ABSTRACT
The people of Northern Europe speak languages in three families: Scandinavian, Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian), and the non-Indo-European, Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish, Estonian, and Saami). Many countries of the region share the historical experience of Swedish or Russian rule. Except for Roman Catholic Lithuania, Protestant denominations are the norm, and as a consequence devotional singing has been a popular form of entertainment in many areas.
