Sami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently (and erroneously) believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami languages: Saami, Sámi, Samic, Saamic, as well as the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two are, along with the term Lapp, considered derogatory by many.^[1]

Classification

The Sami languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. According to the traditional view, Sami is within the Uralic family most closely related to the Baltic-Finnic languages (Sammallahti 1998). However, this view has recently been doubted by some scholars, who argue that the traditional view of a common Finno-Sami protolanguage is not as strongly supported as has been earlier assumed^[2], and that the similarities may stem from an areal influence on Sami from Baltic-Finnic.

In terms of internal relationships, the Sami languages are divided into two groups: western and eastern. The groups may be further divided into various subgroups and ultimately individual languages. (Sammallahti 1998: 6-38.) Parts of the Sami language area form a dialect continuum in which the neighbouring languages may be to a fair degree mutually intelligible, but two more widely separated groups will not understand each other's speech. There are, however, some sharp 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 (600)^[3]
• Ume Sami (20)^[4]
• Pite Sami (20)^[5]
• Lule Sami (2000)^[6]
• Northern Sami (20,700)^[7]

Eastern Sami languages

• Inari Sami (300)^[8]
• Kemi Sami (extinct)
• Skolt Sami (420)^[9]
• Akkala Sami (extinct)
• Kildin Sami (500)^[10]
• Ter Sami (2^[11]-10^[12])

Note that the above figures are approximate.

Geographic distribution

Historically verified 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. Darkened area represents municipalities that recognize Sami as an official language.

The Sami languages are spoken in Sápmi in Northern Europe, in a region stretching 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. The border between the languages do not follow the political borders.

During the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age now extinct Sami languages were also spoken in the central and southern parts of Finland and Karelia and in a wider area on the Scandinavian peninsula. Historical documents as well as Finnish and Karelian oral tradition contain many mentions of the earlier Sami inhabitation in these areas (Itkonen 1947). Also loanwords as well as place-names of Sami origin in the southern dialects of Finnish and Karelian dialects testify of earlier Sami presence in the area (Koponen 1996; Saarikivi 2004; Aikio 2007). These Sami languages, however, became later extinct under the wave of the Finno-Karelian agricultural expansion.

History

The Proto-Sami language is believed to have formed in the vicinity of the Gulf of Finland between 1000 B.C. to 700 A.D. derived from a common Proto-Sami-Finnic language (M. Korhonen 1981^[13]). However reconstruction of any basic proto-languages in the Uralic family have reached a level close to or identical to Proto-Uralic (Salminen 1999^[14]). The language is believed to have expanded west and north into Fennoscandia during the Iron Age reaching central-Scandinavia during the Proto-Scandinavian phase (Bergsland 1996.^[15]). The language assimilated several layers of unknown Paleo-European languages from the early hunter gatherers, first during the Proto-Sami phase and second in the subsequent expansion of the language in the west and the north of Fennoscandia that is part of modern Sami today. (Aikio 2004^[16], Aikio 2006^[17]).

Written languages and sociolinguistic situation

At present there are nine living Sami languages. The largest six of the languages have independent literary languages; the three others have no written standard, and there are only few, mainly elderly speakers left. 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): 500 speakers (estimated). ISO 639-2: sma
• Inari Sami (Enare Sami) (Inari, Finland): 500 speakers (estimated). 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): 400 speakers (estimated). SIL code: LPK, ISO 639-2: sms
• Kildin Sami (Kola Peninsula, Russia): 608 speakers in Murmansk Oblast, 179 in other Russian regions. Although 1991 persons stated their Saami ethnicity (1769 of them live in Murmansk Oblast)^[18] SIL code: LPD

The other Sami languages are moribund and have very few speakers left. Ten speakers of Ter Sami were known to be alive in 2004,^[19] and Pite Sami and Ume Sami likely have under 20 speakers left. The last speaker of Akkala Sami is known to have died in December 2003,^[20] and the eleventh attested variety, Kemi Sami, became extinct in the 19th century.

Orthographies

The Sami languages use an extended version of the Latin alphabet.

Northern Sami:	Áá Čč Đđ Ŋŋ Šš Ŧŧ Žž
Inari Sami:	Áá Ââ Ää Čč Đđ Šš Žž
Skolt Sami:	Áá Ââ Čč Ʒʒ Ǯǯ Đđ Ǧǧ Ǥǥ Ǩǩ Ŋŋ Õõ Šš Žž Åå Ää (+soft sign ´)
Lule Sami in Sweden:	Áá Åå Ńń Ää
Lule Sami in Norway:	Áá Åå Ńń Ææ
Southern Sami in Sweden:	Ïï Ää Öö Åå
Southern Sami in Norway:	Ïï Ææ Øø Åå

Note that the letter Đ is a capital D with a bar across it (Unicode U+0110) and is not the capital eth (Ð; U+00D0) found in Icelandic, Faroese or Old English, which it is almost identical to.

Note also that the different characters used on the different sides of the Swedish/Norwegian border merely are orthographic standards based on the Swedish and Norwegian alphabet, respectively, and don't denote different pronunciations.

Kildin Sami uses an extended version of the Cyrillic alphabet: Аа Ӓӓ Бб Вв Гг Дд Ее Ёё Жж Зз Ии Йй Ӣӣ Кк Лл Ӆӆ Мм Ӎӎ Нн Ӊӊ Ӈӈ Оо Пп Рр Ҏҏ Сс Тт Уу Фф Хх Цц Чч Шш Щщ Ъъ Ыы Ьь Ҍҍ Ээ Ӭӭ Юю Яя Јј Ѣѣ ʼ.

Skolt Sami uses ˊ (U+02CA) as a soft sign; due to technical restrictions, it is often replaced by ´ (U+00B4).

Official status

Norway

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, Gáivuotna (Kåfjord), Nesseby, Porsanger, Tana, Tysfjord, Lavangen and Snåsa.

Finland

A bilingual street sign in Enontekiö in both Finnish (top) and Northern Sámi

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.

Sweden

On 1 April 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.

See also

• Sami parliaments of Finland, Norway, and Sweden

References

• Fernandez, J. 1997. Parlons lapon. - Paris.
• Itkonen, T. I. 1947. Lapparnas förekomst i Finland. - Ymer: 43–57. Stockholm.
• Koponen, Eino 1996. Lappische Lehnwörter im Finnischen und Karelischen. - Lars Gunnar Larsson (ed.), Lapponica et Uralica. 100 Jahre finnisch-ugrischer Unterricht an der Universität Uppsala. Studia Uralica Uppsaliensia 26: 83-98.
• Saarikivi, Janne 2004. Über das saamische Substratnamengut in Nordrußland und Finnland. - Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen 58: 162–234. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.
• Sammallahti, Pekka (1998). The Saami Languages: an introduction. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji OS. ISBN 82-7374-398-5. 

External links

• Introduction to the history and current state of Sami
• Kimberli Mäkäräinen "Sámi-related odds and ends," including 5000+ word vocabulary list
• Risten Sámi dictionary and terminology database.
• Giellatekno Morphological and syntactic analysers and lexical resources for several Sami languages
• Divvun Proofing tools for some of the Sami languages
• Sámedikki giellastivra - 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
• Álgu database, an etymological database of the Sami languages (in Finnish and North Sámi)
• Sami anthems, Sami anthems in various Sami languages