this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2026
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I'm not a native speaker of English, and I've only recently learnt that the 'blueberries' I grew up foraging from the woods are in fact bilberries. Which is kind of interesting because although most people will call them blueberries, we have a regional name for them, 'brimbelles', that's kind of similar to bilberries when you squint your eyes.
It’s the same in Finland, I was raised thinking that I was eating blueberries when they were, in fact, bilberries.
You did eat blueberries. In Scandinavian languages bilberries are called blueberries (blåbær, blåbär), because what Americans calls blueberries didn't exist there (the American sort was only introduced to Europe in the 1930s).
English isn't alone in deciding what is a blueberry and what isn't.
So really we should be calling those insipid, watery grape-sized 'blueberries' impostors. It ain't a blueberry if it doesn't stain your mouth purple!
We're eating mustikka over here, which translates to bilberry in english. The "blueberries" are pensasmustikka in finnish.
I stand corrected.
Huh, TIL!
How do u get burblebumbies?