It’s complicated.

Some of what you are asking goes back to the last ice age and for that matter the Holy Roman Empire. The Europeans are related to one another but some areas (countries) have less mixing and are less related to another. Example is Iceland and Italy both start with “I” but probably has less in common as far as genes.
Norse, Teutonic, and Germanic has more to do with beliefs and religions.

In the part of Germany my family is from, we consider ourselves Saxons, definitely not Nordic. Most of my family would even object to Germanic as a description.

Saxons and even Anglo Saxons— and Norse—are clearly distinct and separate cultures. The German-Dutch-Friesian-English relation seems a distinct German/Saxon group, different from the Vikings/Norse. The Irish and Scottish retain much of their Celtic origins. The Vikings had their influence but Scotland, like Ireland, is Celtic.

Saxons and even Anglo Saxons— and Norse—are clearly distinct and separate cultures.

No, they aren’t. Your whole premise is an exercise in projecting ancient history on current day people.

People have moved around. Culture isn’t genetic.

It’s like saying

In English, laypeople tend to use the terms Norse and Scandinavian interchangeably. Likewise with Teutonic and Germanic.

Linguistically, Germanic is a major branch of the Indo-European family of languages which includes the North Germanic languages (Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) and the West Germanic languages (English, Frisian, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, and the various dialects of German spoken in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria). This is an oversimplification; you can find any number of articles and tree diagrams on the web if you search. But you knew that already.

Racially—well, race is BS, so let’s not even go there.

Culturally—Anyone traveling in Europe will note cultural similarities and differences, but I doubt that an accurate taxonomy is either possible or worth the effort.

TLDR: All dogs are mammals. That doesn’t mean all mammals are dogs.

Genetically there is little to be used that can discriminate between anyone from northern europe.

You can, in no way, compare the beliefs the Nazis had to ANY fact-based ideas. Race is a social construct. Nazis were deadly, ignorant, hate-filled bigots. They were trying to bend science to prove their twisted ideologies. They failed and they always will.

If you want to hear what the Norwegian King recently said in a speech about who Norwegians are, I urge you to watch this video and read the subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShLacHMG6Q4
Article on what actually happened to the ‘Spring of Life’ children. http://www.spiegel.de/international/nazi-program-to-breed-master-race-lebensborn-children-break-silence-a-446978.html

It was a horrible period for Norway in so many ways. After the war, they treated the ‘half German’ children as psychological patients and were put in institutions and treated as mentally deficient. It was no better than what the Nazi had done. Horrible. Uff, and now this has me upset, I’m shaking.

Nationalism is extremely dangerous. People can’t be categorised in simple ways. When people do that, they are, more often than not, wrong. That’s what generalisations do, they make you wrong.

Also, the historic Norse language was wiped out when the Danes took advantage after the Black Death. Norwegians now speak and write what is, essentially, Danish, as do the Swedes. Only in Iceland, is the ancient language actually preserved. Then, there are the Sami people, which has it’s own customs and cultures and language, but they are also Scandinavians.

Edit: I meant to say that in English, Nordic (not Norse) and Scandinavian are used interchangeably.

I admit to being unsure whether Finns, Estonians, and Lapps are considered Scandinavians, since their languages are non-Indo-European, and not knowing whether the term is primarily geographical or cultural. I’ve looked this stuff up before, but the days when my brain soaked up everything I read and retained it are long gone. So—Wikipedia: Scandinavia

Wow, @cazzie never knew that about the Norse language. and I guess culture. ‘course, we are not well versed in the history of “not America” we don’t get a lot of the “is America” history either

@rojo I’ve lived here now for some 14 years or so. Had to learn the language to get a job. Part of the language course covered many topics of history and culture.
Finland isn’t considered a Nordic country because of their language. I think they are still trying to solve that one, as to how the language became so different. It’s a Serb/Hungarian language. Finns are made to learn Swedish so they can get by in their neighbouring countries. The don’t like it. They are more Russian/Baltic in their culture than Scandinavian, from what I’ve seen and heard of it. I think, generally, Norwegians have more in common with Scots than they do Finns.
Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden make up the bulk of Scandinavian countries, but they still speak and write a type of Norse in the Faeroe Islands, so I always like to include them. (Also, I’ve met some people who live there and they were pretty great. Indulged me with all sorts of answers to my silly questions.) But here we are talking about language and culture. NOT race. Only two of the the three on that list are reality based.
Just my two cents.

No, Germans aren’t usually considered to be Nordics.

Finnish IS, of course, a Finno-Hungarian, Ural-Altaic, related to Turkish and Hungarian language. Finland is a part of Scandinavia geographically and through many facets of Swedish culture but the Finns are not Scandinavians except through the fact that it was part of Sweden. It is a Baltic culture like Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania. Greenland is mostly Inuit and just about everyone there is Inuit— which is related more to the native people of northern Canada and even Alaska. Obviously these populations are Scandinavian only by their land being a province of Denmark.

I do not believe that anyone who appreciates the various ethnoi in the world is a racist or Nazi and I resent those of you who have suggested this. There are plenty of ethnic food sections in the supermarket, and I don’t think they were put there by Hitler or Donald Trump

I’m sorry, but who brought up the Hitler connection first? I believe it was you. And I’m not saying you are, I’m saying race is not a thing, but culture and ethnicity is. Hitler believed in ‘pure races’ of people. Same shit is still being peddled today by the ‘Alt-right’. Seems you know the difference, but your question didn’t really indicate that, thus my explanations.

My angst isn’t directed at you or anyone else, Cazzie. It seems that on Fluther lately (maybe always), questions of ethnicity, culture, social sciences, get the same response.

My question mentioned Hitler because he seemed to think Germans were somehow a Nordic or blond, light-eyed, Nordic people, and to me they seem related to Alpine.

This isn’t directed at you either—but it seems strange to me that people who appreciate cultural diversity and inclusiveness are the very ones who say that we are all the same and anyone who makes distinctions is some kind of racist.

In these days of globalization, global communications, worldwide entertainment and media and people moving all about the globe for work or opportunity, the COST for all this freedom and opportunity is that vernacular distinctions and cultural traits and national or cultural heritage are being lost. This is particularly true among people of northern European decent, who are the first to deny their distinctiveness and say that their cultures are a “melting pot” of refugees from parts of the world that are very different from themselves. When the Lutheran church in Norway shows a document that shows that depicts them all as Pakistani, Indian, Korean, and Sudanese—I think, ‘what… ?’ Yet they would be offended if I suggested to them that Norwegians are a distinct cultural group, in some places a monoculture.

I am currently working with a Korean youth group on a volunteer basis. The group is meeting in a Presbyterian church that has its own youth group. I suggested early on that the Korean youth meet with the regular PC-USA (and American Presbyterian denomination) Youth, since the Korean youth only speak English (not Korean, the primary language of their parents) and since the Koreans go to school with, and have friends with, white and African American and Hispanic youth. But the Koreans wanted their own Korean youth group, which I facilitated. And I now see the reason why.

I appreciate cultural diversity and differences in all its richness. But lets make it clear, that German and Nordic and Inuit and Baltic cultures do exist and should all be appreciated for who they are.

Um…. I don’t think you do understand the difference between ‘race’ and ‘culture’.

Have you ever lived here in Northern Europe? We don’t live in the 1800’s anymore. We do, indeed, live in an inclusive, secular society. There is no harm in treasuring one’s cultural identity, but there is much harm when people start talking about ‘purity of race.’ There are integration problems here, as much as anywhere else, but like our King said, ‘Norway is full of immigrants and immigrants are Norwegians, too.’

Just so we are on the same page, right?

I may have entirely different reasons for asking the question than what you think my reasons are. That’s one of the problems of the anonymity of the internet. For instance, if I asked how to make a pipe bomb, or what gas makes the eyes and ears bleed, you might think I am a terrorist. But I might be a writer, or trying to relate so something I heard, or be just curious.

But I DO understand what was in my question that made you want to clarify. Hitler venerated the Nordic race, yet Germany was not Nordic in racial traits he idealized, nor in culture or language. Covertly, the German Jews had been in that part of Europe at least since 1200. Although Judaism is a religion, the German Jews had a distinctive ethnicity also

All of these groups I have a personal interest in. I’m sure they raise some red flags but I do not think ill of anyone. Maybe my own background is intertwined in them. Thanks also for letting me know how I am coming across by asking these questions.