Talk:Swedes


Swedes in Germany 30,000 in 2021

30,000 Swedes live in Germany Linus Hagenbach (talk) 08:15, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You need a source if you want to put that in the article. Sjö (talk) 10:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia Editor Linus Hagenbach is not a reliable source. TylerBurden (talk) 17:36, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Finland-Swedes

Should Swedish-Speaking Finns be included here? In the Swedish Wikipedia they are not considered Swedes. They are mentioned but only as speakers of Swedish (though they don't even consider Swedes an ethnicity). In the Finnish Wikipedia meanwhile they are considered Swedes and do not appear in the Finns article, much like in the English Wikipedia. However from what I have heard from Finlandswedes themselves, they don't consider themselves Swedish, instead just Finns who speak Swedish. Also many Finlandswedes have completely Finnish origins, as many Finns changed their language to Swedish to climb up the social ladder. Finlandestonia (talk) 11:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, because they are not part of the ethnic group that is Swedes, which according to the lead is what the article is about. But if you check the article, Finland-Swedes are included on it. TylerBurden (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Of course they are not ethnic Swedes. The problem is also that this article reproduces an understanding of "ethnicity" which is outdated. "Ethnicity" may be a useful concept, e.g. in the scientific field of Ethnology. But this article doesn't seem to be well-informed by the relevant contemporary research on the topic. Anyway, Finland-Swedes are also not a diaspora and have never been. When Finland was part of the Swedish Empire they were national Swedes. Today they are national Finns (and in Hockey they support Finland not Sweden). I revised the introduction accordingly. But the article has several more issues in this respect. --Rießler (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It seems very weird that the communities in Estonia and Ukraine are included in the infobox, but the Finlandswedes are not (the Estonian Swedes have a similar history), while they are mentioned in the lede. The infobox seems to use different definitions in a way that is not totally consistent.
Andejons (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This is a common issue in these ethnicity/diaspora articles. Figures reported for different countries are incommensurate due to differing definitions. The infobox should IMO either omit these figures altogether or limit them strictly to citizenship-based data. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:09, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Finlandestonia: Just my 5 cents, and I'm not very familiar with the subject, so feel free to correct me:
Probably no, because only a portion of Swedish-speaking Finns trace their known roots to ethnic Swedes (which is what this article is about) - much like only a portion of English-speaking Americans/Australians/Canadians belong to the English diaspora.
So it's mainly about language. Swedish was the only "main language" of Finland for centuries, and Finnish was regarded as a mere "peasant language". As a result, for centuries, immigrants to Finland from elsewhere in Europe (Germans, Russians, etc.) adopted Swedish because of its higher status. Likewise, many Finnish-speaking Finns over the centuries shifted to Swedish for the same reason.
And this article says: "Swedes are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and language." That doesn't quite fit Swedish-speaking Finns, but if it said something like "Swedes are a linguistic group who share a common language, the Swedish language" or if 'and' is changed to 'or' in the first quote ("... history, or language"), then it would fit them. For this reason, seeing Category:Swedish-speaking population of Finland in Category:Swedish minorities feels wrong.
Also, the current Finland figure (7,816) in the infobox may be misleading because, at least to my understanding, most of those 7,816 people are actually remigrating Sweden Finns who are Swedish citizens without dual citizenship, that is, not ethnic Swedes. Still, I suppose it is a better figure than the earlier number for Swedish speakers.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?), there's no ethnic census in Finland like there is in the U.S. and other countries, so we will never know how many people in Finland actually trace their roots to ethnic Swedes.
PoweringUpDasher (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish Walloon

Should we include a mention of the Walloon component of the Swedes? IMO it's different from e.g. the Swedish-Speaking Finns discussed in the above section, because the Walloon origin is a component of the modern Swede; they are not a separate ethnic group. David Groningen (talk) 16:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From Walloons: "Gallo-Romance ethnic group native to Wallonia and the immediate adjacent regions of France". TylerBurden (talk) 11:31, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TylerBurden Yep, those are the Walloons. Some thousand of the came to Sweden in c. 1595/1650. They mixed with the "Renaissance Swedes", and as a result today some hundred thousand (possibly close to one million) of Swedes are of Walloon ancestry. Since they are a component of many a modern Swede, I wonder whether we should mention this fact in this article. David Groningen (talk) 22:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But they are a seperate ethnic group, not the North Germanic Nordic one this article is meant to be about. TylerBurden (talk) 14:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Further Reading

The further reading section contained only a single article that was neither academic or frankly appropriate and this it was removed. AevumNova (talk) 05:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

North Germanic ?

@Zyxrq: I think your addition of "Germanic" or "Scandinavic" with a link to "North Germanic peoples" is wrong for two reasons: a) There is no source for that. b) The last "North Germanic people" covered in the history section of that article are those Scandinavian Greenlanders who died out at the end of the Middle Ages. There was a similar discussion at Talk:Danes#North_Germanic_? some time ago. Rsk6400 (talk) 17:13, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rsk6400 go to the Talk:North Germanic peoples#"North Germanic peoples" change to "Scandinavians"? and Talk:North Germanic peoples#Ethnic group

Zyxrq (talk) 19:26, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why ? Rsk6400 (talk) 07:03, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Swedes