Quote Originally Posted by MFauli View Post
buns are "Semmeln". Different things.
So, that's where the Finnish "sämpylä" comes from. Interesting. In Finnish this refers to single-portion bread that isn't sweet and doesn't contain anything extra, like filling. The dough is similar to bread dough, they are just baked small. If it's sweet, it's not bread in Finnish anymore, it's called "pulla". "Pulla" is also yeast leavened, but it contains added sugar, fat, and may be filled with different sorts of flavours, like vanilla, cinnamon, etc. It's also often rolled for a fancier structure and to spread the possible filling. A cinnamon roll is a good example of "pulla". As far as the non-sweet proper bread in Finnish extends, you can mix stuff like seeds or crushed nuts into the dough, adding some nutritional value to the bread. Most bread sold contain only simple flour, though.

All in all, MFauli's German definition of bread sounds fitting, which is not surprising considering the history of Europe.

Much of this whole discussion seems to derive from the inaccurate nature of the English language. The number of words in English is huge, as one would expect from a language of the former largest empire in the world and that still is the main language of trade, technology, and science. Yet at the same time, the English doesn't really bother to be accurate at all with many things. Every baking product that's leavened (usually with yeast, I'd assume, but I bet that's not a strict requirement either) is lazily called bread.