Skolt Sami
Language
name=Skolt Sami | nativename=sää´mǩiõll | region=Finland and Russia | speakers=~400 | iso1=sms | iso2=sms | iso3=sms | familycolor=Uralic | fam1=Uralic | fam2=Finno-Ugric | fam3=Finno-Permic | fam4=Finno-Volgaic | fam5=Finno-Lappic | fam6=Sami | fam7=Eastern | script=Latin alphabet | map= | Skolt Sami is 6 on this map. |
Skolt Sami (sää´mǩiõll) is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken in Finland and nearby parts of Russia. It has about 400 remaining speakers in Finland. It is written using an official Roman orthography.The Skolt Sami language was spoken in four villages on Finnish territory prior to the Second World War. In Petsamo, there was Suonikylä, and the Petsamo village. This area was ceded to Russia in the Second World War, and Skolts were evacuated to the villages of Inari, Sevettijärvi and Nellimö in the Inari municipality.
As a historic note, this region was hit hard by the first of the great famines of the 19th Century which happened about 1913. Most people moved out of this northernmost area to the Americas or parts of Fennoscandia further South as a consequence.
For those interested in doing Sami-American research, check York county, Pennsylvania. This area had five Sami settlements since the 17th Century. Many Skolt Sami fled there to escape the famine mentioned above.Skolt Sami is spoken by some 400 individuals. Nearly all of these live in Finland; very few speakers remain today on the Russian side. On the Finnish side of the border, the language is officially supported. It is an official language in the municipality of Inari, and the elementary schools offer courses in the language. However, most youths have Finnish as their first language, so that it must be taught like a foreign language. A small number of youths do learn the language and continue to use it actively. Skolt Sami is thus a seriously endangered language, unlike the neighboring Inari Sami with the same number of speakers, in the same municipality.
Like Inari Sami, Skolt Sami has recently bore witness to a new phenomenon, namely it is being used in rock songssung by Tiina Sanila, who recently published her first full-length CD in Skolt Sami.Skolt Sami is a synthetic, highly inflected language that shares many grammatical features with the other Uralic languages. However, Skolt Sami is not a typical agglutinative language like many of the other Uralic languages are, as it has developed considerably into the direction of a fusional language, much like Estonian. Therefore, cases and other grammatical features are also marked by modifications to the root and not just marked with suffixes. Many of the suffixes in Skolt Sami are portmanteau morphemes that express several grammatical features at a time.CasesSkolt Sámi has 9 cases in the singular, although the genitive and accusative are oftentimes the same:NominativeLike the other Uralic languages, the nominative singular is unmarked and indicates the subject or a predicate.The nominative plural is also unmarked and always looks the same as the genitive singular.GenitiveThe genitive singular is unmarked and looks the same as the nominative plural. The genitive plural is marked by an -i. The genitive is used:
*to indicate possession (Tu'st lij mu ǩe'rjj.: You have my book.)
*to indicate number, if said the number is between 2 and 6. (Sie'zzest lij kuõ'htt põõrt. My father's sister (my aunt) has two houses.)
*with prepositions (rääi + [GEN]: by, beyond something)
*with most postpositions. (Sij mõ'nne ääkkäd årra.: They went to your grandmother's (house). They went to visit your grandmother.)
The genitive has been replacing the partitive for some time and is nowdays more commonly used in its place.AccusativeThe accusative is the direct object case and it is unmarked in the singular. In the plural, its marker is -d, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural illative. The accusative is alsoused to mark some adjuncts, e.g., obb tää'lv (the entire winter).LocativeThe locative marker in the singular is -st and -n in the plural. This case is used to indicate:
*where something is (Kuä'đest lij ǩe'rjj: There is a book in the kota.)
*where it is coming from (Niõđ puõ'tte domoi Če'vetjääu'rest. The girls came home from Sevettijärvi.)
*who has possession of something (Su'st lij čâustõk: He/she has a lasso.)
In addition, it is used with certain verbs:
*to ask someone s.t. : kõõččâd [+loc]IllativeThe illative marker actually has three different markers in the singular to represent the same case: -a, -e and -u. The plural illative marker is -d, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural accusative. This case is used to indicate:
*where something is going
*who is receiving something
*the indirect objectComitativeThe comitative marker in the singular is -in and -vui'm in the plural. The comitative is used to state with whom or what something was done:
Njää'lm sekstet leei'nin. The mouth is wiped with a piece of cloth.
Vuõ'lğğem paa'rnivui'm ceerkvest. I left church with the children.
Vuõ'lğğem vue'bbinan ceerkvest. I left church with my sister.
To form the comitative singular, use the genitive singular form of the word as the root and -in. To form the comitative plural, use the plural genitive root and -vui'm.AbessiveThe abessive marker is -tää in both the singular and the plural. It always has a tertiary stress.
Vuõ'lğğem paa'rnitää ceerkvest. I left church without the children.
Sij mõ'nne niõđtää põ'rtte. They went in the house without the girl.
Sij mõ'nne niõđitää põ'rtte. They went in the house without the girls.
To form the abessive singular, use the genitive singular form of the word as the root and -in. To form the abessive plural, use the plural genitive root and -vui'm.EssiveThe dual form of the essive is still used with pronouns, but not with nouns and does not appear at all in the plural.PartitiveThe partitive is only used in the singular and can always be replaced by the genitive. The partitive marker is -d.
1. It appears after numbers larger than 6:
* kääu´c čâustõkkâd: eight lassos
This can be replaced with kää'uc čâustõõǥǥ.
2. It is also used with certain postpositions:
kuä'tted vuâstta: against a kota
This can be replaced with kuä'đ vuâstta.
3. It can be used with the comparative to express that which is being compared:
* Kå'lled pue'rab : better than gold
This would nowadays more than likely be replaced by pue'rab ko kå'llPronounsThe personal pronouns have three numbers - singular, plural and dual. The following table contains personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases.| | English | nominative | English!genitive | | First person (singular) | I | mon | my | muu | | Second person (singular) | you (thou) | ton | your, yours | tuu | | Third person (singular) | he, she | son | his, her | suu | | First person (dual) | we (two) | muäna | our | muännai | | Second person (dual) | you (two) | tuäna | your | tuännai | | Third person (dual) | they (two) | suäna | theirs | suännai | | First person (plural) | we | mij | our | mij | | Second person (plural) | you | tij | your | tij | | Third person (plural) | they | sij | their | sij |
The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun he/she (no gender distinction) in various cases:| | Singular | Dual | Plural | | Nominative | son | suäna | sij | | Genitive | suu | suännai | sij | | Accusative | suu | suännaid | si'jjid | | Illative | su'nne | suännaid | si'jjid | | Locative | su'st | suännast | sii'st | | Comitative | suin | suännain | si'jjivui'm | | Abessive | suutää | suännaitää | si'jjitää | | Essive | suu'nen | suännan | -- | | Partitive | suu'đed | |
VerbsPersonSkolt Sami verbs conjugate for four grammatical persons:
*first person
*second person
*third person
*fourth person, also called the indefinite personMoodSkolt Sami has 5 grammatical moods:
*indicative
*imperative (Pue'tted sõrgg domoi! Come home soon!)
*conditional
*potential
*optativeGrammatical numberSkolt Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:
*singular
*dual
*pluralTenseSkolt Sami has 2 simple tenses:
*past (Puõ'ttem škoou'le jåhtta.: I came to school yesterday.)
*non-past (Evvan puätt mu årra tä´bbe. John is coming to my house today.)
and 2 compound tenses:
*perfect
*pluperfectVerbal nounsSkolt Sami verbs have 6 nominal forms:
*the infinitive
*the gerund
*the active participle (progressive)
*the abessive
*the present participle
*the past participleNegative verbSkolt Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Skolt Sami, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) and number (singular, dual and plural).
Ind. pres. Imperatiiva Optatiiva sg. du/pl. sg. du/pl. sg. du/pl.
1 jiõm jeä'p 1 - - 1 ? jeällap
jim jep
2 jiõk jeä'ped 2 jie'l jie'lled 2 jie'l jie'lled
jik je'ped je'l je'lled je'l je'lled
3 ij jiâ, jeä, jie 3 - - 3 jeälas jeällaz
4 jeä't
Note that ij + leat is usually written as i'lla, i'lleäkku, i'llää or i'llä and ij + leat is usually written as jeä'la or jeä'lä.
Unlike the other Sami languages, Skolt Sami no longer has separate forms for the dual and plural of the negative verb and uses the plural forms for both instead.Special features of this Sami language include a highly complex vowel system and a suprasegmental contrast of palatalized vs. non-palatalized stress groups; palatalized stress groups are indicated by a "softener mark", represented by the free-standing acute accent (´).VowelsThe system of vowel phonemes is as follows.Notes:
*The difference between /e/ and /ε/ is not indicated in the standard orthography, where both of these sounds are spelled e.
*õ is is pronounced much like Estonian õ.
Long and short vowels contrast phonologically: cf. le´tt "vessel" vs. lee´tt "vessels". All vowels can occur as both long and short.The vowels can combine to form twelve opening diphthongs:Also diphthongs contrast length, although this is not indicated in spelling. Short diphthongs are distinguished from long ones by both length and stress placement; short diphthongs have a stressed second component, whereas long diphthongs have stress on the first component. With the exception of eâ, all diphthongs can occur as both long and short; eâ, however, only occurs as short.ConsonantsConsonants may be phonemically long or short word-medially or word-finally; both are exceedingly common. A typical Sami feature is that also consonant clusters may be long or short, e.g. ju´rdded "to think", kuoskkâd "to touch".
In consonants, all voiced plosives are half-voiced (weak voicing). Alveolar affricates are denoted Ʒ [dz] (voiced) and C [ts] (voiceless). The caron is used inconsistently for postalveolar articulation in Č [tʃ], Ǯ [d'], Š [ʃ], Ž ['], and for the palatal or velar palatalized stops Ǧ [ɟ] and Ǩ [c]. The latter (Ǩ, Ǧ) are in between K and T with respect to place of articulation. (Notice the disagreement between Skolt Sami orthography and IPA, and the difference between historical and synchronic palatalization.) The strike indicates fricative articulation; D is a dental stop, Đ is a dental fricative.
Palatalization is distinguished for three degrees. The plain form is velarized and receives no overt marking, the palatalized form is recognized by an adjacent softener mark, and full palatal articulation receives overt marking by digraphs in 'j'. For example, plain L is velarized with the tip of the tongue barely touching the back of the teeth, the softened ´L is constricted by keeping the tongue wider against the teeth, and the fully palatal LLJ has the middle of the tongue touching the hard palate. The same distinction is found for N, ´N and NJ.StressSkolt Sámi has four different types of stress for words:
*Primary stress
*Secondary stress
*Tertiary stress
*Zero stress
The first syllable of any word is always the primary stressed syllable in Skolt Sami as Skolt is a fixed-stress language. In words with two or more syllables, the final syllable is quite lightly stressed (tertiary stress) and the remaining syllable, if any, are stressed more heavily than the final syllable, but less than the first syllable (secondary stress).
Using the abessive and the comitative singular in a word appears to disrupt this system, however, in words of more than one syllable. The suffix, as can be expected, has teratiary stress, but the the penult syllable also has tertiary stress, even though it would be expected that it would have secondary stress.
Zero stress can be said to be a feature of conjunctions, postpositions, particles and monosyllabic pronouns.A short period of voicelessness or 'h' before geminate consonants is observed, but this receives no marking, e.g. jo´kke "to the river" is pronounced [jo̟hk̟k̟e]. The epenthetic vowels are not phonemic or syllabic, and thus not marked, e.g. mie´ll [miellɘ̯] "sandbank", cf. mielle [mielle] "to the mind". The Latin alphabet is used: A/a, Â/â, B/b, C/c, Č/č, Ʒ/ʒ, Ǯ/ǯ, D/d, Đ/đ, E/e, F/f, G/g, Ǧ/ǧ, Ǥ/ǥ, H/h, I/i, J/j, K/k, Ǩ/ǩ, L/l, M/m, N/n, Ŋ/ŋ, O/o, Õ/õ, P/p, R/r, S/s, Š/š, T/t, U/u, V/v, Z/z, Ž/ž, Å/å, Ä/ä, ´ (softener mark). The letters Q/q, W/w, X/x, Y/y and Ö/ö are also used in words of a foreign origin.*Korhonen, Mikko. Mosnikoff, Jouni. Sammallahti, Pekka. Koltansaamen opas. Castreanumin toimitteita, Helsinki 1973.
*Mosnikoff, Jouni and Pekka Sammallahti 1988: U'cc sääm-lää'dd sää'nnǩeârjaž = Pieni koltansaame-suomi sanakirja. Jorgaleaddji.
*Mosnikoff, Jouni and Pekka Sammallahti 1991: Suomi-koltansaame sanakirja = Lää'dd-sää'm sää'nnǩe'rjj. Ohcejohka : Girjegiisá.
*Moshnikoff, Satu: Muu vuõssmõs sää'mǩe'rjj.* Kimberli Mäkäräinen A very small Skolt Sámi - English vocabulary (<500 words)
* Northern Sámi - Inari Sámi - Skolt Sámi - English dictionary (requires a password nowadays)
* Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
* Sääm'jie'llem Sámi Museum site on the history of the Skolt Sámi in Finland]
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