ESTONIAN ACADEMY
PUBLISHERS
eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
PUBLISHED
SINCE 1965
 
Linguistica Uralica cover
Linguistica Uralica
ISSN 1736-7506 (Electronic)
ISSN 0868-4731 (Print)
Was There a Finnish Settlement in Uusimaa before the Swedish One?; pp. 109–128
PDF | 10.3176/lu.2004.2.04

Author
Carl O. Nordling
Abstract

Although there are many toponyms of undoubtedly Finnic provenance in the Swedish parishes along the southern coast of Finland, none of the demonstrably old names distinguishes themselves as exclusively Finnish. Almost every one of them could be derived from items in the Estonian vocabulary, and several show even slightly more affinity to Estonian than to Finnish. Even with access to spellings from the 14th and 15th centuries, we must realise that by that time the names had already been transferred orally through several generations and their pronunciation may have been blurred to a certain extent. The change does not necessarily follow simple rules. Therefore, a theory of the identity of the name-givers should not be based on linguistic evidence in the first place. Also, not only hypothetical residents should be taken into consideration in the name-giving situation, but also the possibility of occasional explorers, habitually visiting fishermen, etc. Supposing that the coast was considered cultivable even before the Swedish settlement, it would have been within easy reach from Estonia. We would, therefore, expect Estonians to have had some incentive to settle outside their country long before the less numerous Finns from Häme had felt any urge to clear land many days wanderings from their native region. This assumed prehistoric influx of Estonians would have resulted in a genetically mixed Swedish speaking population, containing not only genes from the Häme-Finnish neighbours of a later age but also genes from the Estonians. As a matter of fact, it can be shown that the Estonian component is even more conspicuous than the Finnish one among the Uusimaa Swedes.

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