Differences between Nordic nations

Where I suspect, like with Germany and Austria may be more of a matter of geography and history. Since I don’t know much about history for these nations, it’s best to look at geography and demography. Iceland’s isolated and volcanic. Norway’s closer to the Atlantic, Denmark to Germany and Sweden and Finland in the Baltic.

Sweden, Norway and Finland all have Sami populations, those predating the Indo-European Scandinavians. Iceland and Denmark don’t. (When you have Samis, there’re inevitably degrees of discrimination and marginalisation by the majority.)

Iceland, being volcanic and isolated from the rest of the world has little to no known ethnic minorities until recently whereas Sweden, Norway and Finland already and still do with the Samis. Sweden has numerically more people than Denmark but because the latter’s got less land area it’s more densely populated.

Norway ruled over Iceland and Norway itself used to be ruled by Denmark whilst Sweden ruled Finland. Now here’s something more trivial, Denmark begat Aqua (and White Horse). Sweden begat ABBA. Norway begat A-HA and Iceland begat Bjork. Ikea’s Swedish, Lego’s Danish.

I’ve yet to go to those places but I’ve quickly summed up the differences.

Scots in Scandinavia

Scots is English’s ignored twin, it’s often treated or regarded poorly. Some linguists regard it as a frustrated language but it could be due to its sociopolitical and legal status as Scotland got united with England and Wales to form the country we recognise it today.

Should it ever be adopted en masse by other countries, I don’t think it’ll do as well as Irish could in German speaking countries. The latter could use it to minimise any traces of Nazism, which is where its practicality in ideology and politics is at its highest in years but only this time outside of Ireland.

But it could do well albeit not for the same reason Irish would in Switzerland. As Scandinavia’s interested in a separate Scotland and Shetland and Orkney (part of Scotland) used to be Norwegian outposts, there’s a possibility that Scandinavia would adopt Scots.

It could be used to complement English in classes. It’d also be detrimental to the survival of Sami culture. The Samis are people indigenous to Scandinavia and many of them live further North. As they’re marginalised there, Scots’s usage would only worsen.

Like with Irish, there’ll be unwanted consequences.