Scandinavia comprises Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The Scandinavian peninsula is the land covered by Norway and Sweden.
Quick – which countries are in Scandinavia?
If your answer included Finland, you made a common mistake. According to the OED, the Scandinavian countries are Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Or, as the Danish Wikipedia puts it, we are talking about Danmark, Norge og Sverige.
The Scandinavian countries plus Finland and Iceland are bound together in a regional association that goes by the name “Norden.” Because the term “Scandinavia” can be inconveniently restrictive,
The term Norden has…come into use to denote Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden…(Britannica).
Unfortunately, “Norden” is not really an English word: it does not show up in the OED or Merriam-Webster. Sometimes the term “Nordic countries” is used as an equivalent for “Norden,” but this usage is unclear insofar as the OED simply defines “Nordic” as a synonym for “Scandinavian.”
We are stuck with a lexical gap – a “hole” in the dictionary. It would be nice to have an English term that meant “Norden,” but we don’t have one. (Similarly, it would be nice to have a term that unequivocally meant Canada and the United States, but the term “North America” includes Mexico.)
It is perhaps not surprising that Iceland, hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic ocean, is not considered part of Scandinavia. But what about Finland, which abuts both Norway and Sweden? Why are the Finns not Scandinavian?
The term “Scandinavia” is recorded as far back as Roman times, but given the vagueness of Roman knowledge about Scandinavia, ancient sources will not help us to answer our question. Part of the answer is that Finland, unlike the Scandinavian countries, was part of Russia from 1809 t0 1917. Another part of the answer is that the Finns mostly do not share the Viking heritage of the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians.
Latter-day Vikings (in orange jumpsuits) on the Sognefjord, Norway. In the background, afjordable housing.
Consider the following samples from Viking-derived languages:
Swedish: Fader vår, som är i himmelen! Helgat varde ditt namn…vårt dagliga bröd giv oss i dag.
Norwegian: Fader vår, du som er i himmelen! Helliget vorde ditt navn…gi oss idag vårt daglige brød.
Danish: Vor Fader, du, som er i Himlene! Helliget vorde dit Navn…giv os i dag vort daglige Brød.
Perhaps you can guess what the above lines mean; they are not so very dissimilar from the English version:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name…Give us this day our daily bread.
The color-coding above highlights cognates [from the Latin cognatus, from co- ("together") + natus ("born" - same root as "native")]. “Fader” and “Father” are cognates because they were “born together” from the same Germanic root.
Finnish, on the other hand, is very different from the Scandinavian languages. The following lines, which mean the same as the above, look so unfamiliar that they might as well be in Na’vi:
Finnish: Isä meidän, joka olet taivaissa! Pyhitetty olkoon sinun nimesi…anna meille tänä päivänä meidän jokapäiväinen leipämme.
Finnish, far from being a Germanic language like English or the Scandinavian languages, is not even Indo-European. Like Hungarian, it is a Finno-Ugric language, and thus lacks cognates that English-speakers can recognize.
