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LateInTheAfternoon t1_j1vror5 wrote

Reply to comment by Tex089 in If the Sami are considered the only indigenous group left in the European Union, what are the Karelians? by Theworldsfuckedm8

Generally three criteria: 1) the Sami have inhabitated northern Fennoscandinavia for millenia (Norse people only settled in the southern part and along the coasts) 2) their lands were colonized in the 19th and 20th century by Sweden, Norway and Finland 3) they have kept to their traditions despite rather cruel attempts to assimilate them.

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Tex089 t1_j1w2v4j wrote

I appreciate the answer. I'm still not sure I understand the classification. If all European peoples arrived via migration, and both peoples settled in their respective areas at the same time, then by that criteria either both or neither would be considered indigenous Europeans, with later colonization only affecting the indigenous status of that specific area.

Apologies if that doesn't make sense, or seems confrontational. I'm ignorant on this subject and just trying to understand.

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DeaththeEternal t1_j25tamc wrote

It's more of a set of assumptions about 'Old Europe', of which the Basques and the Sami are the last remaining traces, versus the Indo-European versions. The various Indo-European cultures that were ancestral to modern cultures wrote about these cultures around them or they left linguistic traces in substrates and perhaps in the ways that Indo-European languages evolved and why they evolved in those ways.

It's also the same thing as why Arabs are Indigenous to the Middle East after conquering it in the 600s but the Greeks they replaced weren't in spite of being there for 1,000 years prior to that. The concept does have some semantic wordplay and double standards attached IRL.

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Tex089 t1_j25ww5d wrote

I appreciate the in-depth answer. Thank you.

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[deleted] t1_j1y5tmp wrote

So the Sami's climbed over the 1 km thick ice? The Sami's is the same as "skidfinnar" and they were not all reindeer keepers.

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LateInTheAfternoon t1_j1yctcj wrote

>So the Sami's climbed over the 1 km thick ice?

FYI the ice had disappeared some 8000 years before they even appeared there. The Sami have inhabited northern Fennoscandinavia for ca 3500 years, which I think you'll find is several millenia.

>The Sami's is the same as "skidfinnar" and they were not all reindeer keepers.

No one's claimed anything to the contrary. Do you think their culture and traditions only concern reindeer herding? Or do you think that that is what others wrongly believe? Why do you bring it up?

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