Talk:Elias Lönnrot

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It is patently incorrect to claim that Elias Lönnrot was Finland-Swedish. 213.243.157.114 02:04, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As far as I remember, it was something along the line of a marriage into a Finland-Swedish family, and using that language with his children. It's not exactly "patently incorrect", only typical for the Finland-Swedes to claim all 19th century Finns to have been Finland-Swedes. :-)

The article also rightly point out that Finnish was his native language. /Tuomas 00:28, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

17:39, 15 Jul 2004 Den fjättrade ankan wrote: (he was a Finland-Swede!)

8 Jul 2004 213.243.157.114 wrote: (Elias Lönnrot was from Finnish-speaking rural parts, his native language was Finnish, and he clearly made his fame squarely in promoting Finnnish. To dub him Finland-Swedish is folly beyond excuse.)

Please read http://www.sls.fi/pdf/1-64Kallan1-02.pdf Why would he write in Swedish if "Finnish was his native language"? It only typical for the Finns to claim all 19th century Finland-Swedes to have been Finns. Den fjättrade ankan 18:01, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Firstly, you need to understand that Lönnrot wrote only a portion of his writings in Swedish. That is why those, when published, got the name "Elias Lönnrot's Swedish Writings"...

Then, you need to remember that Swedish was the administrative language of Finland in days of Elias Lönnrot. Thus, many things related to administration he needed to write in Swedish.

Then, to publish in those days happened not in Finnish, but mostly in Swedish. Other alternatives were e.g Latin. When Lönnrot wrote something for publication, he usually needed to use swedish. He was not able to use Finnish for such purpose.

The financiers of his travels (some foundations and university) used Swedish as their administrative language. Thus, certain reports of his travels he needed to write in swedish.

Lastly, some of his writings have been translated into swedish later. e.g according to requirements of those who were ready to publish them.

I am sure that you find convincing evidence that the language of his childhood home and of the area where he lived, was Finnish. 213.243.157.114 18:21, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Kajaani is not in the "far north" of Finland. It's south of Oulu, and Oulu is on the west coast pretty much halfway across Finland. There's more to Finland than the capital region. — JIP | Talk 11:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another question about Lönnrot's language

While I do not see any reason to doubt that his native language was indeed Finnish, I think the article should explain in some way why he had such a Swedish-sounding name. Was it something along the lines of "As Swedish was the administrative language in Finland at the time, having a Swedish name was career-promoting"? 217.208.26.177 20:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that theory, or is it just speculation? Apart from that I agree, I don't think there's any doubt Finnish was his native lanugage, and therefore it'd be wrong to call him a Finland-Swede in anything but the loosest sense. The PDF document referred to above gives some details about his genealogy (it also claims there are certain genealogical errors in some published biographies, although it doesn't detail what they are). In any case the names given of his ancestors seem to be all Swedish.

So, since he's not Finland-Swedish, and just calling him a Finn leaves the question of his name, I think the most accurate and neutral description would be to simply call him a "Finn of Finland-Swedish ancestry", or "native Finnish speaker of Finland-Swedish ancestry". Does that sound reasonable? --BluePlatypus 19:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not think there is a "question of his name". Due to Finnish history, some ethnic Finns have had Swedish names even when they were totally monolingual Finnish speakers - I can mention my own grand-father as an example. He had a Swedish surname he barely could pronounce.--217.112.242.181 07:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)