The Finnish reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Finnish

Due to the history of Finland and its neighbourhood, and the relatively limited number of Finns, the term Finnish might cause some confusion:

• It can indicate nationality, usually acquired by birth in Finland
• It can indicate ethnicity, see Finnic and Sweden-Finns
• It can also indicate citizenship or a similar belonging to the state of Finland
• It can indicate the mother tongue of a speaker, see Finnish (language) and Sweden-Finns (often in contrast to Finns speaking Swedish as their mother tongue, see Finland-Swedish and Finland's language strife)
• It can indicate the Finnish language itself, and often the closely related varieties spoken in Finland's neighbourhood, see Finno-Ugric languages: Veps, Izhorian, Ingrian, Karelian, Meänkieli [1]
• Finally, it can be a false translation from Scandinavian languages, where the concepts of Finns and Samis haven't always been distinguished: Today Finn in the Norwegian language means a Sami.

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