Talk:Maamme

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Untitled[edit]

When(date, year) was it officially declared as the national anthem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.65.192.22 (talk) 06:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I'm not sure that the move from "Maamme" to "Maamme/Vårt land" is such a good idea. Use of either name is a better altervative and could be well argued for. It would also be possible to chose a more neutral designation such as "National anthem of Finland". Compare with Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika/Die stem van Suid-Afrika at National anthem of South Africa. -- Mic 08:13, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Agreed that it is not a good name. But "National anthem of Finland" sounds like a bad compromise. Google gives a edge for Maamme compared to Vårt Land. Only english-language sites included:

  • maamme finnish national anthem - 652
  • "vårt land" finnish national anthem - 403
  • maamme finland - 792
  • "vårt land" finland - 762
  • maamme anthem - 584
  • "vårt land" anthem - 505

Searching for only "Vårt land" gives results får norwegian sites with "vaart land" etc. -- Jniemenmaa 08:31, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What is the usual practice when the anthem is sung?

  • Is it sung both in Finnish and Swedish, one after the other?
  • Does Finnish and Swedish speakers sing their separate lyrics simultaneously?
  • Is it mostly sung just in Finnish?

The lyrics regarded as a literary work would favour the Swedish spelling, as it is written in Swedish and then translated to Finnish. However, I am doubtful whether that would be the overriding concern. -- Mic 12:22, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good questions. I don't think I have ever heard it sung in Swedish (Allthough I should have. I did my military service in a Swedish-language unit. Can't remember hearing or singing the song though). Of course we could split this up in two articles, on for the poem and one for the song. But I think it would be a really bad idea. From my POV it would be best to have the article at Maamme with Vårt land as a redirect (which it is not now...). -- Jniemenmaa 13:25, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Usually, it is sung in finnish in large gatherings, but the finland-swedes usually sing it in swedish when there are "alone". User:Dr.Poison — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr.Poison (talk • contribs) 01:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It depends who the group is made of, what the organisation is, or even what place you are in. For instance, on places such as Åland or in Närpes you are unlikely to hear it sung in anything else than Swedish. Just as if you were in Oulu, you'd be unlikely to hear it in anything else in Finnish. There again, exceptions to every rule - Svenska folkpartiet for instance has had its conferences in places like Tampere/Tammerfors - where naturally it was sung in Swedish. I have been to gatherings in bilingual places where it's sung in both languages, often they just do the first verse twice (once in Finnish, once in Swedish). Of course, sometimes everyone just sings according to their own choice of language. Hmm... basically, there is no rule to go by - so no easy answer to your question! 82.21.219.114 (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The good thing with Wikipedia is how simple redirects work.
It's time to move the article back to Maamme.
--Ruhrjung 12:29, 2004 Jun 16 (UTC)

disambiguation page for Vårt Land[edit]

I hope I did not step on too many toes now when I made Vårt Land into a disambiguation page; I did it as a consequence of a discussion on the Wikipedia:Requested moves page concerning a Norwegian newspaper by the same name. I also discovered that there has been, among other things, a Swedish newspaper called Vårt Land. There seems to be no point in putting a disambiguation notice on top when this page is under the Finnish title. / u p p l a n d 22:00, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Perfect, according to my humble understanding. /Tuomas 23:38, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Maamme or Maamme Laulu?[edit]

Which oneis the correct title of the song? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.110.8 (talk) 18:50, 2 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maamme vs. Finlandia[edit]

Third paragraph of the article sound a bit biased while describing the preferred national song:

"Some Finns would now like the Finnish national anthem to be changed to Finlandia by Jean Sibelius (also a Finland-Swede): partly because the original Vårt land was written in Swedish, not Finnish; partly because Pacius's tune is also used for the national anthem of Estonia with a similarly themed text, Mu isamaa, My Fatherland (1869); and partly because Pacius was German."

I just recently read for the first time an article where this was debated. As far as I know, there isn't any real movement to change to national anthem. Is this claim based on something else than maybe a single newspaper article or an opinion poll? The writer seems to be quite certain about the reasons people prefer Finlandia - is this based on a survey?

"Some people would say that the national anthem of Finland is unlikely to change because of conservative traditions."

This sounds like a personal opinion and doesn't belong here.

See also Talk:Finland.

- Nikke — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.197.232.132 (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are some people who would like it to be changed to Finlandia, I don't know if there are many of them, but what I can only ques is that it is people from the more nationalistic side. Dr.Poison 14:23, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article name[edit]

I moved the article back to Maamme from Maamme or Vårt land. Maybe we could discuss this before making such a move? The move to "Maamme or Vårt land" also caused a lot of double-redirects which had not been fixed. -- Jniemenmaa 09:11, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Reference to Finland in the original "Vårt land" text[edit]

The article says:

"Note that in the original Swedish text there is no reference to Finland, only to a country in the north, but the Finnish text explicitly refers to Finland."

This may be slightly incorrect, however, because the fourth verse of the original poem in Swedish does contain a reference to the "Finnish people":

Det finska folkets hjärta slog, Här bars, vad det fördrog. [1]

Granted, the 4th verse is not sung as part of the anthem (only the first and last verses are), but still, that mention in the article could be revised a bit. --Jonik 15:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Music file for the tune[edit]

Since Maamme and the Estonian anthem share the same tune, I have linked the instrumental music file for both. – Kaihsu (talk) 15:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maamme vs. Finlandia: Citations?[edit]

Could we at least get some citations for the claims of certain people wanting Finlandia as Finland's national anthem? I've heard of this rumour before but I've never seen which people/parties specifically are/were striving towards this goal. Same goes for the critics who supposedly said Finlandia is hard to sing. --TheHande (talk) 10:00, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not comfortable enough with wiki that I'd start editing the article, but there's a petition located in http://www.adressit.com/finlandia with over 1500 signings. Don't know if that's a reliable source though. 87.95.106.49 (talk) 16:29, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Requested move 23 December 2019[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 15:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maamme → Vårt land – The title here seems truly strange. The article is about a poem Vårt land. As the text indicates, this poem was written in Swedish with the same title, Vårt Land. The Finnish version is only a translation. I don't know of any other case where we use the title of a translation instead of the original (except for the translated title in English). I could see a case for using an English title, or the title of the original. Using a translation that it neither English nor the original seems odd. (Please note that the fact that it is also the anthem of Finland is a moot argument; both Finnish and Swedish are official languages of Finland with equal legal standing. Neither title is more relevant for the anthem of the bilingual country). Hence I propose that the title be changed to Vårt land, or to an English translation. Jeppiz (talk) 12:54, 23 December 2019 (UTC)—Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 01:10, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose I disagree that the article is about a poem. As stated in the lead it's about the Finnish anthem. As far as I know the anthem is known among Finns as Maamme, the reputable sources also use this version, not Vårt land even though, as you stated, both languages are national and equal in use and the poem was originally written in Swedish. Therefore I don't think this would be a proper move. --Less Unless (talk) 23:27, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but that's not correct. It is not known as Maamme among Finns. It's know as Maamme among Finnish speakers regardless of nationality, Vårt land among Swedish speakers regardless of nationality

A Swedish-speaking Finn is just as much a Finn as a Finnish-speaking Finn. The argument conflates language and nationality. The wider argument still stands. This is a poem in Swedish, and using the Swedish title seem a natural. As the article makes clear, it's a widely known poem in Sweden. Jeppiz (talk) 20:30, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Query The point about bilingualism is well taken, but Vårt Land would fail by the same token, and the Wikisource Our Land (Runeberg) is (I think) even less familiar to English speakers as well as inelegant. WP:sw calls it the Finnish anthem and it apparently uses Finland Swedish to describe the 1808 Finnish War. If "a widely known poem in Sweden", isn't it still understood to be a Finnish patriotic song? Sparafucil (talk) 11:27, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I suggested Vårt land is because that is its actual name. The author wrote it as Vårt land; I am not even sure he could speak any Finnish. It's not the case of a bilingual poem, it's a Swedish poem written by a Swedish author that many decades later became an anthem.
If moving the poem to its actual name is seen as problematic, then I'd suggest moving the article to a neutral name such as "Finnish anthem". The current title is both inaccurate and insulting, as the implicit message is that Swedish is less worth than Finnish. While both users commenting above are no doubt in good faith, I still haven't seen any argument for calling it Maamme. If we go by its name, it's simple: Vårt land. If we go by the fact that it's the Finnish anthem, then there are two equally official languages to pick from. Then again the original would take precedence over the translation. Jeppiz (talk) 23:06, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Reading an insult into the name is just muddying the issue; the fact that we have a page named Finland while Suomi is a dab doesn't imply that Finnish 'is less worth' than Swedish. What could persuade me to support instead of oppose would be evidence that Vårt land is recognizable to WP:en readers, something that seems dubious from a quick perusal of the external links. Sparafucil (talk) 01:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies if I was unclear. To answer your question: Yes, the poem is reasonably well-known in Sweden. The collection of poems from which it comes, Fänrik Ståls sägner, is certainly among the best known works of poetry in Swedish from the 19th century. Jeppiz (talk) 12:50, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! The problem as I still see it is that the primary subject is the national anthem, rather than Runeberg's contribution to belles lettres, and if I now understand aright, it is not sung in the context of a Swedish patriotic song.Sparafucil (talk) 23:23, 2 January 2020 (UTC) According to fr:Maamme#Chanson_patriotique_en_Suède I've been hasty. Sparafucil (talk) 03:56, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Two music encyclopedias with articles on Pacius seem to make a distinction between poem and anthem: Grove online: "his setting of J.L. Runeberg’s Swedish poem Vårt land (‘Our Country’, 1848) was adopted as Finland’s national anthem (Maamme)." and Baker's Concise (based on 7th ed.) "He was the author of the Finnish national anthem, Maamme laulu, set to the words of the Swedish poem Vartland [sic], later translated into Finnish. Sparafucil (talk) 03:56, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relisting comment. The proposed title does not redirect to this article, but to a disambiguation page. Dekimasuよ! 01:10, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. If I may, please remember that this is not a vote. This far, I have seen two users oppose Vårt land, but not introduce any argument in favour of Maamme. As already said, the fact that it is an anthem is not relevant for the title given that both Finnish and Swedish are official languages of equal standing in Finland. As the name of poem, and of the anthem, is Vårt land in the original version, I don't see an argument for Maamme (especially not as that is not the English title either). Jeppiz (talk) 12:56, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Vårt land disadvantage is that it has other uses, searching it in google the first result is an active Norwegian newspaper, then there were historic newspapers in Sweden and America, and whatnot. With Maamme results seem to be far more universally referring to this specific song.--Staberinde (talk) 18:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I tried Google both Vårt land and Maamme. In both cases, roughly 95% of the results referred to this poem. For both, 1/20 of the first results was to something else. So both versions refer overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, to this poem. Jeppiz (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The policy is WP:COMMONNAME. What matters is what the majority of English-language sources call it. I haven't seen a single argument for moving based on actual usage in sources. Only if it's been determined that there is no preferred choice in English-language sources are other arguments worth entertaining, per the policy. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but if you want to invoke WP:COMMONNAME, the onus is on you to show that it is the common name. You cannot just claim it is without any evidence. Jeppiz (talk) 20:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Burden of proof arguments aren't going to get us anywhere when there's no consensus for a move. I tried googling "Vartland sheet music" and 5 of those first 8 bore the title "Maamme". Sparafucil (talk) 21:46, 4 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I get plenty more results on Google for "'Maamme' anthem Finland" (typos combined; 'Maamme' is apparently difficult to spell) than for an equivalent search for 'Vårt land'. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. "I don't know of any other case where we use the title of a translation instead of the original."
I do. "Warszawianka", Polish translation from the French "La Varsovienne". Narky Blert (talk) 12:10, 4 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Amhrán na bhFiann is another, as is Ô Canada. Sparafucil (talk) 21:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Finnish-speaking Finns, who make up the vast majority of the Finnish population, always refer to it as "Maamme". JIP | Talk 11:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reverted insertion of word "unofficial"[edit]

Change

The phrase "national anthem" was changed to "unofficial national anthem" with no edit comment, no source citation, and no discussion here in Talk, so I reverted the change.

11:43, 24 November 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpbsmith (talk • contribs) 11:43, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It’s “funny” seeing how the word “unofficial” has been reinserted, while the banner shouts “This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish.” The first sentence in the Finnish article goes “Maamme (ruots. Vårt land) on Suomen kansallislaulu.” (Maame (Swed. Vårt land) is the national anthem of Finland.) No “unofficial” over there, nor “de facto” (both words that I would not recognize). Perhaps the first thing that can be done to sync this to the Finnish article is to re-remove the word “unofficial”. — al12si (talk) 06:45, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the banner doesn't shout "may be contracted" ;-) The lede seems based on the 2nd paragraph of Maamme#History ("There is no law regarding an official national anthem in Finland"), which has a citation to an article that a Finnish reader might have better luck navigating to and verifying. I agree that "unofficial" is overkill as long as "de facto" remains. Sparafucil (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not well founded. The song has no legal status and it's only one of songs that could be considered the national anthem. "De Facto" is extremely subjective as Finlandia, for example, can be perceived as having just as much or even more of that status. Argh (talk) 12:39, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]


De-facto means "In practice; in actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status."
Maamme is used de facto as the national anthem in Finalnd. It is the tune played at events such as state visits, military events, and international sporting fixtures. The Department for Communications at the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs has a webpage on www.finland.fi describing it as the national anthem.
These do not mean that the tune has de jure status as a national anthem, but do show how it is in use de facto the national anthem.
There are other countries without official national anthems, such as the UK and Sweden, which have Wikipedia pages describing them as de facto anthems:
Sweden: ""Du gamla, du fria" (Swedish pronunciation: [dʉː ˈɡâmːla dʉː ˈfrîːa], English: "Thou ancient, Thou free") is the de facto national anthem of Sweden."
United Kingdom: ""God Save the King" is the de facto national anthem of the United Kingdom and one of two national anthems used by New Zealand since 1977"
De facto is the correct term to use here, as Maamme is the song in actual use as Finland's national anthem. Notions such as 'perception of status' don't change this. Officialworks (talk) 18:57, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That claim about Finlandia "having just as much or even more of that status" is absurd. I'm a Finn and I've never heard of anyone who would have considered Finlandia (or the Finlandia hymn, to be precise) to be the Finnish national anthem in the same sense as Maamme (actually most Finns would be very surprised to hear that Maamme does not have formal legal status). Finlandia hymn is a very popular patriotic song in Finland and for that reason it has occasionally been proposed as a new national anthem – but the very fact that such thing still needs to be proposed at all shows that no one currently sees it as the national anthem. --Risukarhi (talk) 17:36, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is no legislation or even anything written about tradition about the status of the national anthem of Finland and never has been. You spelled it out yourself there: most Finns aren't even aware that "Maamme" is not their national anthem. The reason Finlandia keeps getting proposed as such is because of not sufficiently informing the public about this. The fact that it keeps getting proposed shows it's anything but "absurd".
There is no kind of measurement on what the majority of Finns consider the national anthem of Finland. "An unofficial" is the most neutral description that could be used. Argh (talk) 02:19, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on tag and description[edit]

Should the description describe Maamme as "the de facto national anthem of Finland"?

Accordingly, should the tag in the infobox be "National anthem of Finland"?

This seems to be the consensus in edits and from the Talk page, however an individual user has repeatedly reverted "the de facto national anthem" to "an unofficial national anthem". Lea 4545 (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would previously have opposed this. However, several examples of "de facto" in the ledes of other articles were mentioned in the discussion above, so I can now confidently say that I support its inclusion.
That being said, the term "unofficial" (which also has been appearing in the article intermittently) is WP:UNDUE nonsense and absolutely should not be included. --85.76.117.109 (talk) 14:28, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support sources I could find support this song as the national anthem. finland.fi, ifmsa.org, countryreports.org, swedishfinnhistoricalsociety.org Dobblestein 🎲 🎲 talk 18:07, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • No "de facto" or "unofficial" should be used in the first sentence of the lead or in the infobox. While these descriptions are, in some interpretation, true, they frame the subject in an MOS:EDITORIALIZING manner. What makes a national anthem "(un)official"? What makes it "de facto"? Are national anthems supposed to be "official"? Are "de facto" anthems complemented by something "de jure"? These are all questions neither we nor the reader have to ask if we drop the label "de facto" or "unofficial" and simply call it "the national anthem of Finland", which is true and which is what the overwhelming majority of sources do.
As for 85.76.117.109 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)'s comment above only two articles were brought up above and only one of them uses "de facto" as of now. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:21, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose as while it may be true that it is the de facto national anthem, how does an anthem even become an official national anthem? Plenty of RSs describe it as the natianl anthem, and de facto in this case really means it is the national anthem, as it is what is used in nearly all Finnish national anthem contexts. Cessaune (talk) 03:27, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For one example, The Star-Spangled Banner became 'de jure' by act of US congress in 1931. See also Il_Canto_degli_Italiani#From_provisional_to_official_anthem Himno_Nacional_Mexicano#National_regulations and O_Canada#Adoption (God save the King being the "Royal Anthem" of Canada & UK, but only "de facto National Anthem" of the later.) Sparafucil (talk) 02:26, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Unlike "unofficial", "de facto" does not imply any 'official' status of another anthem. Sparafucil (talk) 02:26, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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