Sami languages
Sami is a general name for a group of
Uralic languages spoken in parts of northern
Norway,
Sweden,
Finland and extreme northwestern
Russia, in
Northern Europe. Sami is frequently (and erroneously) believed to be a single language. It is the native tongue of the
Sami people. There are several terms used for the Sami languages: Saami, Sámi, Samic, Saamic, Lappish and Lappic. The last two are, along with the term
Lapp, considered
derogatory by some.
The Sami languages are divided into two groups: the western and the eastern ones. The groups may be further divided into various subgroups and ultimately individual languages. Parts of the Sami language area form a
dialect continuum in which the neighbouring languages may be to fair degree mutually intelligible, but two more widely separated groups will not understand each others' speech. There are, however, sharp and absolute language boundaries, in particular between Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami, the speakers of which are not able to understand each other without learning or long practice.
Western Sami languages*
Southern Sami*
Ume Sami*
Pite Sami*
Lule Sami*
Northern SamiEastern Sami languages*
Inari Sami*
Kemi Sami*
Skolt Sami*
Akkala Sami*
Kildin Sami*
Ter SamiThe Sami languages are spoken by the
Sami people living in
Lapland in
Northern Europe. The Lapland region stretches over the four countries
Norway,
Sweden,
Finland and
Russia, reaching from the southern part of central
Scandinavia in the southwest to the tip of the
Kola Peninsula in the east.
During the Middle and Early Modern Ages now extinct Sami languages have also been spoken in the central and southern parts of
Finland and
Karelia. Historical documents as well as
Finnish and
Karelian oral tradition contain many mentions of the earlier Sami inhabitation in these areas.
Place names of Sami origin are widespread in
Finland,
Karelia,
Norway and
Sweden.
Official status
Adopted in April 1988, Article 110a of the Norwegian Constitution states: "It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop its language, culture and way of life." The
Sami Language Act went into effect in the 1990s. Sami is an official language of the municipalities of
Kautokeino,
Karasjok,
Kåfjord,
Nesseby,
Sør-Varanger and
Tana.
In
Finland, the Sami language act of 1991 granted Sami people the right to use the Sami languages for all government services. The Sami language act of 2003 made Sami an official language in
Enontekiö,
Inari,
Sodankylä and
Utsjoki municipalities.
On
April 1, 2002 Sami became one of five recognized
minority languages in Sweden. It can be used in dealing with public authorities in the
municipalities of
Arjeplog,
Gällivare,
Jokkmokk and
Kiruna.
|
Geographic distribution of the Sami languages: 1. Southern Sami, 2. Ume Sami, 3. Pite Sami, 4. Lule Sami, 5. Northern Sami, 6. Skolt Sami, 7. Inari Sami, 8. Kildin Sami, 9. Ter Sami. |
See also:
Sami parliaments of Finland, Norway, and Sweden
Languages and dialects
In
2001 there were ten known Sami languages. The largest six of these have standard written languages; the four others are not written, and there are likely fewer than 20 people speaking them. The
ISO 639-2 code for all Sami languages without its proper code is "smi". The six written languages are:
*
Northern Sami (Norway, Sweden, Finland): With an estimated 15,000 speakers, this accounts for probably more than 75% of all Sami speakers in
2002.
ISO 639-1/
ISO 639-2: se/sme
*
Lule Sami (Norway, Sweden): The second largest group with an estimated 1,500 speakers.
ISO 639-2: smj
*
Southern Sami (Norway, Sweden):
ISO 639-2: sma
*
Inari Sami (
Enare Sami) (
Inari, Finland):
SIL code: LPI,
ISO 639-2: smn
*
Skolt Sami (Näätämö and the Nellim-Keväjärvi districts,
Inari municipality, Finland, also spoken in
Russia, previously in Norway)
SIL code: LPK,
ISO 639-2: sms
*
Kildin Sami (
Kildin Island, Russia)
SIL code: LPD
The remaining living languages are
Ter Sami,
Pite Sami and
Ume Sami, which have very few (likely under 20) speakers left.
Akkala (Babino) Sami is known to have had one living speaker still in 2002, but now the language is probably extinct. Another Sami language,
Kemi Sami, has been extinct for over 100 years.
The Northern Sami language has had more than one
orthography, but in
1948 a common orthography was created. It was last modified in
1985.
Northern Sami uses seven characters not found in the
Scandinavian languages or the
Finnish language:
*a-acute (Á/á) (front vowel; notice the contrast between the back vowel and the front vowel )
*c-caron (Č/č)
*d-stroke (Đ/đ)
*engma (Ŋ/ŋ)
*s-caron (Š/š)
*t-stroke (Ŧ/ŧ)
*z-caron (Ž/ž)
The Lule Sami language has a common orthography but with fewer special characters, only a-acute and n-acute. The character n-acute (Ń/ń) is the eng sound found in the English word "song". Instead of n-acute (found in
Unicode, but not in
ASCII), many use ñ or even ng.
Southern Sami uses some Norwegian (æ, ø) or Swedish (ä, ö) characters, depending on location relative to the border. Inari Sami uses seven special characters. Kildin Sami uses
Cyrillic typesetting, Russian characters with some special characters.
Skolt Sami uses a Latin orthography, with the following special characters:
*circumflex-A (Â/â)
*a-ring (Å/å)
*a-trema (Ä/ä)
*o-tilde (Õ/õ)
*ezh (Ʒ/')
*ezh-caron (Ǯ/ǯ)
*s-caron (Š/š)
*z-caron (Ž/ž)
*c-caron (Č/č)
*g-caron (Ǧ/ǧ),
*k-caron (Ǩ/ǩ)
*d-stroke (Đ/đ)
*g-stroke (Ǥ/ǥ)
*engma (Ŋ/ŋ)
*
Sami alphabets: Basics (in Norwegian) and references - from
Skolelinux, in Norwegian
*
Kimberli Mäkäräinen "Sámi-related odds and ends," including 5000+ word vocabulary list
*
Dictionaries - at
University of Tromsø*
Samisk språkråd - Sami language department of the
Norwegian Sami parliament (in Norwegian and Northern Sami)
* Finland -
Sámi Language Act*
Sami Language Resources All about Sami Languages with glossaries, scholarly articles, resources
