Finns

Finns or Finnish people (Finnish: suomalaiset, IPA: [ˈsuo̯mɑlɑi̯set]) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these countries as well as those who have resettled. Some of these may be classified as separate ethnic groups, rather than subgroups of Finns. These include the Kvens and Forest Finns in Norway, the Tornedalians in Sweden, and the Ingrian Finns in Russia.

Finnish, the language spoken by Finns, is closely related to other Balto-Finnic languages such as Estonian and Karelian. The Finnic languages are a subgroup of the larger Uralic family of languages, which also includes Hungarian. These languages are markedly different from most other languages spoken in Europe, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Native Finns can also be divided according to dialect into subgroups sometimes called heimo (lit. 'tribe'), although such divisions have become less important due to internal migration.

Today, there are approximately 6–7 million ethnic Finns and their descendants worldwide, with the majority of them living in their native Finland and the surrounding countries, namely Sweden, Russia and Norway. An overseas Finnish diaspora has long been established in the countries of the Americas and Oceania, with the population of primarily immigrant background, namely Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and the United States.

In Finnish, the term suomalaiset (sing. suomalainen) refers both to ethnic Finns and to citizens of Finland.

It is a matter of debate how best to designate the Finnish-speakers of Sweden, all of whom have migrated to Sweden from Finland. Terms used include Sweden Finns and Finnish Swedes, with a distinction almost always made between more recent Finnish immigrants, most of whom have arrived after World War II, and Tornedalians, who have lived along what is now the Swedish-Finnish border since the 15th century.

The term Finn is also used in a wider sense to include ethnically or linguistically related peoples, such as the Baltic Finns.

Historical references to Northern Europe are scarce, and the names given to its peoples and geographic regions are obscure; therefore, the etymologies of the names are questionable. Such names as Fenni, Phinnoi, Finnum, and Skrithfinni / Scridefinnum appear in a few written texts starting from about two millennia ago in association with peoples located in a northern part of Europe, but the real meaning of these terms is debatable. It has been suggested that this non-Uralic ethnonym is of Germanic language origin and related to such words as Old High German: finthan, lit. 'find, notice'; Old English: fanthian, lit. 'check, try'; and fendo (Middle High German: vende) 'pedestrian, wanderer'. Another etymological interpretation associates this ethnonym with fen in a more toponymical approach. Yet another theory postulates that the words Finn and Kven are cognates. The Icelandic Eddas and Norse sagas (11th to 14th centuries), some of the oldest written sources probably originating from the closest proximity, use words like finnr and Finnas inconsistently. However, most of the time they seem to mean northern dwellers with a mobile life style. Current linguistic research supports the hypothesis of an etymological link between the Finnish and the Sami languages and other modern Uralic languages. It also supports the hypothesis of a common etymological origin of the toponyms Sápmi (Northern Sami for 'Lapland') and Suomi (Finnish for 'Finland') and the Finnish and Sami names for the Finnish and Sami languages (suomi and saame). Current research has disproved older hypotheses about connections with the names Häme (Finnish for 'Tavastia') and Proto-Baltic *žeme / Slavic землꙗ (zemlja) meaning 'land'. This research also supports the earlier hypothesis that the designation Suomi started out as the designation for Southwest Finland (Finland Proper, Varsinais-Suomi) and later for their language and later for the whole area of modern Finland. But it is not known how, why, and when this occurred. Petri Kallio had suggested that the name Suomi may bear even earlier Indo-European echoes with the original meaning of either "land" or "human", but he has since disproved his hypothesis.

The first known mention of Finns is in the Old English poem Widsith which was compiled in the 10th century, though its contents are believed to be older. Among the first written sources possibly designating western Finland as the land of Finns are also two rune stones. One of these is in Söderby, Sweden, with the inscription finlont (U 582), and the other is in Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, with the inscription finlandi (G 319 M) dating from the 11th century.