Southern Sami

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Southern Sami
åarjelsaemien gïele
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: sma
ISO 639-3: sma 
Southern Sami is 1 on this map.
Southern Sami is 1 on this map.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languages. It 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 ethnically Southern Sami in Norway and Sweden, but only approximately 500 of them can fluently speak the language.

Contents

[edit] Writing system

Southern Sámi is one of the six Sámi languages that has an official written language, but 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] Phonology

Southern Sami has two dialects, the northern and the southern dialect. The phonological differences between the dialects are relatively small; the phonemic system of the northern dialect is explained below.

[edit] Vowels

The vowel phonemes of the northern dialect are the following; orthographic counterparts are given in brackets:

front central back
Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded
close i (i) y (y) ɨ (ï/i)1 ʉ (u) u (o)
mid e (e) o (å)
open ɛ (æ/ä)2 ɑ (a)

1The distinction between the vowels i and ɨ is normally not indicated in spelling: both of these sounds are written with the letter i. However, dictionaries and other linguistically precise sources use the character ï for the latter vowel.

2The letter æ is used in Norway, and ä in Sweden.

The non-high vowels e, ɛ, o and a contrast in length: they may occur as both short and long. High vowels only occur as short.

The vowels may combine to form ten different diphthongs:

front front to back central to back central to front back back to front
close to mid ie (ie) yo (yø/yö) ʉe (ue), ɨe (ie/ïe) uo (oe)
close to open ʉa (ua)
close oe (øø/öö)
mid to open eæ (ea) oa (åa) oæ (åe)

[edit] Consonants

[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 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:

[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 number (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.

Southern Sami negative verb, indicative forms
Non-past indicative Past indicative
Singular Dual Plural Singular Dual Plural
1st im ean ibie idtjim idtjimen idtjimh
2nd ih idien idie idtjih idtjiden idtjidh
3rd ij eakan eah idtji idtjigan idtjin
Southern Sami negative verb, imperative forms
Non-past imperative Past imperative
Singular Dual Plural Singular Dual Plural
1st aelliem aellien aellebe ollem ollen ollebe
2nd aellieh aelleden aellede ollh olleden ollede
3rd aellis aellis aellis olles olles olles

[edit] Syntax

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

[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

Wikimedia Incubator
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Finno-Ugric Languages
Baltic-Finnic
Volga-Finnic
Mari · Erzya · Moksha · Merya † · Meshcherian † · Muromian †
Permic
Sami
Akkala Sami † · Inari Sami · Kemi Sami † · Kildin Sami · Lule Sami · Northern Sami · Pite Sami · Skolt Sami · Southern Sami
Ter Sami · Ume Sami
Ugric
Note
† denotes extinct