Inari Sami

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Inari Sami
anarâškielâ
Spoken in: Finland
Total speakers: ~400
Language family: Uralic
 Finno-Ugric
  Finno-Permic
   Finno-Volgaic
    Finno-Lappic
     Sami
      Eastern
       Inari Sami 
Writing system: Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1: smn
ISO 639-2: smn
ISO/FDIS 639-3: smn 
Inari Sami is 7 on this map.
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Inari Sami is 7 on this map.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Inari Sami (anarâškielâ) is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken in Finland by some 300-400 people, the majority of which are middle-aged or older and live in the municipality of Inari. It is the only Sami language that is spoken exclusively in Finland. The language is classified as being seriously endangered as few children learn the language.

Contents

[edit] History

The first book in Inari Sámi was Anar sämi kiela aapis kirje ja doctor Martti Lutherus Ucca katkismus written and translated by Edvard Wilhelm Borg in 1859. The written history of modern Inari Sami is said to begin with Lauri Arvid Itkonen's translation of the history of the bible in 1906 although he did translate some other books before that (Martin Luther and John Charles Ryles). After that, Inari Sami was mainly published in books written by linguists, Frans Äimä and Erkki Itkonen, in particular. For many years, there was little literature written in Inari Sami, although Sämitigge has funded and published a lot of books, etc., in recent years.

Since 1992, Finland's Sami have had the right to interact with officials in their own language in areas where they have traditionally lived: in Enontekiö, Utsjoki, Inari and the northern part of Sodankylä as official policy favors the conservation of the language. All announcements in Inari, which is the only officially quadrilingual municipality in Finland, must be made in Finnish, North Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami. Only about 10% of public servants in the area can actually serve the Inari Saami-speaking population in Inari Saami, so Finnish is used by the remaining 90%.

In 1986, the Anarâškielâ Servi (Inari Sámi Association) was founded in order to promote the language and its use. The association also publishes a lot of books, textbooks, a calendar, etc. in Inari Sami. They have also established a language immersion program in 1997 for 3-6-year-old children in a day care in Inari and Ivalo.

A new phenomenon has been the fact that Inari Sami is currently being used in rap songs by Mikkal Morottaja, whose stage name is Amoc.

[edit] Orthography

Inari Sámi is written using an extended version of the Latin alphabet. The alphabet currently used for Inari Sami was made official in 1996 and stands as follows:

A/a, (Â/â), B/b, C/c, Č/č, D/d, Đ/đ, E/e, F/f, G/g, H/h, I/i, J/j, K/k, L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, P/p, R/r, S/s, Š/š, T/t, U/u, V/v, Y/y, Z/z, Ž/ž, Ä/ä, (Á/á).

The phonetic values are the same as in Karelian, and đ represents the voiced dental fricative (in English "the"). Q/q, W/w, X/x, Å/å, Ö/ö are also used in words of foreign origin. Á is traditionally pronounced in the middle of /a/ and /ä/, but in modern Inari Sámi the difference between á and ä is nonexistent. In text, Á and ä are nevertheless concidered as separate characters. Ä is used only, if 1) it is in a first syllable of a word, and there is an "e" or "i" in a second syllable of the same word, 2) it is in a word, which does have only one syllable (although á is also used), or 3) it is a part of diphthong "iä". Ä however is not used, if it is supposed to be a part of diphthong "uá" (uá and uä are pronouced almost the same, but only uá is correct).

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Cases

Inari Sámi has 9 cases, although the genitive and accusative are oftentimes the same:

The partitive appears to be a highly unproductive case in that it appears to only be used in the singular.

[edit] Pronouns

The 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 mun my muu
Second person (singular) you (thou) tun your, yours tuu
Third person (singular) he, she sun his, her suu
First person (dual) we (two) muoi our munnuu
Second person (dual) you (two) tuoi your tunnuu
Third person (dual) they (two) suoi theirs sunnuu
First person (plural) we mij our mii
Second person (plural) you tij your tii
Third person (plural) they sij their sii

The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun I/we (dual)/we (plural) in the various cases:

  Singular Dual Plural
Nominative mun muoi mij
Genitive-Accusative muu munnuu mii
Locative must, muste munnust mist, miste
Illative munjin munnui mijjân
Comitative muuin, muin munnuin, munnuuin miiguim
Abessive muuttáá munnuuttáá miitttáá
Essive munen munnun minen
Partitive muđe munnud? miđe?

[edit] Verbs

[edit] Person

Inari Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

[edit] Mood

Inari Sami has 5 grammatical moods:

[edit] Grammatical number

Inari Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

[edit] Tense

Inari Sami has 2 simple tenses:

and 2 compound tenses:

[edit] Verbal nouns

[edit] Negative verb

Inari Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Inari Sami, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural).

    Ind. pres.                  Imperatiiva               Optatiiva
    sg.      du      pl.        sg.    du      pl.        sg.      du      pl.                        
1   jie'm    ián     ep      1  -      -               1  iällum iäl'loon  iällup
2   jie'h    eppee   eppeđ   2  ele    ellee   elleđ   2  ele    ellee     elleđ   
3   ij       iä'vá   iä      3  -      -               3  iä'lus iällus    iällus

[edit] References

  • Itkonen, Erkki. Inarilappisches Wörterbuch. Lexica societatis fenno-ugricae: 20. Suomalais-ugrilainen seura. Helsinki. ISBN 951-9019-94-4.
  • Sammallahti, Pekka. Morottaja, Matti. Säämi-suoma sänikirje. Inarinsaamelais-suomalainen sanakirja. Girjegiisá. Ykkösoffset Oy, Vaasa 1993. ISBN 951-8939-27-6.
  • Olthuis, Marja-Liisa. Kielâoppâ. [Inari] : Sämitigge, 2000.
  • Østmo, Kari. Sämikielâ vieres kiellân vuáðuškoovlâst. Helsinki : Valtion painatuskeskus, 1988.

[edit] Links

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