As a Dane I wouldn’t like to be under political influence from Sweden. The choices that Sweden has made about immigration from the Middle East and Africa have totally changed Sweden to a country that I can’t recognise it’s so sad to see all the problems What the Swedish politicians and the feminists have created have been setting the swedes in a very weak, hopeless and difficult situation. I really feel sad and sorry for the Swedish people….
@@denmark2680 As a Swede I certainly agree. Our current political representatives are definitely nothing to be proud of. But time will change. In 50 years from now, when we both are dead and buried , the need to make the Nordic states a union will become much stronger. Everything you see in the world today points in that direction. People that share the same heritage and share the same values will try to come together. That's my beliefe anyway. / Micke P
@@miriamterner9460Ja vi är många som håller med... Politiker har skändat samt skänkt bort landets kultur och infört en psykisk ohälsa hos folket.. Mångkultur funkar ej helt enkelt.. Feminismen funkar inte den heller.. Och hat och hot splittrar folket.. Jag är patriot och älskar mitt land men att rädda pk folk det kommer ej ske om skiten träffar fläkten... Hjälper dom som står mig närmast med samma tänk.. Tragiskt men så är det!
im from Denmark and i love my nordic neighbour countries. i include iceland as well in that . we just have so many things in common in culture and history. we are just connected in so many ways that you dont really see in the same way across the world. if anything ever happened, you could be damn sure we would all unite instantly. so to my fellow nordic people. i love u all :).
🇫🇮 Let’s do it! The pride on what we have managed to accomplish should be sheltered. Too many people are willing to lose everything good in the name of political correctness. 😊
At 4:00 about the military: Finland alone has 280 000 war time troops + 590 000 trained reserves. This is roughly as much as Italy, France, the UK and Germany combined. If the USA wanted to have the same strength per capita, it would need to train over 50 million soldiers.
Norway have mandatory service, so we have reserves ready for invasion as well, with bunkers stocked all over Norway. It's just a low active service of hired personel.
@@birdsteak9267What does the mandatory service mean then? Because in finland it means you have to train to be a soldier or sometimes people can choose to do other work but mostly people become soldiers. Doesnt seem like your mandatory service is the same as in Finland since you got no soldiers.
@@maonparas Everyone at age 18+ who is physically fit enough has to train to become a soldier, which also means that in case of war, they will be drafted into the National Guard and other positions. I don't remember how many years between, but we get called in for exercises for refreshment every 5-7 years. They are not considered to be on active duty, but thousands of people every year get into this service for 12 months and will be drafted when the time comes. No soldiers? Ok pal, whatever pleases your imagination.
@@birdsteak9267 Ok so you have the same system? Why dont you have any reserves on paper then. Btw i wasnt saying you got no soldiers, i meant more that its weird that it seems like youve got very few even when you have mandatory service.
@@maonparas Because Mandatory isn't professional, it's temporary. So they don't get registered the same way as professional, as in career workers. Why I don't know, I just know that is how it is. I served 1 year mandatory then I took a extended year. The people who are registered are Corporals and above, they went the career path which is voluntarily. If you doesn't meet their standards then you won't have to serve. But I am excited about the expanding Scandinavian Union though, it seem like our forces will have a much closer relationship now, under a more interconnected command. At least the airforce is.
As a Finn I would totally approve this. There necessarily shouldn't be a capital though, rather rotating "nordic counsil city" which gets passed from country to country (4 year terms?). We already have a lot of cooperation in defense things with Sweden (mainly baltic sea and Åland areas) and Norway (north, they also share Russian border) so mostly this would be tighter economic integration, possibly a shared currency something else than EUR. This definitely would work way better than EU and EMU...
I would say as fellow Scandinavian we would share capital and have 4 "capitals". hehe im Swedish I really think we should do this we would be so much stronger and would grow all countrys i Scandinavia.
I think all Nordic people really appreciate what they have and come from -and you can see it in how they take care of their nature. Its all clean, no trash anywhere.
Iceland is the clostest language to old norse, and was colonized by Norwegians, so our brothers in Iceland are closer to our old language than we are now. This due to Iceland being more isolated while our language were influenced strongly by the Denmark-Norway union. Faroese language is derived from old norse to, but is a bit more similar to Norwegian than Icelandic is.
True as an icelander it takes little effort to learn or understand our norwegian brothers. Also for those who might mistake colonization for the brutal oppression and allat iceland was completely uninhabited befour
Learned old norse when I was around 12 (soon 23 now).. It's kinda similar to swedish and the other scandinavian languages today.. (im a swede) real fun to talk in old norse since no one understands it here today xD
@@oliverbrekidavisdavidsson81 And yet your government decided you should learn Danish in school in order to "get closer to Scandinavia". Not only is Danish the most difficult Nordic language to be understood by Swedes and Norwegians, but we already speak English anyway 😅
Icelandic isn't actually the closest language to Old Norse. Elfdalian is significantly closer in all aspects of language from grammar and pronunciation to vocabulary. It's infuriating and utterly inexcusable that the Swedish government still refuses to recognize it as an official minority language. They haven't even instituted any protections for it even though it's critically endangered. It's literally Old Norse with some diphthongs. Unlike Icelandic, it hasn't changed grammatically since the Viking period and it retains some pronunciation features that even Icelandic has lost over time.
I strongly believe in the importance of unity among Nordic nations, and I would be ready to assist if any of our neighbors were in need during a crisis
Norway - beautiful nature, oil resources, a little too lazy but they can be so because of their resources Sweden - industry and innovation powerhouse of the union, too serious for their own good sometimes (decisions can't be made before everyone has had their turn to speak) Finland - speciality industry, logging and the brutalistically simple, yet beautiful Finnish mindset + military Denmark - The lighter mindset, the day-drinker, the smoker, the "I don't give a shit but somehow I am still successful mindset" + pork and the physical connection to mainland Europe Edit: And Iceland - the country I forgot while writing this (little drunk) Combine these powers and you've got yourself one hell of a country.
I se it as Sweden is not really a solid nation. Sweden is one small part Norway, a bit larger part Denmark and the largest part Finland. But here is the kicker... Finland is not really Finland, Finland is Sweden
definitely. people also seem to be blissfully unaware of the Nordic council. a council representing all our nations with the sole purpose of fostering cooperation and trade. at a level higher than even the EU. and id say its a much better approach than to make everyone part of a single government. although, I think we should not have individual militaries. I think we should have individual flags, and the soldiers are part of individual branches. but overall a united military. so that cooperation between the countries during war can be top notch. would also help solve the current issues of communication. although as Sweden and Finland get established within NATO a lot of these issues will be solved naturally as they start using more NATO standard equipment.
Kind of a simplistic mindset. Unbroken things can still be improved. Swedes being boring snobs, Norwegians being posh snobs, Finns being Scandi redneck, etc.
We are basically already united, couldn't even imagine any of us standing on the sidelines if another one of us got attacked. I hope this will extend to any countries that aren't led in a predatory nature (like the unpredictable nations led by dictators or the ones where GDP matters more than a sustainable well being).
and theres the "nordic council" which has the sole purpose of keeping us united and in agreement of development of the Nordic region. and is indeed what we use to trade and do diplomacy with others, because we are able to use our united power to make better deals. want a fishing deal with Norway? well be prepared to make it a fair one because Sweden Finland Denmark and Iceland will back any and every pull out from trade done by Norway if it deems it a misuse of trust or attempt to take advantage of them.
As a Swede, I hate to say it but Köpenhamn would be the logical choice for a capital. 😉 As for language, I would suggest we would keep it "as is", switching to English would rob us of a lot of our heritage!
On Holiday.. in a loud pub, and talk to echother. We switch to english anyway.. hahahaha. There is no Need for a common Launguage as we have it allready.
3:40 Who ever done the ranking have done one major error.. They forgot to remove the nations from the nordic countrys the total ranking. This matters quite a lot becuase in the cases where the new nordic nations rank 4 or 5, most of the nations a head is nrodic countries that no longer would exist.
Never gonna happen. Denmark would never allow it's closets frenemy to steal the Capital. Neither would Norway. Instead a Geo-rotating Nordic Council would be best. And no it cannot meet mostly in Stockholm either. Can't happen. We've had too many wars. Yeah that's not done yet.
We already have this funny pan-scandinavian language in a several ways. As a Swede, I rarely speak English when in Norway or Denmark. I speak Swedish, flavored with any local words and phrases I know, in a, most likely offensive, accent that actually seems to work just fine. Whenever I start off with English, I am often met with a look that says: "what are you doing? We are the same!". We also see it on stuff like ingredients lists for food. They often clump together SE/DE/NO and then proceed to approximate some kind of Scandinavian. I love that!
I would like to see you count 0 to 100 in danish. But i truly support you. If a swede or norvegian speak their national tongue in Denmark, just speak slow, we'll understand.
@@PSimonsenI speak English in stores in Denmark, just because that - to count is impossible to me. I have noticed that after some Tuborg I start to understand in the bar 🙂. Hälsningar från Sverige 🇸🇪
@@Xirque666 I know. It's base 20, which is really strange compared to the rest of the world. There places around the world that have similar strange numbering systems.
Militarily, Nordic is quite powerful. Finland alone has the biggest artillery in Europe. Airforce would match Russia and the quality of that airforce is top notch in the world. The Combined Nordic Airforce has been formed already, so we can think of them as one airforce in time of war. Navally, decent but is concentrated on Baltic Sea which doesn't support heavy stuff at all, it is also quite shallow sea which also makes submarines more difficult to operate in secret. And manpower.. is again filled by Finland, having up to 900k in reserves. Overall, it is not at all shabby military force, capable of defending the Nordic for sure.
The Nordic military have for many years been underfinanced. I haven't much knowledge about Norway and Sweeden but the army as such has diminished. The Danish army has been worn out for long. Go back to the cold war and things were a bit different. Now the tide has changed, much bigger budgets are now being established, but it is not done overnight. Defending the shallow Baltic sea is not a piece of cake. Finding a submarine is actually quite difficult. We have different layers of fresh and salty water in the Baltic Sea. Near the surface is a less salty layer. Below is a salty layer. These two layers don't mix. It results in a kind of shield under which you can operate or hide you submarine. This actually means that hiding your sub below this is a tactical strategy. It is now invincible and very difficult to detect even with modern equipement.
@@andersbechchristensen9627 It is true that the rest of the Nordic has cut military to minimum but.. the equipment is very high quality, and there is existing framework that allows them to quickly catch up. Finland is the exception, we just never stopped preparing. Thus, it forms the backbone of that military union.
@@andersbechchristensen9627Sweden barely has a military, but we do however produce the worlds best aircrafts and submarines (the Gotland class) which has beaten most nations in simulation due to its silence.
@@TheRealValdil Det har alltid varit hemligt hur många totalt som gjort lumpen i Sverige så vet inte vad du vet som alla andra inte får veta . Bara 2003 när jag gjorde lumpen så vart det 15529 nya soldater det året .
Great reaction. The language could be Scandic. A combination of them all. We would all understad it, and it would give us our own heritage and culture.
@@lexluthor6497 There’s an easy fix to that. Finland gains certain legal autonomy within the union to appease them since they are a bit different then the rest.
@@melkor3496 Why settle for autonomy (second hand citizens) when you can be independent. Tried that once and it didn't work. What would be different this time.
Thinking of language, my boyfriend is Swedish (I am Norwegian and we live in Norway). After living here for many years he is not able to speak pure Swedish anymore, but speaks a mix between Norwegian and Swedish, usually refered to as "Svorsk" which is svensk (swedish) and norsk (norwegian) put together. It is not an uncommon phenomenon that one Swede/Norwegian moving to the other country starts talking a hybrid of the two languages and have great difficulties "turning back" to their mother tongue. I believe it is because the languages are mutually intelligible, so your brain adapts to it differently and more naturally. Like moving and adapting to a completely different dialect. If I remember right, I read that purely linguistic-wise, Swedish and Norwegian (in general) could be seen as different dialects of the same language. In border towns it is not uncommon that dialects spoken on each side of the border "overlap" to some extent. Some even so much people can't decide if it's really a Norwegian or Swedish dialect 😅. In Norway, in bokmål municipalites, we have to learn writing nynorsk correctly (and vice versa). If we were to learn some common language in lets say Sweden and Norway, the most logical would be some kind of standarized "Svorsk" beside your mother tongue. But I don't know if it's much of a point. You can get by quite easily speaking Norwegian in Sweden and vice versa. Ofc Denmark is abit more difficult for Norwegians and Swedes because of the way they speak, but usually you just need some more time to adjust and it gets easier. Icelandic is ofc much harder as it is just as easy as reading some 800-1000 year old text 😅. Finland is a completely different language from a different branch. So as a Scandinavian (unless you studied Finnish ofc) you cannot understand a single word, except from some scandinavian loanwords here and there. Also in universities, atleast where I studied, I had Swedish classmates, and they could write their assignments and exams in Swedish. I believe there is some common Scandinavian law on that, that (unless there is some obvious reason) you cannot 'discriminate' between a Norwegian written assignment/exam and one written in another Scandinavian language. As a Nordic citizen you also have quite some 'exclusive' rights when it comes to other Nordic countries. You have a way more faster and easier track to obtain citizenship of another Nordic country. Also if I want to move to Sweden, I can just move. I don't need to obtain residence permit, as it is already "included" in being a Nordic citizen. I just have to make sure I register my moving. So theres alot of unity in the Nordic countries already.
Sweden has five. Swedish isn't one of them - there just hasn't been a need to specify that in law. Official languages of Sweden: Finnish, Meänkieli, Jiddisch, Romani and Sápmi.
The Icelandic language are the way Norwegian vikings spoke back in the viking times. It was a Norwegian viking called Naddodd who discovered it. And because Iceland was isolated from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the language stayed more or less the same. The three others are very simular because of the influence we had on each other through the history.
Finlands active military personal is just around 30000 the rest is conscripted. So yes and no. Finland can surely defend them self but its not likely to roam the globe like US.
@@Zodopod That 30k number is hardly relevant. It's mostly personnel training or being trained. The official wartime strength would be 280k, with reserve above 900k and that 900k is already after taking out people unfit for service. If a war would happen, those 280k would be quickly deployed, almost certainly receive extra training if war seems to be likely. And if war does happen, then rest of the reserves would almost certainly start getting more training and prepare to be deployed if needed. In other words, in case of a war 280k would be quickly reached, but that number would start growing higher and higher if necessary. But long story short, almost entire male population age of 18 and older has received military training, with some females volunteering.
@@spugelo359 Still we will never see Finland threaten or invade another country. Since is no way a conscript army today will be on that adventure. Their power projection does not exist. So Finland has not an army on 900k it's around 30k with options like you say to scale up to 280k in wartime. And the rest is just reserv but a trained reserv. So my point this video is doing a wrong comparison.
@@Zodopod You are correct but also didnt get the point, his point was to show that military personnel is there so the combined Defence Force would be quite capable. It has nothing to do with how US uses their military. Also Finnish conscription system is very different from usual ones and quite effective in making effective units. Specially crafted for our own needs.
08:37 I know this is an old saga, but officially "Scandinavia" and "Nordic" are two different things. An easy rule: in the Nordic group of DEN FIN ICE NOR SWE, the 3 monarchies DEN NOR SWE are called Scandinavia.
Also all the sub nations like Åland, and the north atlantic semi nations....and.. sort of kind of maybe also greenland. And possibly also estonia and Latvia but not Lithuania..
I came to the point that i just dont care anymore. Im Finnish always needed to say no we are not slavic no we are not scandinavian eather just finns. But now i just gonna giveup.
Technicallly, Scandinavia is just Norway and Sweden since they are on the Scandinavian peninsula. But our three countries have 2000 years of common history, and the last 1000 years in and out of unions with each other, so we more or less view each other as family. For me going on vacation in Sweden or Denmark really doesn't count as going abroad.
@@janfrodeengh5904 well if you go 2000 years back or even "just" 1200 years back, nordic countries was fractures in around 20 or so smaller nation-states a lot simular to pre United germany.
Estonia is great, the histotical ties are there, its already connected to the nordic economy through finland and the baltic sea and it has the highest potential of all the baltics. Im sure if it becomes convinient for estonia to join it wouldnt be too great of a task to convince the decision makers of that.
If Estonia approves, why not. We need to keep together in the whole region nowadays. I really hope that Sweden join Nato, so we can be more useful. It's said that we would help the Baltic countries if things get rough over there. I support that.
There's no reason to suspect that anything other than all curent languages would still be considered official languages. He presupposed that you would need 1 unifying language, and that's just not an assumption that is warranted.
Well, i assume we would see more shampoo bottle scandinavian in official documents if that happened. Every scandinavian being bored in the shower will know what i mean.
This. While english might make sense it wouldnt be accepted due to nationalism. And good for them. One's own language is invaluable and many english speakers and/or globalists dont get that. My nation wouldnt exist anymore if we hadnt clung to our language.
@@hullmees666 There would be one unified language called Swenglish a mix of Swedish and English and it is already happening as younger people are using more and more English words instead of their own native language here in Sweden at least
9:20 You are sort of right, here is the biggest irony. Its mostly the immigrants from Balkan, Iran and Vietnam that taking about this. They are the one that most want to preserve the Swedish/Nordic way of life. While even there children that is starting to become adults now, may not live so to say a 100% Nordic lifestyle, is really the part that is not that is effected the most. So this was a massive shift in imigration votes last election when imigrants started voting for right wing parties. The sift was much larger than it seams., While the right wing only won with 4 parliament seats, that may sounds like a little, there was a full party that jumped over to the left, shifted 40 parliament seat in the other direction. So if this was any prior election the victory would been 44 seats, that is a huge diffrance. The Imigratnt storry is so much BS. The Ukrainans that got here learned Swedish in 6-9 month. And some of the speak swedish so flawless now 2 years on you can even tell them apart from Swedish people (and yes of cause, Ukrainians kind of sort of look simular to Swedish people). The Somalians thgat came in the 90s, most of them can´t still speak swedish. Its not how poor you are, but how much effort you putr in.
The video forgot to count in Greenland when ranking the size. In fact, the Kingdom of Denmark, which include Greenland and the Faroe Island, is by far the largest country ( 2.210 Million Square Kilometers) in Europe (not counting Russia).
I'm terms of military, the Nordic nations just formed the Combined Northern Air Command which is the 2nd largest and by far most modern Air Command in Europe with 250 front-line combat aircraft consisting of F-35, JAS Gripen and F-18, with the F-18 about to be replaced by the F-35 soon. Turkey have slightly more aircraft, but with the F-16 as the most modern and a huge number of F-4's it's lagging behind in terms of mission capabilities.
I'm Dutch, and we indeed score high when it comes to English proficiency. That's in part because our language is very close to (old) English, and in part it is because of the mere exposure to the language in our country. My mother is one of the few who only speaks a Dutch dialect, and my daughter uses so many English words that I have to translate when they speak with each other. However, contrary to what you said, we do have an accent. I can immediately spot it. Example: we can't say a D at the enT of a worT.
@@renetopplassen8341 I'm afraid that's incorrect. Latin and French each contributed 29% of all the English loanwords. Germanic languages (including Dutch and Danish) contributed 26%. Here is a list of Nordic words: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Scandinavian_origin And here is Dutch: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Dutch_origin Etymology can be weird sometimes. "Mannequin" is one of these words with a French origin. But the French borrowed it from Flemish: "Manneke" (meaning "little man").
I think Gothenburg would be an ideal capital in the sense that it's almost right between Copenhagen and Oslo. Founded by none other than Gustavus Adolphus. Then it's protected by the Kattegatt and an archipelago, but still lies open enough for it to be easily accessible.
As a Finn, I love my Nordic brethren, and for decades we have had the Nordic pact of defence, trade and information. We would be the military powerhouse of the nation, and Norway would be the Economic force. We'll take care of our Viking brothers and sisters in Iceland, Farö, and Greenland. PERKELE! PS: Include Estonia, our well beloved southern family.
The relationship between the nordic countries is like meeting an ex partner from an abusive relationship you had a long time ago. There's deffinately an atraction but also a loooooot of apprehension, and i say that as a dane, knowing full well the evils of my forfathers. With almost 500 years of more or less continuous warfare, and occupation I don't see a unification in the near future (unless Putin tries something funny), so when this beautiful thought experiment goes so far as to speculate on where a capitol should be placed, I think a moment of uncomfortable silence and nervous looks sets in among most scandinavians, quickly followed by somebody finaly cracking a joke
Swedish here and I want back the money my ancestors gave to your ancestors because you Danes conquered älvsborg castle in Gothenburg. In today's value, we paid approximately 750 billion kroner in "Älvsborg's ransom" in 1563 and 1612. Do you want my bank account number?
I love my Nordic brothers and sisters, after all we are one big family and no one can take that away from us. SKÅL 🍻🍺🍺🍻 🇩🇰 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 🇫🇮 🇮🇸 🇫🇴 ej forglemme vores søskende fra Færøerne som ik blev nævnt
Finland, Sweden, Norway. Iceland of course. And Denmark. I would also like to see Estonia and with Estonia comes Latvia and Lithuania, naturally. What else? Maybe Scotland? We would rule the world! The republic of the North! Let's do this!!
Quite right, the nordic cooperation aka Nordic Council is quite a succes leading acces to healthcare, social benefits and a common labourmarket accessable for the inhabitants in the nordics, whats more is needed.
Swedish, Norwegian, danish, Icelandic and Faroese all have the same origins, old Norse, a northern Germanic language. They all developed their own way though, with Swedish, Norwegian and danish being the most similar. Finnish belong to a totally different language group origin in the area of the Ural mountains, bordering between Asia and Europe.
You could say that it measures "smooth sailing", or less obstacles in life, which then leads to being glad and content, rather than over the top happy about everything.
@@agffans5725happiness is a place where there is no misery. Some will see this as cynisism but imo those people on average have been living a very easy life. Cheers from finland✌️
@@Wabbajack-t7p .. Well, I do not know about the Finnish language, but in Danish there are kind of 3 words for being happy and for general happiness + coziness, the last +two = 'hygge', pure happiness = 'lykke' and being happy and contend = 'glad' (a word and meaning that also exist in the English language)
0:42 Iceland was first colonized by norwegian vikings back in the day and continued to be a part of the kingdom of Norway up until 1815 when it was transferred to the kingdom of Denmark (along with Greenland and the Faroeyar Isles) upon the break up of the Dano-Norwegian union. The icelandic language has the same root as the other scandic languages as it is a direct decendant of old norse and as for norwegian they can, to my knowledge, with some difficulty talk with each other in their respective languages
United States of Scandinavia. About military, Finland has invested heavily in the army in the recent years. We have over 1200 artillery pieces, over 200 Leopard MBTs and a lot of self-propelled artillery and HIMARS systems. Also F-35s are on their way. Also the eastern border could be fortified within a very short time period because the army has modular bunker pieces ready and stored everywhere near the border.
He really fucked up those statistics. If you take the nations ranking 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6th in the world and pull the average. they do not go back on that list as number 4. That average go back on the list as number 1.The other 5 original disappear.
With Sweden and Finland joining NATO, there is at least a potential for closer cooperation. There could even be a whole Nordic Army Corps, with National Brigades combined to make Divisions. A lot of the equipment is already pretty similar, with all countries equipped with a variant of the CV90, and most use the Leopard 2 MBT.
Finland and Sweden have allready combined amphibious task unit and Swedish, Finnish and Norwagian air forces have daily training in Lapland. And EU's battle groups Finland and Sweden have been in the same battle group.
Of course we would NOT choose english as a common language. A tiny bit of education would make everyone able to understand Norwegian Swedish and Danish well enough not to have big language problems. Finnish is of course a totally different language. English as a second language is already strong and so language is really not a showstopper.
Torneå/Tornio, would represent us the best. Why pick one close to the rest of Europe when you can pick the one best protected :D For the language we would have all the ones we have, then the leaders can speak whatever they need to at the meetings. Like I am fluent in 3 languages and that pretty normal here.
As a Dane, I dont see the nordic nations being united into 1 country in the near future, but I see a way more cooperation regarding all aspect of defence/military, not just as cooperation inside Nato, but maybe a unified military command structure (already seen by our airforces) within all military branches.
We can coordinate without needing a union. In fact, one could argue, that we would be less influential by merging. We'd have less seats in the EU-parliament for example (setting aside for the moment that Norway isn't a member).
Uniting our countries would make us stronger tho in all kinds of ways and give us a bigger say on the world stage. And having more seats in the EU shouldn’t be a priority. It doesn’t even matter when we all aren’t even politics under a similar leadership as we have very different ruling governments rn.
12:20 The solution to the capital problem is simple. make it a split capital. Copenhagen, Göteborg and Oslo. Build a high speed maglev line between. Swedish is just the most common on paper. The issue is that hardly anyone speak clear Swedish, Danish or Norwegan. If you go to say Värmland, what they speak there sounds nothing like what they speak in Stockholm, and its much closer to what they speak in Oslo. Its called swedish, just becasue its on the swedishg side of the border. Malmö Copenhagen, samte thing. In Finland its really complicated, because a percentage of Finish people talk Swedish. (Finland was Spawned as apart of Sweden when invaded by Russia). Swedish and Finish was spoken intertwine with each other at that time, and that is still true to this day. A Pan Nordic languish already exist, its on all the food packaging. Of cause, Finland already have this problem 14:03 That graf don´t look right. 375M for native english. That is just USA and UK, and boom you got 375M. Sure not everyone in USA is native to English, but its a so dominating majority. Then ad Canada, Australia, New Zeeland. And well there is more. Countries nobody thinks about. Bangladesh, Malaysia and Sri lanka, yes sure, there is only a smal procentage native to english, but its huge populations. We got more, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. And yes, sure, there is only some 2-5% that is native to English, but that is still tens of millions. And there is Philippines and South Africa where English is used as the sort of joining fabric of the nation. (as suggested here). Here is the thing. if i go do Business in really any Nordic country (apart from Iceland) i just speak Swedish. And they speak what ever they speak. it never been a problem
English is a germanic language just like Norwegian (Icelandic, Danish and Swedish). The Germanic language came to England when the Roman Empire fell. It was the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes that brought it...
Not tru e DANISH words from the DANISH vikings are numerous check it out at least 200 danish words is present in modern english without them no english !!!
Our military in Norway isn't bad, it's just small because our population is small. Doesn't really matter how many tanks and warships and fighter jets we have if we don't have the people to man them anyway. That's the main reason we're vulnerable, there simply isn't enough of us to effectively defend against someone like Russia for example. But the equipment and special forces and stuff we do have are top notch, so at least we'd die with honor and take a lot of them with us. But we're a little over 5 million people, Russia is nearly 150 million, that's 30 against 1, no matter how much money we put into the military we could never win alone. So the military isn't even really worth focusing on since the only way we'll stay alive is trough diplomacy, making friends, setting a good example, helping others, etc. The only reason we even have a military is to loan it out to allies or to do rescue operations and stuff. We could defend against Sweden, but that's about it, and they're our allies and would never attack us anyway. Only wildcard around us is Russia, and as long as we have NATO there is nothing they can do that wouldn't lead to the apocalypse for everyone anyway. You know, maybe we should acquire some nukes, we do have a lot of uranium, but once you have nukes a military is meaningless because if anyone attacks you at that point then everyone dies. Having a military on top of nukes is just to bully and rob people, it serves no other purpose.
Weak military? Think about the Winter Wars. Every Finnish soldier is worth about ten Russian ones. ;) Germany had some trouble taking Norway as well despite vastly outnumbering them. And then there's Sweden, who had multiple campaigns deep into both Russia and Poland-Lithuania.
@@cinderellaandstepsisterswhich most finns do not like because less than 3% of the population of finland speaks it as a main language No hate to sweden though
@@whatsupfuckers4078 More than that. Swedish is mandatory in schools. Nowadays Finns can speak more different languages than before. This is a good thing.
im a dane and would say if we had to pick a united language it should be norwegian. for danes swedish is way harder than norwegian. for swedes danish is way harder than norwegian. and norwegian just sounds better XD we are close as brothers and disagree as siblings. but same time denmark and sweden are also the 2 countries in the world that had most wars between them. think it was like 23 XD one big dysfunctional family but deep down we love eachother.
@@latenite97Swedes had to stop going to wars after losing Finland, their soldier reserve, ha ha. That actually started our longest period in history without wars 🇫🇮
I have many times thought about Scandinavia as a country. I think it's really doable, we are so super democratic so I think we should easily overcome the small problems to make it work.
As a Dane I dislike the idea of being one big country. We are old nations with each our unique history, culture, and language. However, I have always felt that we should form a Nordic union, rather than being in the EU, since we as nations have a lot more in common with each other than we have with most other European countries. Also, we are pretty much all as a minimum bilingual at this point, with English as our second language, so there’s no reason for changing our native tongue. I always voted against the Euro, but I probably wouldn’t mind a Nordic krone as a common currency.
Me and my old girlfriend watched an Icelandic series on television without any subtitles, it took us 3 episodes to realize that it was not Swedish they talked :D The fun part is that we knew what was going on with all the characters in the series. I guess many of the words and how they build up their sentences is very similar to Swedish.
I am from Sweden, very interesting idea. I think all of us seem so equal, I like this idea. I like Sweden, Danmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway. I am also half finnish (my father is from Finland and I work for a Danish company in Sweden 😅❤️ Gothenburg would be the best capital for the Nordics I think 😉 I love Gothenburg. We have a big harbor and lovely city.
Transitioning to english would be cultural genocide, outrageous idea in my opinion since Im certain were able to continue to respect our separate languages if you ever where to unite under the same banner (again). Looking at you Denmark ;D Lets avoid mistakes from the Kalmarunionen at all costs then, we sure have come a long way since then. However, Im skeptical to the whole idea. Things are fine as they are now, we cooperate so well already.
no one would prohibit the use of swedish, finnish, norwegian, dennish and icelandic language, and to raise the kids bilingual. Just like in Canada or Switzerland, where thereare multiple official languages in use, or with Pennsylvania Dutch in the US. It could end up like with the Amish there, they all speak perfect fluent english, but at home and within their communities they prefer to speak Pennsylvania dutch.
@@OneTrueScotsman we had a similar situation in Norway back in the day and feel much the same as you. Only a few remnants remains to this day, hence we have two written forms of communication.
You know that the Kalmar-union were a DK-NO invention ? The swedes asked for membership in it, because they didn't liked the king (german / Albrecht af Mecklenburg) that the swedish landlords have chosen.
What a bizarre "what if", considering that Denmark, Finland and Sweden are EU members; Norway and Iceland have rejected EU membership but belong to the EFTA (which has free trade with the EU) and the Schengen area. Source: Wikipedia Being considered as the happiest countries on Earth (thanks to their no-nonsense social-democratic gvts), one could be tempted to move there. I have toyed with the idea myself but I see 2 major drawbacks: the languages are pretty difficult and ... the climate (very cold with endless, dark winters). re: language, Connor, you marvel at the Dutch speaking such good English with an American accent (fun fact, the City of New York was founded by a Dutchman named Peter Stuyvesant (there is a statue of him located on 2nd Avenue at 16th St.) whose name has been used by a famous brand of cigarettes (I wonder why and how?). If you're a small country with a rather difficult local language and that you need to interact with the rest of the world, you're well advised to learn the international (commercial) language. That's pragmatism.
Its abligated the whole EU has english as second language. Most people here dont live in the northers parts. They almost emply. You can find maps for that.
The Eng as 2nd lang being mandatory only benefits the natives/residents that have fluency in a Scandi language. But if you're wanting to move to Scandinavia then you're going to have a hard time as all the skilled or decent paid jobs mandate Scandi proficiency.
We've already started to "unite". We formed a joint Nordic air force in 2023 and will most likely join all other armed forces as well at some point. We've already had defense pacts with each other for decades as well as economic and trade agreements exclusive to both Scandinavia as well as the Nordic region.
I am Danish, and often think, why did we all have to fight each other up till modern ages. Queen Margaret I managed to unite the north in 1400’s but it only lasted 150 years. Would be cool if it had lasted.
Aboutthe military... There already is a common military group for the Nordics. Two even. First off there is Nordic Defence Cooperation (Short: NorDefCo) Then there is the E.U. Nordic battle group. It also includes some of the Baltics.
You also forgot about the newly formed Nordic Airforce, unifying the military air command of all Nordic countries under one commander. The NACI agreement was signed about a year ago, and the command structure should start to slowly change when Sweden gets accepted to NATO.
I dont wana sound like an crazy racist, but Iam from Finland, and we are starting to se the negative impact imigrants bring, where crime rates are sky rocketting, social services are becomming more expencive and directly impacting the poor or unemployed to a huge exetent, and unfortunately this due to more and more immigrants and refuges comming, whom only a fraction of ever actualy even tries to learn the languages and get a job, what meens taxes are going up, food specialy has risen in price so high, what again is raising the crimerates even higher. it is a visious cycle that most likely will backfire so hard soon, that there is no turning back, specialy native finns, racsism is on the rise a lot, more extremist politicians are becomming more popular, combine this whit us having a long border with russia and the ukraine war it becomes worse and worse.
Its not racist if its true As a finn i agree And i do not like that my taxes are going into the pockets of immigrants who do not work at all, or even try learning our language It gets frustrating really
It would be practical but strange if the Nordics' official language were English. Finnish and Greenlandic do not belong to the Germanic language family, but communication has never been a problem. I myself make myself understood in the whole Nordic region, even though I have never visited Greenland.
As me from the south Portugal i lived in Sweden about 10 years and 13 in The Netherlands.. i understand them except finish is hard to understand. Atm i am in Sweden helping a friend. I love all the Nordic people and the nature is great. Greetings from 🇵🇹🇸🇪
I do not think that Norway would go into any union that easily, reason why is that Norway only became its own free country in 1905 after being under Danish rule and then handed over to Sweden which we refused and then was free years later in 1905. It was very recent, only in 1905 we became free, so I do not see how we would want to go back in time. Also our language got lost under foreign ruling, now we speak a language based on Danish.
You are right but it irritates me that you try to distance your selve from danish because of a inferiority complex because that makes it harder to understand one another . WHY NOT RETAIN many of the danish words. Nynorsk bokmål it is nonsense.
@@henningrasmussen8225 there is no inferiority complex, spoken Norwegian is not Danish, we only have similar language when written. For Norwegian, it is easier to understand when speaking to a Swede, than a Dane. Swedes don't understand Danish at all, unless being from the south of Sweden.
During university (many, many years ago), I was a member of a Nordic student organisation (I am a Dane) .YES - a Nordic Union makes absolutely sense. Since you mention the Dutch are extremely good English speakers, let confirm that point of view. The Dutch speak also very well German and French.... They are prbaby the best foreign language speakers in Western Europe. Let me also thank you for all your videos. I really appreciate the way you approach any culture with openess and genuine curiosity. Thank you🙂
all the Nordic countries have military cooperation with the USA, especially Denmark, which has had Danish soldiers stationed with the American military since the first gulf war and until now. Denmark actually has a higher loss figure per inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan war then the United States.
You can't just add up the GDPs, because Norway has such enormous amounts of money compared to its population that we have to limit the spending in order to avoid too high inflation. We don't want to be an oil economy. If our population was five times bigger, then we could continue to increase our spending and this would have a massive impact on the Nordic GDP.
@@mortenhansen2578: It will still be offshore. We have empty wells will be used for carbon storage. There's giantic amounts of minerals and rare metals on the ocean floor and we've decided to investigate mining it. We've also made great progress on developing offshore aquaculture, which would be revolutionary, because there's a lot of issues with coastal aquaculture. There's an ocean of wind available and the market for green hydrogen will only grow. In short, I don't think we would have any problems phasing out oil and gas, but other countries still desperately need it. But if we can be successful in large scale carbon capture and storage, I think that we should continue producing gas, but using it onsite for blue hydrogen.
@@jeschinstad Nice to know :) My question was not so much against Norway ending the Oil and gas era. This is to me an necessary step we all need to do. It was more about what kind of industry can give Norway enough foreign trade, to support its citizens.But thank you answering my question :) btw. I had 10 great month in 2018 working in Sandnes. Now I want to see more of Norway, but as Tourist.
@@mortenhansen2578: Oh, I see. Our national economy does not depend on oil anymore. Financially, we don't need it, but we need the jobs and the competence. We stopped spending the oil income in 2001. That's what our national pension plan is for; we always knew that the oil wouldn't last forever. So we put all the oil income into the fund and only spend a maximum of the yearly returns, but it's already making more than we can spend. In fact economists say we should reduce our spending by 33% for the sake of inflation. So financially, the pension fund replaces the oil and gas as sources of income.
If our nordic countries merged; having a captiol city is an old and obsolete construct, but Copenhagan is too far away from the rest of the land. If we " joined forces" it think each capitol would remain anything else would be unthinkable. But we do have the EU...
I agree that Copenhagen would be the best location for a union capital. Although as a Swede it would hurt a little, it would be like letting your little sibling sit in the front seat while in the middle of Norway and Finland (aka bitch seat)
"Little sibling" 😂 By definition, Denmark is the oldest (biggest) sibling😉 if you're referring to the sizes, Denmark includes Greenland and the faeroe Islands, making it the world's 12th largest country.. Just saying 🤣😉
I'm from Norway...I have lived in Sweden before and now I live in Denmark...we are already almost like one country,... we support each other in sports and other ways. About the language...I don't think I'm alone when I say that Finish is different from the other nothdic countries, it's difficult to find one similar word. I have tried to learn it, so now I can all the numbers and I can count very well, but I came to realize that learning finish was way to difficult (with the Baltic twist) and I had no intention to move to Finland though it's a very beautiful country. Icelandic is different to, but easier than finish. 😉
as for the capital of this new nation. it comes down to two things i would say. If the most important part of the capital being the possibilities of expanding then either Stockholm or Copenhagen would be the best options because they are flatter and have better soil fro it. But if saftey from potential threat is the most important factor then Oslo would be the best option. Cause to invade Oslo one would need to first cross the north sea + the skagerak strait and then also move into the Oslo fjord. if thinking about both of these factors though i would say Oslo would be the best option. but there could be more factors that needs adressing.
Adding onto it. Oslo would also be more of a midpoint than that of Stockholm and Copenhagen. Copenhagen is more prone to be a potential target because of being at the entrance to the baltic sea. Stockholm would not be that far from Russia either which would be the most likely attacking nation if anything.
@@rojavabashur6455 i mean sure. I was just going off between the 3 current capitals. Gothenburg could be good too. But when i said midpoint i meant like midpoint for everything. Like between Oslo,Copenhagen and Stockholm. Oslo is more of a midpoint to the entire nation. A midpoint beteen Hellsinki and Reykjavik for example.
Interesting..i would love that idea...the area jas already the perfect name Scandinavia...we would probably speak same languages as now 😀with English used when needed just like it is aready.Im Swedish and thru history there has never been only a Swedish language.We been borrowing words from all over Europe and Same people up in north,Swedish in the south and for 700yrs before Russia took Finland it was and still is many who speaks Finnish i Sweden and part of Finland has population that still .speaks Swedish
Nordic countries have already had very close cooperation for a long time. However, I don't see the benefit from uniting into one country. We have different languages, different conditions and different needs, so trying to put all under same law is not good idea. However, if something would happen for EU, it would make sense to integrate economies and also deepen military cooperation.
As a swede I would love to see a closer bond between my nordic brothers and sisters.
Same
As a Dane I wouldn’t like to be under political influence from Sweden. The choices that Sweden has made about immigration from the Middle East and Africa have totally changed Sweden to a country that I can’t recognise it’s so sad to see all the problems What the Swedish politicians and the feminists have created have been setting the swedes in a very weak, hopeless and difficult situation. I really feel sad and sorry for the Swedish people….
@@denmark2680 As a Swede I certainly agree. Our current political representatives are definitely nothing to be proud of. But time will change. In 50 years from now, when we both are dead and buried , the need to make the Nordic states a union will become much stronger. Everything you see in the world today points in that direction. People that share the same heritage and share the same values will try to come together. That's my beliefe anyway. / Micke P
@@denmark2680 I don"t blame you, I hate what the politicians has done to my country.
@@miriamterner9460Ja vi är många som håller med... Politiker har skändat samt skänkt bort landets kultur och infört en psykisk ohälsa hos folket..
Mångkultur funkar ej helt enkelt..
Feminismen funkar inte den heller..
Och hat och hot splittrar folket..
Jag är patriot och älskar mitt land men att rädda pk folk det kommer ej ske om skiten träffar fläkten...
Hjälper dom som står mig närmast med samma tänk..
Tragiskt men så är det!
im from Denmark and i love my nordic neighbour countries. i include iceland as well in that . we just have so many things in common in culture and history. we are just connected in so many ways that you dont really see in the same way across the world.
if anything ever happened, you could be damn sure we would all unite instantly.
so to my fellow nordic people. i love u all :).
Yes, if a real threat came, we would all stand in unison. Finn, Dane, Swede, Norwegian, Icelander. Hope that never happens!
❤
🇮🇸🇸🇪🇩🇰🇳🇴🇫🇮👍🏻
Likewise! Greetings from Finland
You stole my thunder ;)
Love my sweet Nordic fellas
Let's do it, I'm in. Love all my Nordic neighbors. Love from Sweden!
🇩🇰 Me too. Love to All of you .
Well USA is blocking it so...
I'm in 🇩🇰
I will visit Mariestad in a couple of months :-)
Well the problem is USA, they don't allow us to do it.
🇫🇮 Let’s do it! The pride on what we have managed to accomplish should be sheltered. Too many people are willing to lose everything good in the name of political correctness. 😊
At 4:00 about the military: Finland alone has 280 000 war time troops + 590 000 trained reserves. This is roughly as much as Italy, France, the UK and Germany combined. If the USA wanted to have the same strength per capita, it would need to train over 50 million soldiers.
Norway have mandatory service, so we have reserves ready for invasion as well, with bunkers stocked all over Norway. It's just a low active service of hired personel.
@@birdsteak9267What does the mandatory service mean then? Because in finland it means you have to train to be a soldier or sometimes people can choose to do other work but mostly people become soldiers. Doesnt seem like your mandatory service is the same as in Finland since you got no soldiers.
@@maonparas Everyone at age 18+ who is physically fit enough has to train to become a soldier, which also means that in case of war, they will be drafted into the National Guard and other positions. I don't remember how many years between, but we get called in for exercises for refreshment every 5-7 years. They are not considered to be on active duty, but thousands of people every year get into this service for 12 months and will be drafted when the time comes. No soldiers? Ok pal, whatever pleases your imagination.
@@birdsteak9267 Ok so you have the same system? Why dont you have any reserves on paper then. Btw i wasnt saying you got no soldiers, i meant more that its weird that it seems like youve got very few even when you have mandatory service.
@@maonparas Because Mandatory isn't professional, it's temporary. So they don't get registered the same way as professional, as in career workers. Why I don't know, I just know that is how it is. I served 1 year mandatory then I took a extended year. The people who are registered are Corporals and above, they went the career path which is voluntarily.
If you doesn't meet their standards then you won't have to serve. But I am excited about the expanding Scandinavian Union though, it seem like our forces will have a much closer relationship now, under a more interconnected command. At least the airforce is.
As a Finn I would totally approve this.
There necessarily shouldn't be a capital though, rather rotating "nordic counsil city" which gets passed from country to country (4 year terms?). We already have a lot of cooperation in defense things with Sweden (mainly baltic sea and Åland areas) and Norway (north, they also share Russian border) so mostly this would be tighter economic integration, possibly a shared currency something else than EUR.
This definitely would work way better than EU and EMU...
Yes it would have a better chance now to succed then the last time... economies are more equal nowadays
Maybe you should try and take advantage of what we already have?
@@FSboy70 I guess we already do and there is a lot of collaboration between Nordics, including free movement across the borders.
Make Åland the capial, can be cool 🤔🤷
I would say as fellow Scandinavian we would share capital and have 4 "capitals". hehe im Swedish I really think we should do this we would be so much stronger and would grow all countrys i Scandinavia.
I think all Nordic people really appreciate what they have and come from -and you can see it in how they take care of their nature. Its all clean, no trash anywhere.
Iceland is the clostest language to old norse, and was colonized by Norwegians, so our brothers in Iceland are closer to our old language than we are now. This due to Iceland being more isolated while our language were influenced strongly by the Denmark-Norway union. Faroese language is derived from old norse to, but is a bit more similar to Norwegian than Icelandic is.
True as an icelander it takes little effort to learn or understand our norwegian brothers. Also for those who might mistake colonization for the brutal oppression and allat iceland was completely uninhabited befour
Learned old norse when I was around 12 (soon 23 now).. It's kinda similar to swedish and the other scandinavian languages today.. (im a swede) real fun to talk in old norse since no one understands it here today xD
@@oliverbrekidavisdavidsson81 And yet your government decided you should learn Danish in school in order to "get closer to Scandinavia". Not only is Danish the most difficult Nordic language to be understood by Swedes and Norwegians, but we already speak English anyway 😅
Icelandic isn't actually the closest language to Old Norse. Elfdalian is significantly closer in all aspects of language from grammar and pronunciation to vocabulary.
It's infuriating and utterly inexcusable that the Swedish government still refuses to recognize it as an official minority language. They haven't even instituted any protections for it even though it's critically endangered. It's literally Old Norse with some diphthongs. Unlike Icelandic, it hasn't changed grammatically since the Viking period and it retains some pronunciation features that even Icelandic has lost over time.
@@1Anime4you Never heard of Elfdalian until today! Cheers from Denmark :-)
I strongly believe in the importance of unity among Nordic nations, and I would be ready to assist if any of our neighbors were in need during a crisis
we already are, and every year we continue to improve cooperation
Norway - beautiful nature, oil resources, a little too lazy but they can be so because of their resources
Sweden - industry and innovation powerhouse of the union, too serious for their own good sometimes (decisions can't be made before everyone has had their turn to speak)
Finland - speciality industry, logging and the brutalistically simple, yet beautiful Finnish mindset + military
Denmark - The lighter mindset, the day-drinker, the smoker, the "I don't give a shit but somehow I am still successful mindset" + pork and the physical connection to mainland Europe
Edit: And Iceland - the country I forgot while writing this (little drunk)
Combine these powers and you've got yourself one hell of a country.
I se it as Sweden is not really a solid nation. Sweden is one small part Norway, a bit larger part Denmark and the largest part Finland.
But here is the kicker... Finland is not really Finland, Finland is Sweden
Denmark the Lighter mindset, the daydrinker..., a drink too far to day my dear cousin😉
@@gunnardahlgaard429 All in good spirit! Just having a bit of fun :)
@@tobias_dahlberg I know, but couldn't resist....but today we are going to beat you in handball😊
Yes Finland is actually Sweden.
We are already united. I would fight for my brothers and sisters, and I am not alone.
definitely. people also seem to be blissfully unaware of the Nordic council. a council representing all our nations with the sole purpose of fostering cooperation and trade. at a level higher than even the EU. and id say its a much better approach than to make everyone part of a single government. although, I think we should not have individual militaries. I think we should have individual flags, and the soldiers are part of individual branches. but overall a united military. so that cooperation between the countries during war can be top notch. would also help solve the current issues of communication. although as Sweden and Finland get established within NATO a lot of these issues will be solved naturally as they start using more NATO standard equipment.
Nah, let's keep it as it is. We already co-operate a lot and feel very close, in lifestyle and values. Hello to 🇸🇪 🇩🇰 🇮🇸 🇳🇴 from 🇫🇮
Agree, why fix something that is not broken.
Best love country story to date in World,
and include Åland Island (part of Finland).
Kind of a simplistic mindset.
Unbroken things can still be improved.
Swedes being boring snobs, Norwegians being posh snobs, Finns being Scandi redneck, etc.
We are basically already united, couldn't even imagine any of us standing on the sidelines if another one of us got attacked. I hope this will extend to any countries that aren't led in a predatory nature (like the unpredictable nations led by dictators or the ones where GDP matters more than a sustainable well being).
Agree that we would not leave eachother!❤
and theres the "nordic council" which has the sole purpose of keeping us united and in agreement of development of the Nordic region. and is indeed what we use to trade and do diplomacy with others, because we are able to use our united power to make better deals. want a fishing deal with Norway? well be prepared to make it a fair one because Sweden Finland Denmark and Iceland will back any and every pull out from trade done by Norway if it deems it a misuse of trust or attempt to take advantage of them.
As a Dane I'm a very delighted that Finland and soon Sweden would join the NATO alliance. Welcome brothers.
As a Swede, I hate to say it but Köpenhamn would be the logical choice for a capital. 😉 As for language, I would suggest we would keep it "as is", switching to English would rob us of a lot of our heritage!
Just combine it with Malmö and call it Öresund (just so we can be a part of it)
@@k_dropno thank you .....jimmi have a job to do ,before we want anything with malmö to do . Sorry guys ....löfven flucked it up to much .
As a Norwegian I would say Oslo or Gothenburg as Copenhagen would be on the wrong side of Skagerak and Kattegat.
On Holiday.. in a loud pub, and talk to echother. We switch to english anyway.. hahahaha. There is no Need for a common Launguage as we have it allready.
No we need to speak English if dans are involved 😂.
3:40 Who ever done the ranking have done one major error.. They forgot to remove the nations from the nordic countrys the total ranking. This matters quite a lot becuase in the cases where the new nordic nations rank 4 or 5, most of the nations a head is nrodic countries that no longer would exist.
As a finn…
Stokholm. Ps. We also speak swedish here in Finland. It is our second official language. Swedish and Norwegian languages are quite similar.
Never gonna happen. Denmark would never allow it's closets frenemy to steal the Capital. Neither would Norway. Instead a Geo-rotating Nordic Council would be best. And no it cannot meet mostly in Stockholm either. Can't happen. We've had too many wars. Yeah that's not done yet.
We already have this funny pan-scandinavian language in a several ways. As a Swede, I rarely speak English when in Norway or Denmark. I speak Swedish, flavored with any local words and phrases I know, in a, most likely offensive, accent that actually seems to work just fine. Whenever I start off with English, I am often met with a look that says: "what are you doing? We are the same!". We also see it on stuff like ingredients lists for food. They often clump together SE/DE/NO and then proceed to approximate some kind of Scandinavian. I love that!
I would like to see you count 0 to 100 in danish. But i truly support you. If a swede or norvegian speak their national tongue in Denmark, just speak slow, we'll understand.
@@PSimonsenI speak English in stores in Denmark, just because that - to count is impossible to me.
I have noticed that after some Tuborg I start to understand in the bar 🙂.
Hälsningar från Sverige 🇸🇪
@@PSimonsenDanish counting ain't that difficult really, one just need to remember that it's based upon Snes (20) instead of tens.
Waves from Norway.
@@bankabaver4583they count in snes (20s) and half snes (tens), therefore tres is 3 snes=60 and halv fems is 4and and a half snes = 90
@@Xirque666 I know. It's base 20, which is really strange compared to the rest of the world. There places around the world that have similar strange numbering systems.
I am from sweden and i love living here and btw you videos always makes me happy to watch keep it up
Kult å se. Mange svensker og dansker som kommenterer også. Utrolig hvor bra vi har det her i nord. Særlig i Norge da. Takk for fin film.
Militarily, Nordic is quite powerful. Finland alone has the biggest artillery in Europe. Airforce would match Russia and the quality of that airforce is top notch in the world. The Combined Nordic Airforce has been formed already, so we can think of them as one airforce in time of war. Navally, decent but is concentrated on Baltic Sea which doesn't support heavy stuff at all, it is also quite shallow sea which also makes submarines more difficult to operate in secret. And manpower.. is again filled by Finland, having up to 900k in reserves. Overall, it is not at all shabby military force, capable of defending the Nordic for sure.
The Nordic military have for many years been underfinanced. I haven't much knowledge about Norway and Sweeden but the army as such has diminished. The Danish army has been worn out for long. Go back to the cold war and things were a bit different. Now the tide has changed, much bigger budgets are now being established, but it is not done overnight. Defending the shallow Baltic sea is not a piece of cake. Finding a submarine is actually quite difficult. We have different layers of fresh and salty water in the Baltic Sea. Near the surface is a less salty layer. Below is a salty layer. These two layers don't mix. It results in a kind of shield under which you can operate or hide you submarine. This actually means that hiding your sub below this is a tactical strategy. It is now invincible and very difficult to detect even with modern equipement.
@@andersbechchristensen9627 It is true that the rest of the Nordic has cut military to minimum but.. the equipment is very high quality, and there is existing framework that allows them to quickly catch up. Finland is the exception, we just never stopped preparing. Thus, it forms the backbone of that military union.
@@andersbechchristensen9627Sweden barely has a military, but we do however produce the worlds best aircrafts and submarines (the Gotland class) which has beaten most nations in simulation due to its silence.
@@TheRealValdil Det har alltid varit hemligt hur många totalt som gjort lumpen i Sverige så vet inte vad du vet som alla andra inte får veta . Bara 2003 när jag gjorde lumpen så vart det 15529 nya soldater det året .
Great reaction. The language could be Scandic. A combination of them all. We would all understad it, and it would give us our own heritage and culture.
Finns would not trust me I speak Swedish finnish and norweigan.
@@lexluthor6497 There’s an easy fix to that. Finland gains certain legal autonomy within the union to appease them since they are a bit different then the rest.
@@melkor3496 Why settle for autonomy (second hand citizens) when you can be independent. Tried that once and it didn't work. What would be different this time.
I dont think so. Bigger countries like this several accents as well. Most of them has mority righs as well.
Good luck learning any Finnish 😂
Thinking of language, my boyfriend is Swedish (I am Norwegian and we live in Norway). After living here for many years he is not able to speak pure Swedish anymore, but speaks a mix between Norwegian and Swedish, usually refered to as "Svorsk" which is svensk (swedish) and norsk (norwegian) put together. It is not an uncommon phenomenon that one Swede/Norwegian moving to the other country starts talking a hybrid of the two languages and have great difficulties "turning back" to their mother tongue. I believe it is because the languages are mutually intelligible, so your brain adapts to it differently and more naturally. Like moving and adapting to a completely different dialect. If I remember right, I read that purely linguistic-wise, Swedish and Norwegian (in general) could be seen as different dialects of the same language. In border towns it is not uncommon that dialects spoken on each side of the border "overlap" to some extent. Some even so much people can't decide if it's really a Norwegian or Swedish dialect 😅.
In Norway, in bokmål municipalites, we have to learn writing nynorsk correctly (and vice versa). If we were to learn some common language in lets say Sweden and Norway, the most logical would be some kind of standarized "Svorsk" beside your mother tongue. But I don't know if it's much of a point. You can get by quite easily speaking Norwegian in Sweden and vice versa.
Ofc Denmark is abit more difficult for Norwegians and Swedes because of the way they speak, but usually you just need some more time to adjust and it gets easier. Icelandic is ofc much harder as it is just as easy as reading some 800-1000 year old text 😅. Finland is a completely different language from a different branch. So as a Scandinavian (unless you studied Finnish ofc) you cannot understand a single word, except from some scandinavian loanwords here and there.
Also in universities, atleast where I studied, I had Swedish classmates, and they could write their assignments and exams in Swedish. I believe there is some common Scandinavian law on that, that (unless there is some obvious reason) you cannot 'discriminate' between a Norwegian written assignment/exam and one written in another Scandinavian language. As a Nordic citizen you also have quite some 'exclusive' rights when it comes to other Nordic countries. You have a way more faster and easier track to obtain citizenship of another Nordic country. Also if I want to move to Sweden, I can just move. I don't need to obtain residence permit, as it is already "included" in being a Nordic citizen. I just have to make sure I register my moving. So theres alot of unity in the Nordic countries already.
Svorsk, unify the en/ett "genders" and adopt universal he/she "hän" from Finnish and I'm in :D
Switzerland has 4 official languages, each canton its own one(s). And they are doing fine.
Sweden has five. Swedish isn't one of them - there just hasn't been a need to specify that in law. Official languages of Sweden: Finnish, Meänkieli, Jiddisch, Romani and Sápmi.
The Icelandic language are the way Norwegian vikings spoke back in the viking times. It was a Norwegian viking called Naddodd who discovered it. And because Iceland was isolated from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the language stayed more or less the same. The three others are very simular because of the influence we had on each other through the history.
Copenhagen and Malmoe (3rd biggest city in Sweden) is basically already one city since the bridge was built.
Copenhagen Airport is basically Malmo’s second local Airport and vice versus.
The military wouldn't even be an issue. 1.1 million personnel is quite a big amount considering the US has 1.4 million.
Yeah and that manpower (8th largest) combined with these equipments:
Land Forces:
400 MBT:s (global 33rd)
30 778 Vehicles (global 19th)
969 artillery (global 17th)
Airforce
total assets: 597 (global 21st)
211 fighters (global 14th)
(types of F-16, F-18 and JAS 39 Gripens. Projected 143 F-35:s)
Navy
Total assets: 715 ships (global 3rd)
Frigates: 13 (global 5th)
Corvettes: 13 (global 8th)
Submarines: 11 (global 10th)
Mine Warfare: 32 (global 3rd)
Patrol: 368 (global 1st)
Finlands active military personal is just around 30000 the rest is conscripted. So yes and no. Finland can surely defend them self but its not likely to roam the globe like US.
@@Zodopod That 30k number is hardly relevant. It's mostly personnel training or being trained. The official wartime strength would be 280k, with reserve above 900k and that 900k is already after taking out people unfit for service. If a war would happen, those 280k would be quickly deployed, almost certainly receive extra training if war seems to be likely. And if war does happen, then rest of the reserves would almost certainly start getting more training and prepare to be deployed if needed. In other words, in case of a war 280k would be quickly reached, but that number would start growing higher and higher if necessary. But long story short, almost entire male population age of 18 and older has received military training, with some females volunteering.
@@spugelo359 Still we will never see Finland threaten or invade another country. Since is no way a conscript army today will be on that adventure. Their power projection does not exist. So Finland has not an army on 900k it's around 30k with options like you say to scale up to 280k in wartime. And the rest is just reserv but a trained reserv. So my point this video is doing a wrong comparison.
@@Zodopod You are correct but also didnt get the point, his point was to show that military personnel is there so the combined Defence Force would be quite capable. It has nothing to do with how US uses their military.
Also Finnish conscription system is very different from usual ones and quite effective in making effective units. Specially crafted for our own needs.
08:37 I know this is an old saga, but officially "Scandinavia" and "Nordic" are two different things. An easy rule: in the Nordic group of DEN FIN ICE NOR SWE, the 3 monarchies DEN NOR SWE are called Scandinavia.
Also all the sub nations like Åland, and the north atlantic semi nations....and.. sort of kind of maybe also greenland. And possibly also estonia and Latvia but not Lithuania..
I came to the point that i just dont care anymore. Im Finnish always needed to say no we are not slavic no we are not scandinavian eather just finns. But now i just gonna giveup.
Technicallly, Scandinavia is just Norway and Sweden since they are on the Scandinavian peninsula. But our three countries have 2000 years of common history, and the last 1000 years in and out of unions with each other, so we more or less view each other as family. For me going on vacation in Sweden or Denmark really doesn't count as going abroad.
Greenland and the Faeroe Islands are technically also part of a monarchy, as they are part of the Kingdom of Denmark. But your idea is good :)
@@janfrodeengh5904 well if you go 2000 years back or even "just" 1200 years back, nordic countries was fractures in around 20 or so smaller nation-states a lot simular to pre United germany.
As a finn i would also want estonia included
As a Dane, I would not mind our Kingdom once again stretching all the way to Estonia. Its the birthplace of our flag after all.
Estonia is great, the histotical ties are there, its already connected to the nordic economy through finland and the baltic sea and it has the highest potential of all the baltics. Im sure if it becomes convinient for estonia to join it wouldnt be too great of a task to convince the decision makers of that.
Sweden approves. And besides they are already integrated in our banking systems
If Estonia approves, why not. We need to keep together in the whole region nowadays. I really hope that Sweden join Nato, so we can be more useful. It's said that we would help the Baltic countries if things get rough over there. I support that.
Include Shetlands, Faroes and Orkneyes!!!!! The all got the correct flag for the Nordics..
"Why be big when you are Happy to be little?" The Nordics love individuel freedom and all Nordic nations love each other. Thats why we are so strong.
There's no reason to suspect that anything other than all curent languages would still be considered official languages. He presupposed that you would need 1 unifying language, and that's just not an assumption that is warranted.
Well, i assume we would see more shampoo bottle scandinavian in official documents if that happened. Every scandinavian being bored in the shower will know what i mean.
@@Amphibiot 😂
This. While english might make sense it wouldnt be accepted due to nationalism. And good for them. One's own language is invaluable and many english speakers and/or globalists dont get that. My nation wouldnt exist anymore if we hadnt clung to our language.
@@hullmees666 There would be one unified language called Swenglish a mix of Swedish and English and it is already happening as younger people are using more and more English words instead of their own native language here in Sweden at least
@@styrelsefksu4463that train has left the station...now they throw in arabic,african and latin words almost more often then english
9:20 You are sort of right, here is the biggest irony. Its mostly the immigrants from Balkan, Iran and Vietnam that taking about this. They are the one that most want to preserve the Swedish/Nordic way of life. While even there children that is starting to become adults now, may not live so to say a 100% Nordic lifestyle, is really the part that is not that is effected the most.
So this was a massive shift in imigration votes last election when imigrants started voting for right wing parties. The sift was much larger than it seams., While the right wing only won with 4 parliament seats, that may sounds like a little, there was a full party that jumped over to the left, shifted 40 parliament seat in the other direction. So if this was any prior election the victory would been 44 seats, that is a huge diffrance.
The Imigratnt storry is so much BS. The Ukrainans that got here learned Swedish in 6-9 month. And some of the speak swedish so flawless now 2 years on you can even tell them apart from Swedish people (and yes of cause, Ukrainians kind of sort of look simular to Swedish people). The Somalians thgat came in the 90s, most of them can´t still speak swedish. Its not how poor you are, but how much effort you putr in.
The only reason the natives don't talk about this is because they're afraid of being labeled racist if they do, so they wisely keep their mouths shut.
Bro is spitting facts🔥You need to become a politician 🍷
The video forgot to count in Greenland when ranking the size. In fact, the Kingdom of Denmark, which include Greenland and the Faroe Island, is by far the largest country ( 2.210 Million Square Kilometers) in Europe (not counting Russia).
I'm terms of military, the Nordic nations just formed the Combined Northern Air Command which is the 2nd largest and by far most modern Air Command in Europe with 250 front-line combat aircraft consisting of F-35, JAS Gripen and F-18, with the F-18 about to be replaced by the F-35 soon.
Turkey have slightly more aircraft, but with the F-16 as the most modern and a huge number of F-4's it's lagging behind in terms of mission capabilities.
I'm Dutch, and we indeed score high when it comes to English proficiency. That's in part because our language is very close to (old) English, and in part it is because of the mere exposure to the language in our country. My mother is one of the few who only speaks a Dutch dialect, and my daughter uses so many English words that I have to translate when they speak with each other.
However, contrary to what you said, we do have an accent. I can immediately spot it. Example: we can't say a D at the enT of a worT.
Hi, did you know, thats most english word came from Denmark. As eks, Windows = vinduer
@@renetopplassen8341 I'm afraid that's incorrect. Latin and French each contributed 29% of all the English loanwords. Germanic languages (including Dutch and Danish) contributed 26%.
Here is a list of Nordic words: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Scandinavian_origin
And here is Dutch: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Dutch_origin
Etymology can be weird sometimes. "Mannequin" is one of these words with a French origin. But the French borrowed it from Flemish: "Manneke" (meaning "little man").
I think Gothenburg would be an ideal capital in the sense that it's almost right between Copenhagen and Oslo. Founded by none other than Gustavus Adolphus. Then it's protected by the Kattegatt and an archipelago, but still lies open enough for it to be easily accessible.
I dont belive in those center thinking anymore.
It would be a good Scandinavian capital. Not necessarily Nordic
As a Finn, I love my Nordic brethren, and for decades we have had the Nordic pact of defence, trade and information. We would be the military powerhouse of the nation, and Norway would be the Economic force. We'll take care of our Viking brothers and sisters in Iceland, Farö, and Greenland. PERKELE!
PS: Include Estonia, our well beloved southern family.
The relationship between the nordic countries is like meeting an ex partner from an abusive relationship you had a long time ago. There's deffinately an atraction but also a loooooot of apprehension, and i say that as a dane, knowing full well the evils of my forfathers. With almost 500 years of more or less continuous warfare, and occupation I don't see a unification in the near future (unless Putin tries something funny), so when this beautiful thought experiment goes so far as to speculate on where a capitol should be placed, I think a moment of uncomfortable silence and nervous looks sets in among most scandinavians, quickly followed by somebody finaly cracking a joke
And what to do with the royals ???
Good point! Hadn't thought of that. A good old trial by combat maybe?@@andersliljevall2946 😆
Swedish here and I want back the money my ancestors gave to your ancestors because you Danes conquered älvsborg castle in Gothenburg. In today's value, we paid approximately 750 billion kroner in "Älvsborg's ransom" in 1563 and 1612.
Do you want my bank account number?
Siblings fight, but still family at the end
Half Norwegian, half Swedish. Been wanting this for decades. Please make it happen!
I love my Nordic brothers and sisters, after all we are one big family and no one can take that away from us. SKÅL 🍻🍺🍺🍻 🇩🇰 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 🇫🇮 🇮🇸 🇫🇴 ej forglemme vores søskende fra Færøerne som ik blev nævnt
Finland, Sweden, Norway. Iceland of course. And Denmark. I would also like to see Estonia and with Estonia comes Latvia and Lithuania, naturally. What else? Maybe Scotland? We would rule the world! The republic of the North! Let's do this!!
No need to change the borders, we have such a close co-operation already with our brothers and sisters among the nordic countries.
Quite right, the nordic cooperation aka Nordic Council is quite a succes leading acces to healthcare, social benefits and a common labourmarket accessable for the inhabitants in the nordics, whats more is needed.
A Nordic union would not change borders for member countries anymore than European Union does.
We’re not creating a new country here. :)
Swedish, Norwegian, danish, Icelandic and Faroese all have the same origins, old Norse, a northern Germanic language. They all developed their own way though, with Swedish, Norwegian and danish being the most similar. Finnish belong to a totally different language group origin in the area of the Ural mountains, bordering between Asia and Europe.
The language is different, but the race is a different matter.
The only difference is that Finland has got more ppl with blue eyes and blond hair.
The happiness index doesnt really measure who are the happiest but rather who are the least unhappy on average, important distinction
You could say that it measures "smooth sailing", or less obstacles in life, which then leads to being glad and content, rather than over the top happy about everything.
@@agffans5725happiness is a place where there is no misery. Some will see this as cynisism but imo those people on average have been living a very easy life. Cheers from finland✌️
@@Wabbajack-t7p .. Well, I do not know about the Finnish language, but in Danish there are kind of 3 words for being happy and for general happiness + coziness, the last +two = 'hygge', pure happiness = 'lykke' and being happy and contend = 'glad' (a word and meaning that also exist in the English language)
0:42
Iceland was first colonized by norwegian vikings back in the day and continued to be a part of the kingdom of Norway up until 1815 when it was transferred to the kingdom of Denmark (along with Greenland and the Faroeyar Isles) upon the break up of the Dano-Norwegian union.
The icelandic language has the same root as the other scandic languages as it is a direct decendant of old norse and as for norwegian they can, to my knowledge, with some difficulty talk with each other in their respective languages
Iceland was Danish until 1945, when it became a Republic. Many Icelanders study, work and live in Denmark.
United States of Scandinavia. About military, Finland has invested heavily in the army in the recent years. We have over 1200 artillery pieces, over 200 Leopard MBTs and a lot of self-propelled artillery and HIMARS systems. Also F-35s are on their way. Also the eastern border could be fortified within a very short time period because the army has modular bunker pieces ready and stored everywhere near the border.
He really fucked up those statistics. If you take the nations ranking 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6th in the world and pull the average. they do not go back on that list as number 4. That average go back on the list as number 1.The other 5 original disappear.
With Sweden and Finland joining NATO, there is at least a potential for closer cooperation. There could even be a whole Nordic Army Corps, with National Brigades combined to make Divisions. A lot of the equipment is already pretty similar, with all countries equipped with a variant of the CV90, and most use the Leopard 2 MBT.
Finland and Sweden have allready combined amphibious task unit and Swedish, Finnish and Norwagian air forces have daily training in Lapland.
And EU's battle groups Finland and Sweden have been in the same battle group.
And 3 of us got the f35
Of course we would NOT choose english as a common language. A tiny bit of education would make everyone able to understand Norwegian Swedish and Danish well enough not to have big language problems. Finnish is of course a totally different language.
English as a second language is already strong and so language is really not a showstopper.
Swedish being the official language would be the Finn's greatest fear
Swedish IS the second official language in Finland. Officially.
@@cinderellaandstepsisters bro missed the joke, it is already horrible
@@cinderellaandstepsistersand we hate it
Torneå/Tornio, would represent us the best. Why pick one close to the rest of Europe when you can pick the one best protected :D
For the language we would have all the ones we have, then the leaders can speak whatever they need to at the meetings. Like I am fluent in 3 languages and that pretty normal here.
Great video bruh! So interesting!!! 🙌🫶🏻👏
As a Dane, I dont see the nordic nations being united into 1 country in the near future, but I see a way more cooperation regarding all aspect of defence/military, not just as cooperation inside Nato, but maybe a unified military command structure (already seen by our airforces) within all military branches.
We just need to accept that we love each other, everything else is solvable.
We can coordinate without needing a union. In fact, one could argue, that we would be less influential by merging. We'd have less seats in the EU-parliament for example (setting aside for the moment that Norway isn't a member).
Uniting our countries would make us stronger tho in all kinds of ways and give us a bigger say on the world stage. And having more seats in the EU shouldn’t be a priority. It doesn’t even matter when we all aren’t even politics under a similar leadership as we have very different ruling governments rn.
We also have the nordic convention that Norway is part of
12:20 The solution to the capital problem is simple. make it a split capital. Copenhagen, Göteborg and Oslo. Build a high speed maglev line between.
Swedish is just the most common on paper. The issue is that hardly anyone speak clear Swedish, Danish or Norwegan. If you go to say Värmland, what they speak there sounds nothing like what they speak in Stockholm, and its much closer to what they speak in Oslo. Its called swedish, just becasue its on the swedishg side of the border.
Malmö Copenhagen, samte thing.
In Finland its really complicated, because a percentage of Finish people talk Swedish. (Finland was Spawned as apart of Sweden when invaded by Russia). Swedish and Finish was spoken intertwine with each other at that time, and that is still true to this day.
A Pan Nordic languish already exist, its on all the food packaging. Of cause, Finland already have this problem
14:03 That graf don´t look right. 375M for native english. That is just USA and UK, and boom you got 375M. Sure not everyone in USA is native to English, but its a so dominating majority.
Then ad Canada, Australia, New Zeeland. And well there is more. Countries nobody thinks about. Bangladesh, Malaysia and Sri lanka, yes sure, there is only a smal procentage native to english, but its huge populations.
We got more, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. And yes, sure, there is only some 2-5% that is native to English, but that is still tens of millions.
And there is Philippines and South Africa where English is used as the sort of joining fabric of the nation. (as suggested here).
Here is the thing. if i go do Business in really any Nordic country (apart from Iceland) i just speak Swedish. And they speak what ever they speak. it never been a problem
Did you just compare Malmö to Copenhagen ? One is a scandinavian city, the other is middle eastern pariah state.
Regarding English and Norwegian, English har been argued to be a dialect of Norwegian. This is due to sentence structure similarities.
English is a germanic language just like Norwegian (Icelandic, Danish and Swedish). The Germanic language came to England when the Roman Empire fell. It was the Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes that brought it...
Not tru e DANISH words from the DANISH vikings are numerous check it out at least 200 danish words is present in modern english without them no english !!!
Our military in Norway isn't bad, it's just small because our population is small. Doesn't really matter how many tanks and warships and fighter jets we have if we don't have the people to man them anyway. That's the main reason we're vulnerable, there simply isn't enough of us to effectively defend against someone like Russia for example. But the equipment and special forces and stuff we do have are top notch, so at least we'd die with honor and take a lot of them with us. But we're a little over 5 million people, Russia is nearly 150 million, that's 30 against 1, no matter how much money we put into the military we could never win alone. So the military isn't even really worth focusing on since the only way we'll stay alive is trough diplomacy, making friends, setting a good example, helping others, etc. The only reason we even have a military is to loan it out to allies or to do rescue operations and stuff. We could defend against Sweden, but that's about it, and they're our allies and would never attack us anyway. Only wildcard around us is Russia, and as long as we have NATO there is nothing they can do that wouldn't lead to the apocalypse for everyone anyway. You know, maybe we should acquire some nukes, we do have a lot of uranium, but once you have nukes a military is meaningless because if anyone attacks you at that point then everyone dies. Having a military on top of nukes is just to bully and rob people, it serves no other purpose.
I skal da bare lave flere babyer i Norge 😜
Weak military? Think about the Winter Wars. Every Finnish soldier is worth about ten Russian ones. ;) Germany had some trouble taking Norway as well despite vastly outnumbering them. And then there's Sweden, who had multiple campaigns deep into both Russia and Poland-Lithuania.
When Finland and Sweden was one country, Swedish was the administrative language.
Swedish is still the second official language in Finland.
@@cinderellaandstepsisterswhich most finns do not like because less than 3% of the population of finland speaks it as a main language
No hate to sweden though
@@whatsupfuckers4078 More than that. Swedish is mandatory in schools. Nowadays Finns can speak more different languages than before. This is a good thing.
As a Dane, I'm all for a union of our nations. We may make fun of each other, but we know we are all brothers and sisters to each other.
im a dane and would say if we had to pick a united language it should be norwegian.
for danes swedish is way harder than norwegian. for swedes danish is way harder than norwegian.
and norwegian just sounds better XD
we are close as brothers and disagree as siblings.
but same time denmark and sweden are also the 2 countries in the world that had most wars between them.
think it was like 23 XD
one big dysfunctional family but deep down we love eachother.
Sweden has won the most wars against denmark ;) but they are our sweet little brother hehehe
@@latenite97Swedes had to stop going to wars after losing Finland, their soldier reserve, ha ha.
That actually started our longest period in history without wars 🇫🇮
I have many times thought about Scandinavia as a country.
I think it's really doable, we are so super democratic so I think we should easily overcome the small problems to make it work.
As a Dane I dislike the idea of being one big country. We are old nations with each our unique history, culture, and language.
However, I have always felt that we should form a Nordic union, rather than being in the EU, since we as nations have a lot more in common with each other than we have with most other European countries.
Also, we are pretty much all as a minimum bilingual at this point, with English as our second language, so there’s no reason for changing our native tongue.
I always voted against the Euro, but I probably wouldn’t mind a Nordic krone as a common currency.
Me and my old girlfriend watched an Icelandic series on television without any subtitles, it took us 3 episodes to realize that it was not Swedish they talked :D The fun part is that we knew what was going on with all the characters in the series. I guess many of the words and how they build up their sentences is very similar to Swedish.
I am from Sweden, very interesting idea. I think all of us seem so equal, I like this idea. I like Sweden, Danmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway.
I am also half finnish (my father is from Finland and I work for a Danish company in Sweden 😅❤️
Gothenburg would be the best capital for the Nordics I think 😉 I love Gothenburg. We have a big harbor and lovely city.
Love from Norway as well. Our neighbours are our gratest assets. Skilled and desent peoples.
As a swede, i understand like 98% norwegian and 70% danish.
Finish and icelantic is more harder for me, if not using english.
Iceland speak almost he language we did in Norway for 1000 years ago, close to old norse.
Norway is the only country in the world with over a trillion dollars in surplus and its still climbing everyday !
Its a trillion dollar in investment, not surplus
Men det är ju bara för att ni lurade våran svenska regering till att ge er den delen av landet till er. Förbaskade Norrmän, stryk ska ni ha 😉.
YES good for you but please give us some money.😇
Great reaction!😊
Transitioning to english would be cultural genocide, outrageous idea in my opinion since Im certain were able to continue to respect our separate languages if you ever where to unite under the same banner (again). Looking at you Denmark ;D Lets avoid mistakes from the Kalmarunionen at all costs then, we sure have come a long way since then. However, Im skeptical to the whole idea. Things are fine as they are now, we cooperate so well already.
no one would prohibit the use of swedish, finnish, norwegian, dennish and icelandic language, and to raise the kids bilingual. Just like in Canada or Switzerland, where thereare multiple official languages in use, or with Pennsylvania Dutch in the US. It could end up like with the Amish there, they all speak perfect fluent english, but at home and within their communities they prefer to speak Pennsylvania dutch.
@@denzzlinga None might prohibit the use of multiple languages, thats certainly right. But as i stated, I remain skeptical.
@@OneTrueScotsman we had a similar situation in Norway back in the day and feel much the same as you. Only a few remnants remains to this day, hence we have two written forms of communication.
You know that the Kalmar-union were a DK-NO invention ? The swedes asked for membership in it, because they didn't liked the king (german / Albrecht af Mecklenburg) that the swedish landlords have chosen.
About Icelandic: their language has changed the least during the years so closest to the language of the Nordic Vikings.
What a bizarre "what if", considering that Denmark, Finland and Sweden are EU members; Norway and Iceland have rejected EU membership but belong to the EFTA (which has free trade with the EU) and the Schengen area. Source: Wikipedia
Being considered as the happiest countries on Earth (thanks to their no-nonsense social-democratic gvts), one could be tempted to move there. I have toyed with the idea myself but I see 2 major drawbacks: the languages are pretty difficult and ... the climate (very cold with endless, dark winters).
re: language, Connor, you marvel at the Dutch speaking such good English with an American accent (fun fact, the City of New York was founded by a Dutchman named Peter Stuyvesant (there is a statue of him located on 2nd Avenue at 16th St.) whose name has been used by a famous brand of cigarettes (I wonder why and how?).
If you're a small country with a rather difficult local language and that you need to interact with the rest of the world, you're well advised to learn the international (commercial) language. That's pragmatism.
Its abligated the whole EU has english as second language.
Most people here dont live in the northers parts. They almost emply. You can find maps for that.
The Eng as 2nd lang being mandatory only benefits the natives/residents that have fluency in a Scandi language.
But if you're wanting to move to Scandinavia then you're going to have a hard time as all the skilled or decent paid jobs mandate Scandi proficiency.
We've already started to "unite". We formed a joint Nordic air force in 2023 and will most likely join all other armed forces as well at some point. We've already had defense pacts with each other for decades as well as economic and trade agreements exclusive to both Scandinavia as well as the Nordic region.
But what are we going to do with the royal families and who will be the King / Queen ?
I am Danish, and often think, why did we all have to fight each other up till modern ages. Queen Margaret I managed to unite the north in 1400’s but it only lasted 150 years. Would be cool if it had lasted.
Aboutthe military...
There already is a common military group for the Nordics. Two even.
First off there is Nordic Defence Cooperation (Short: NorDefCo)
Then there is the E.U. Nordic battle group. It also includes some of the Baltics.
You also forgot about the newly formed Nordic Airforce, unifying the military air command of all Nordic countries under one commander. The NACI agreement was signed about a year ago, and the command structure should start to slowly change when Sweden gets accepted to NATO.
Off topic but time team channel just released an old special on dover castle.. long vid but great intro to the programme.
I dont wana sound like an crazy racist, but Iam from Finland, and we are starting to se the negative impact imigrants bring, where crime rates are sky rocketting, social services are becomming more expencive and directly impacting the poor or unemployed to a huge exetent, and unfortunately this due to more and more immigrants and refuges comming, whom only a fraction of ever actualy even tries to learn the languages and get a job, what meens taxes are going up, food specialy has risen in price so high, what again is raising the crimerates even higher. it is a visious cycle that most likely will backfire so hard soon, that there is no turning back, specialy native finns, racsism is on the rise a lot, more extremist politicians are becomming more popular, combine this whit us having a long border with russia and the ukraine war it becomes worse and worse.
Its not racist if its true
As a finn i agree
And i do not like that my taxes are going into the pockets of immigrants who do not work at all, or even try learning our language
It gets frustrating really
It would be practical but strange if the Nordics' official language were English. Finnish and Greenlandic do not belong to the Germanic language family, but communication has never been a problem. I myself make myself understood in the whole Nordic region, even though I have never visited Greenland.
England was once part of a Danish empire. If this happened Britain should totally join too.
England was never part of Denmark. It had a Danish king, under the so-called Dane law.
And it was only a part of England.
@@akyhne you're wrong. Look up North Sea Empire. Sweyne Forkbeard and the Cnut the Great were kings of Norway, Denmark and England.
@@akyhne canute haf all of the northsea he was danish sooo he is actually one of brittans best kings 😊
You speak the original old nordic language in Iceland. Which was spoken in the old viking countries.
About 1200 english words actually origins from the danish language
;-)
YES and with out them no modern english. DANELAW !!
As me from the south Portugal i lived in Sweden about 10 years and 13 in The Netherlands.. i understand them except finish is hard to understand.
Atm i am in Sweden helping a friend.
I love all the Nordic people and the nature is great.
Greetings from 🇵🇹🇸🇪
I do not think that Norway would go into any union that easily, reason why is that Norway only became its own free country in 1905 after being under Danish rule and then handed over to Sweden which we refused and then was free years later in 1905. It was very recent, only in 1905 we became free, so I do not see how we would want to go back in time. Also our language got lost under foreign ruling, now we speak a language based on Danish.
You are right but it irritates me that you try to distance your selve from danish because of a inferiority complex because that makes it harder to understand one another . WHY NOT RETAIN many of the danish words. Nynorsk bokmål it is nonsense.
@@henningrasmussen8225 there is no inferiority complex, spoken Norwegian is not Danish, we only have similar language when written. For Norwegian, it is easier to understand when speaking to a Swede, than a Dane. Swedes don't understand Danish at all, unless being from the south of Sweden.
Consider this: Who would benefit of Europe being Divided? Which powerfull people or groups fear a strong united Europe?
We,...Europe must unite! ❤
Scotland wanted to be part of the Nordic
Union if it was formed.
During university (many, many years ago), I was a member of a Nordic student organisation (I am a Dane) .YES - a Nordic Union makes absolutely sense. Since you mention the Dutch are extremely good English speakers, let confirm that point of view. The Dutch speak also very well German and French.... They are prbaby the best foreign language speakers in Western Europe. Let me also thank you for all your videos. I really appreciate the way you approach any culture with openess and genuine curiosity. Thank you🙂
1.1 million soldiers and 900k from Finland😂. Sweden, Norway and Denmark gotta step up.
Agree
all the Nordic countries have military cooperation with the USA, especially Denmark, which has had Danish soldiers stationed with the American military since the first gulf war and until now. Denmark actually has a higher loss figure per inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan war then the United States.
You can't just add up the GDPs, because Norway has such enormous amounts of money compared to its population that we have to limit the spending in order to avoid too high inflation. We don't want to be an oil economy. If our population was five times bigger, then we could continue to increase our spending and this would have a massive impact on the Nordic GDP.
After the oil period, in what direction do you think Norwegian industri will move?
@@mortenhansen2578: It will still be offshore. We have empty wells will be used for carbon storage. There's giantic amounts of minerals and rare metals on the ocean floor and we've decided to investigate mining it. We've also made great progress on developing offshore aquaculture, which would be revolutionary, because there's a lot of issues with coastal aquaculture. There's an ocean of wind available and the market for green hydrogen will only grow. In short, I don't think we would have any problems phasing out oil and gas, but other countries still desperately need it. But if we can be successful in large scale carbon capture and storage, I think that we should continue producing gas, but using it onsite for blue hydrogen.
@@jeschinstad Nice to know :) My question was not so much against Norway ending the Oil and gas era. This is to me an necessary step we all need to do. It was more about what kind of industry can give Norway enough foreign trade, to support its citizens.But thank you answering my question :) btw. I had 10 great month in 2018 working in Sandnes. Now I want to see more of Norway, but as Tourist.
@@mortenhansen2578: Oh, I see. Our national economy does not depend on oil anymore. Financially, we don't need it, but we need the jobs and the competence. We stopped spending the oil income in 2001. That's what our national pension plan is for; we always knew that the oil wouldn't last forever. So we put all the oil income into the fund and only spend a maximum of the yearly returns, but it's already making more than we can spend. In fact economists say we should reduce our spending by 33% for the sake of inflation. So financially, the pension fund replaces the oil and gas as sources of income.
If our nordic countries merged; having a captiol city is an old and obsolete construct, but Copenhagan is too far away from the rest of the land.
If we " joined forces" it think each capitol would remain anything else would be unthinkable.
But we do have the EU...
I agree that Copenhagen would be the best location for a union capital. Although as a Swede it would hurt a little, it would be like letting your little sibling sit in the front seat while in the middle of Norway and Finland (aka bitch seat)
"Little sibling" 😂
By definition, Denmark is the oldest (biggest) sibling😉 if you're referring to the sizes, Denmark includes Greenland and the faeroe Islands, making it the world's 12th largest country..
Just saying 🤣😉
I'm from Norway...I have lived in Sweden before and now I live in Denmark...we are already almost like one country,... we support each other in sports and other ways. About the language...I don't think I'm alone when I say that Finish is different from the other nothdic countries, it's difficult to find one similar word. I have tried to learn it, so now I can all the numbers and I can count very well, but I came to realize that learning finish was way to difficult (with the Baltic twist) and I had no intention to move to Finland though it's a very beautiful country. Icelandic is different to, but easier than finish. 😉
as for the capital of this new nation. it comes down to two things i would say. If the most important part of the capital being the possibilities of expanding then either Stockholm or Copenhagen would be the best options because they are flatter and have better soil fro it. But if saftey from potential threat is the most important factor then Oslo would be the best option. Cause to invade Oslo one would need to first cross the north sea + the skagerak strait and then also move into the Oslo fjord. if thinking about both of these factors though i would say Oslo would be the best option. but there could be more factors that needs adressing.
Adding onto it. Oslo would also be more of a midpoint than that of Stockholm and Copenhagen. Copenhagen is more prone to be a potential target because of being at the entrance to the baltic sea. Stockholm would not be that far from Russia either which would be the most likely attacking nation if anything.
@@Black3ight Then Gothenburg makes more sense. In middle of all three capitals.
@@Black3ightmore likely finland would be the first target for russia
@@RobinAsp77 sure Finland could be the likely first target but that doesn't change other places from being potential targets aswell.
@@rojavabashur6455 i mean sure. I was just going off between the 3 current capitals. Gothenburg could be good too. But when i said midpoint i meant like midpoint for everything. Like between Oslo,Copenhagen and Stockholm. Oslo is more of a midpoint to the entire nation. A midpoint beteen Hellsinki and Reykjavik for example.
Remember greenland, part of Denmark
Interesting..i would love that idea...the area jas already the perfect name Scandinavia...we would probably speak same languages as now 😀with English used when needed just like it is aready.Im Swedish and thru history there has never been only a Swedish language.We been borrowing words from all over Europe and Same people up in north,Swedish in the south and for 700yrs before Russia took Finland it was and still is many who speaks Finnish i Sweden and part of Finland has population that still .speaks Swedish
Nordic countries have already had very close cooperation for a long time. However, I don't see the benefit from uniting into one country. We have different languages, different conditions and different needs, so trying to put all under same law is not good idea.
However, if something would happen for EU, it would make sense to integrate economies and also deepen military cooperation.
13:02 Pan Nordic language is the best and most realistic choice.
Add the Baltics and Scotland and I would just love that nation!