. The term 'Finnic peoples' can be used in this way to establish a contrast to the 'Slavic peoples' ('Slavs'), the 'Baltic peoples' ('Balts'), and the 'Germanic peoples' ('Germanics'), and Turkic peoples' ('Turks'), but also to the more distantly akin, and historically nomadic, Sami people.
According to the Estonian Fenno-Ugria Foundation[1], the areas of historical settlement by indigenous Finnic peoples include (from South to North):
- Livonians (coastal areas of the Gulf of Riga)
- Estonians (south of Gulf of Finland)
- Votians (near River Narva and River Inger)
- Ingrians (south-east of Gulf of Finland – River Narva – River Neva – Lake Ladoga)
- Vepsians (south-west of Lake Onega)
- Karelians (north-east of Gulf of Finland – Lake Ladoga – Lake Onega)
- Finns (north of Gulf of Finland)
It is debated[2] whether or not the Chudes (mentioned by Jordanes 550 A.D.) were an unidentified Finnic tribe or whether a Finnic group might be considered to be the original Chudes. It has also been considered whether or not Russian chud (чудь) is borrowed from Sami or vice versa.
History
There exist different theories on the pre-history of the farming Finnic peoples. According to earlier established theories, agricultural Finnic peoples were believed to have inhabited parts of what are now the Baltic countries before the first millennium. Perhaps due to the Germanic and Slavic migration period, or for other reasons, they were thought to have migrated into the inland of present-day Finland and Karelia in the first millennium. Since the 1970´s, this theory has been considered obsolete: serious indications of such migration do not exist. Archaeological record suggests instead a continuity of settlement from the Stone Age to the first millennium, and the modern linguistics agree.
In the first centuries of the second millennium the Finnic groups reached Northern Sweden, where their descendents today speak Meänkieli. A larger immigrant wave swept northern Scandinavia in the 16th–18th centuries, spanning to Lake Vänern in the south and to the Arctic Sea in the north. While their descendants in the rest of Scandinavia have assimilated, they remain as a distinct minority in northern Norway, where they recognize themselves as Kvens or Kvener.
The oldest known document recorded in a Finnic language dates from 13th century Novgorod. The birch bark document, discovered during archaeological excavations in 1957, was written in a Finnic language, using early Cyrillic alphabet, and has been interpreted as a pagan incantation for lighting. However, it is impossible to determine the Finnic dialect represented in then Novgorod, although some characteristics point towards the Olonetsian/Ludian/Vepsian area, or, perhaps, a hypothetical East Finnic Koine language used in or near Old Novgorod.