Would you consider "scandinavian" and/or "nordic" an ethnicity?

I took an intro sociology class last semester and one subject discussed was ethnicity. I haven't seen too much discussion about ethnicity regarding Northern European groups of people, but as an American of Swedish descent, I started thinking about my ethnicity. I had never really considered it-as a white person, I don't think anyone else really did either. But from what I understand about what constitutes ethnicity, I think it can be argued Scandinavian/Nordic can be considered one. We have many cultural and religious traditions across several countries, especially regarding food. I noticed one thing that made me different from other Americans was my family ate lutefisk at Christmas (or at least it was there, only my grandpa and great grandma ate it).

The reason I'm posting this is I haven't found too much discussion around this subject specifically and I thought it was interesting.

Yes 20
No 3
Maybe/other (comment pls) 0
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Comments ( 25 )
  • 1WeirdGuy

    Nordic people are a subrace of the caucasian race

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    • Which groups would you consider part of the "Caucasian race"? The Caucus region itself is an odd barrier area between Europe and the Middle East, or Western Asia.

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      • 1WeirdGuy

        The western use of caucasian is basically people with white skin who descended from Europe. But the scientific definition for caucasian includes different skin colors. Technically indians and arabs are caucasians. They came up with this stuff hundreds of years ago by looking at skulls it wasnt skin color. Theres 3 categories of races, caucasoid, negroid, and mongoloid. So anything thats not asian or black is caucasoid (also known ad caucasian)

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    • Not sure if this is calling me a subhuman or not lol

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  • ellnell

    Yes we are an ethnicity

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    • Meatballsandwich

      Which nordic country are you from?

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  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

    squareheaded snow honkies every one of em

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    • litelander8

      Honkie is hands down, my favorite word.

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    • Meatballsandwich

      According to definitions.net, squarehead means an honest person, non-criminal. Thanks, that's nice of you. <3

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      • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

        far as i know its a reference to the shapea the scandanavian & nordic peoples heads

        its prolly unflatterin but im sure such resilient people can handle a joke once in a while

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        • Meatballsandwich

          Yeah absolutely. We make fun of ourselves here constantly, so we're no strangers to that. The nordic-americans however, not so sure how they would react.

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  • Depends on the European. Some countries are a lot more culturally similar to the Middle East.

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  • I think European is too broad

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  • Tommythecaty

    Yeah, a standard whitey.

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    • Meatballsandwich

      The whitest of the whitest, basically.

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      • Tommythecaty

        I guess so.

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      • Lol I know I'm white, but there's a lot of "white" people of different ethnicities.

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  • LloydAsher

    I dont know. White is a pretty broad race but it's taken as a monolith. That being said the nordic countries are probably the most white of white people given the genetics.

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    • I'd argue the Brits are whiter, at least my Scandinavian relatives can get a tiny bit of a tan. Although I learned recently white skin is a very recent adaptation regardless.

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      • LloydAsher

        Idk what you can call a finnish person though since we arent even originally from europe. We looped around asia and back to Europe. Still this was a few thousand years ago so I dont know how to classify it.

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  • Meatballsandwich

    As a swede, I'd say that swedes, norwegians and danes are definitely the same people, but separated into 3 different countries, with minor cultural differences between them. We're definitely a distinct ethnical group, part of the broader Germanic part of Europe.

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    • Trichfuzz

      Are Finns considered Slavic?

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      • Meatballsandwich

        No, they're their own group.

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        • BleedingPain

          Arn't Finns the secret love child of Russia and a mysterious lady country? (maybe it was Hungary...)

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  • Somenormie

    After all it is something to do with ethnics.

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