Whenever I see a good looking blue-eyed blond man, he is usually described by me as “vaguely Nordic looking”. This led me to thinking and as usual that thinking, of course, led me to my latest blog post. What really is the difference? And is there a difference? Yes! Sort of.
Although here in the US we use the terms "Scandinavian" and "Nordic" interchangeably, in northern Europe they do not.
According to my research, “Scandinavia” is a region in northern Europe that includes Denmark and two of the Scandinavian Peninsula's countries, Norway and Sweden. In common English usage, Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland are often grouped with Scandinavia but they are not technically Scandinavian countries. The term “Nordic countries” refers to Denmark, Norway and Sweden as well as Finland and Iceland, and the associated of Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland Islands.
The Swedish, Norwegian and Danish share a common word called "Skandinavien". This word refers to the ancient territories of the Norsemen: Norway, Sweden and Denmark. This definition is considered to be the most commonly accepted definition of "Scandinavia". Typically, most of us do think of those three countries when referencing the term "Scandinavia".
The Nordic Countries are composed of an official group called the Nordic Council. The Nordic Council includes the three Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark), Iceland, Finland, and three autonomous regions (Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland Islands).
Now, here’s where it gets complicated. Linguistically, Icelandic belongs to the same language family as Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Just to add to the confusion, Swedish is also spoken in parts of Finland and Finnish is spoken in parts of Sweden and Denmark.
So, in summary, you can call a Swede Scandinavian OR Nordic but technically, you cannot call a Finn Scandinavian (although believe me, many Americans do). Got it???
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