Swedish people

:"Swede" redirects here. This article is about the Swedish people as an ethnic group. For information about residents or nationals of Sweden, see demographics of Sweden. For swede, the vegetable, see rutabaga.

Ethnic Swedes

The notion of ethnic Swedes is controversial, and especially the Swedish and Finnish views contradict each other. The usage in English does not necessarily reflect the usage in Sweden and Finland, or in Swedish and Finnish.

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In an English language context, the concept of ethnic Swedes may be used for:

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• People of Swedish heritage, typically immigrants to the Americas
• Minorities outside of Sweden with Swedish mother tongue, who however might not designate themselves as "ethnically Swedish"
• the inhabitants of the culturally and linguistically Swedish Åland Islands, belonging to Finland
• the Swedes living in northwestern Estonian mainland and adjacent islands, and the island of Ruhnu (Runö) in the Gulf of Riga (Estonia-Swedes, in Swedish: estlandssvenskar)
• the Swedes living in Gammalsvenskby ("Old Swedish Village") in Ukraine.
• The 265,000 Finland-Swedes in mainland Finland.

In Sweden, the connotation of Swede, when used without qualifications, is often a person who is

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• a citizen of Sweden,
• living in Sweden, and
• born by Swedish parents.

Not all Swedes would agree with such a usage. Immigrants and their offspring may by some persons be denoted as Swedes, particularly if their Swedish is flawlessly without foreign accent or if they are prominent industrialists or sportsmen and they appear assimilated in the Swedish culture.

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In a Swedish mindset, the concept of ethnic Swedes is used chiefly in the following contexts:

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• To distinguish "Swedish citizens" who are naturalized immigrants, but not indistinguishably assimilated, from the other Swedes.
• To distinguish, typically in school settings, pupils of immigrant heritage from them without.

In addition to this is ethnic Swedes sometimes used to include, besides the ethnic Swedes living in Sweden,

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• the Swedish speaking minority living in Finland (Finland-Swedes) and Åland,
• the Swedish speaking minority living in Estonia (Estonia-Swedes) and
• the Swedish speaking minority living in Gammalsvenskby (Old Swedish Village) in Ukraine.

The majority of those Estonia-Swedes who reside in Estonia and most Ukraine-Swedes do not speak Swedish any more, but may yet be considered being ethnic Swedes (cf ethnic German). In a nationalist context, the ethnic Swedes living outside Sweden are sometimes called "East-Swedes" (in Swedish: östsvenskar), to distinguish them from the ethnic Swedes living in Sweden proper, called rikssvenskar or västsvenskar ("Western-Swedes"), reflecting irredentist sentiments.

Related Topics:
Ethnic German - Nationalist - Irredentist

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However, in Sweden people typically refer to their ethnic identity, not as Swedes but rather to their sub-national ethnic identity, such as Dalecarlian, which originates from the historical Provinces of Sweden.

Related Topics:
Dalecarlian - Provinces of Sweden

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