Southern Sami

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Southern Sami åarjelsaemien giele
Spoken in:	Norway, Sweden
Total speakers:	~500
Language family:	Uralic  Finno-Ugric   Finno-Permic    Finno-Volgaic     Finno-Lappic      Sami       Western        Southern Sami
Writing system:	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	smi
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	sju
Southern Sami is 1 on this map.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Southern Sami is a seriously endangered language. The last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa and Hattfjelldal in Norway. There are approximately 2000 people considered Southern Sámi in Norway and Sweden, although only approximately 500 of them can fluently speak the language.

Contents 1 Grammar 1.1 Sound alterations 1.2 Cases 1.3 Verbs 1.3.1 Person 1.3.2 Mood 1.3.3 Tense 1.3.4 Grammatical number 1.3.5 Negative verb 2 Phonology 3 Syntax 4 Writing system 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Sound alterations

A typical feature of Southern Sami is the alteration of first-syllable vowels through Umlaut in the declension and conjugation of words. Often there are three different vowels that alterate with each other in the paradigm of a single word, for example as follows:

• ae ~ aa ~ ee: vaedtsedh 'to walk' : vaadtsam 'I walk' : veedtsim 'I walked'
• ue ~ ua ~ øø: vuelkedh 'to leave' : vualkam 'I leave' : vøølkim 'I left'

On the other hand, Southern Sami is the only Sami language that does not have consonant gradation. Hence consonants in the middle of words never alterate in Southern Sami, even though such alterations are frequent in other Sami languages. Compare, for instance, Southern Sami nomme 'name' : nommesne 'in the name' to Northern Sami namma : namas, with the consonant gradation mm : m.

[edit] Cases

Southern Sámi has has 8 cases:

Case	Singular ending	Plural ending
Nominative	-	-h
Genitive	-n	-i / -j
Accusative	-m	-jte / -ite / -idie
Inessive	-sne / -snie	-ine / -jne / -inie
Elative	-ste / -stie	-jste / -jstie
Illative	-n / -se / -sse	-jte / -ite / -idie
Comitative	-ine / -jne / -inie	-igujmie / -jgujmie
Essive	-ine / -jne / -inie	(no plural form)

Southern Sámi is one of the few Sámi languages that still differentiates between the accusative and the genitive morphologically.

[edit] Verbs

[edit] Person

Southern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

• first person
• second person
• third person

[edit] Mood

[edit] Tense

[edit] Grammatical number

Southern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

• singular
• dual
• plural

[edit] Negative verb

Southern Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Southern Sámi, the negative verb conjugates according to tense (past and non-past), mood (indicative and imperative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and person (singular, dual and plural). This differs from some other the other Sami languages, e.g., from Northern Sami, which do not conjugate according to tense.

   Non-past indicative       Past indicative                Imperative 
   sg.  du.    pl.           sg.     du.       pl.          sg.       du.       pl.      
1  im   ean    ibie        1 idtjim  idtjimen  idtjimh    1 aelliem   aellien   aellebe
                                                            ollem     ollen     ollebe
2  ih   idien  idie        2 idtjih  idtjiden  idtjidh    2 aellieh   aelleden  aellede
                                                            ollh      olleden   ollede
3  ij   eakan  eah         3 idtji   idtjigan  idtjin     3 aellis    aellis    aellis    
                                                            olles     olles     olles

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Syntax

Unlike the other Sámi languages, Southern Sámi is an SOV language.

[edit] Writing system

Even though Southern Sámi is one of the six Sámi languages that has an official written language, only a few books have been published for the language, one of which is a good-size Southern Sámi-Norwegian dictionary.

Southern Sami uses the latin alphabet: A/a, B/b, D/d, E/e, F/f, G/g, H/h, I/i, (Ï/ï), J/j, K/k, L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, P/p, R/r, S/s, T/t, U/u, V/v, Y/y, Æ/æ, Ø/ø, Å/å

Ä/ä is a variant of Æ/æ, Ö/ö is a variant of Ø/ø. The variants Ä/ä, Ö/ö are used in Sweden, Æ/æ, Ø/ø in Norway, in accordance with the usage in Swedish and Norwegian. The Ï/ï represents a back version of I/i, many texts do not distinguish between the two.

C/c, Q/q, W/w, X/x, Z/z are used in words of foreign origin.

[edit] References

• Bergsland, Knut. Røroslappisk grammatikk, 1946.
• Bergsland, Knut. Sydsamisk grammatikk, 1982.
• Bergsland, Knut and Lajla Mattson Magga. Åarjelsaemien-daaroen baakoegærja, 1993.
• Hasselbrink, Gustav. Südsamisches Wörterbuch I–III

[edit] External links

• Sámi lottit Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
• Southern Sámi grammar
• Southern Sámi analyzer
• Samien Sijte - Southern Sámi Museum and Cultural Center
• Sørsamisk forskning og undervisning - Universitetet i Tromsø