From: hberg@polisci.umn.edu (Bob Hammarberg)
Subject: Re: The Samii languages (are Nordic!)
Organization: Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 15:02:49 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.222920.15859@polaris.utu.fi> tonypaso@polaris.utu.fi (Tony Matti Juhani Paso) writes:

>hberg@polisci.umn.edu (Bob Hammarberg) writes:

>>The beef is that 'Nordic' is not a natural category, and therefore to argue 
>>over whether X is Nordic or not is an exercise in futility.  There simply is 
>>no matter of empirical fact to be decided there, merely a matter of variable 
>>convention.  If Estonia gets admitted to the Nordic Council, then suddenly

>To mix you up a bit more... The term "Nordic" (in the meaning of SF,SWE,DK,
>NOR and ISL) existed before the Nordic Council. In the 1920-30's people
>knew what the term Nordic countries meant. They didn't need a official
>and governmental organ to guide their thoughts about what was and what 
>wasn't  "Nordic".


>>it has become Nordic, but there are no criteria that you can apply, at this 

>Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are Baltic. In the twenties Finland was 
>sometimes included to that group (as well as the Nordic group). If 
>Baltic countries were to join the Nordic Council, maybe the name should
>be changed to something like "The Baltic Sea Council". And somehow
>devise a way to keep Germany and Russia out of it. Who cares anyway. 

>>time, to demonstrate that it is Nordic and therefore should be admitted to 
>>the Council.  If the Vatican, Somalia, and New Zealand get admitted to the 
>>Council, then they too would be Nordic, right?

>Wrong. If Finland applied (and got accepted) for the OAS ,she would become
>a American state overnight, right? Or how about the SPF? Wow, by your
>reasoning Finland would be a southern Pacific state. I think we should
>apply right away. I'd like the SP climate. Who cares about geography.

>You've been playing with words in your posting. Making a strict equation
>between the term "Nordic" and on organization founded sometime 1950 (?).
>Nordic has a historical+cultural meaning extending far beyond that. Somalia
>would never ever be Nordic, even if she joined the Council.

*I* didn't suggest this; Hietaniemi did!  His criterion for Nordicness is 
membership in the Nordic council, which would lead to the absurdities that 
I suggested.

Besides, you're totally missing the point - the point being that terms like 
Nordic and Baltic are non-empirical, and that it therefore makes no sense at 
all to argue over whether  X is Nordic or Y is Baltic, since there are no 
criteria according to which the argument could be settled.

  What bothers me is the "of-course-ness" that some people exhibit in these 
matters:  "Of course Finnish is a Nordic language!"  "Nordic" is not a 
linguistic category, so how can a language be "Nordic"?  We could just as 
well claim that Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Saami, and 
Estonain are Lutheran languages; that Sw, Fi, and No are 60th parallel 
languages; that certain language are characterized by being spoken north of 
a line running 150 miles north of the Eiffel Tower.  Come to think of it 
though, if you're a post-modernist perhaps those categories make sense...