Lule Sami language

Lule Sami
julevsámegiella
Native to Norway, Sweden
Native speakers
 1,000–2,000 (2007)[1]
Latin
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Norway; Sweden[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-2 smj
ISO 639-3 smj
Glottolog lule1254[3]

Lule Sami is 4 on this map

Lule Sami (julevsámegiella) is a Uralic, Sami language spoken in Lule Lappmark, i.e. around the Lule River, Sweden and in the northern parts of Nordland county in Norway, especially Tysfjord municipality, where Lule Sami is an official language. It is written in the Latin script, having an official alphabet.

Status

With 1,500 to 2,000 speakers it is the second largest of all Sami languages. It is reported that the number of native speakers is in sharp decline among the younger generations. The language has, however, been standardised in 1983 and elaborately cultivated ever since.

Grammar

Cases

Lule Sámi has seven cases:

Nominative

Like the other Uralic languages, the nominative singular is unmarked and indicates the subject of a predicate. The nominative plural is also unmarked and is always formally the same as the genitive singular.

Genitive

The genitive singular is unmarked and looks the same as the nominative plural. The genitive plural is marked by an -j. The genitive is used:

Accusative

The accusative is the direct object case and it is marked with -v in the singular. In the plural, its marker is -t, which is preceded by the plural marker -j.

Inessive

The inessive marker is -n in the singular and the plural, when it is then preceded by the plural marker -j. This case is used to indicate:

Illative

The illative marker is -j in the singular and -da in the plural, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural accusative. This case is used to indicate:

Elative

The elative marker is -s in the singular and the plural, when it is then preceded by the plural marker -j. This case is used to indicate:

Comitative

The comitative marker in the singular is -jn and -j in the plural, which means that it looks like the genitive plural. The comitative is used to state with whom or what something was done.

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 mån my muv
Second person (singular) you (thou) dån your, yours duv
Third person (singular) he, she sån his, her suv
First person (dual) we (two) måj our munnu
Second person (dual) you (two) dåj your dunnu
Third person (dual) they (two) såj theirs sunnu
First person (plural) we mij our mijá
Second person (plural) you dij your dijá
Third person (plural) they sij their sijá

The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun he/she (no gender distinction) in various cases:

  Singular Dual Plural
Nominative sån såj sij
Genitive suv sunnu sijá
Accusative suv sunnuv sijáv
Inessive sujna sunnun siján
Illative sunji sunnuj sidjij
Elative sujsta sunnus sijás
Comitative sujna sunnujn sijájn

Verbs

Person

Lule Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

Mood

Lule Sami has 4 grammatical moods:

Grammatical number

Lule Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

Tense

Lule Sami verbs have two simple tenses:

and 2 compound tenses:

Negative verb

Lule Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and some Estonian dialects, has a negative verb. In Lule Sami, 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).

Writing system

The orthography used for Lule Sámi is written using an extended form of the Latin script. There are a few special characters: á (a-acute), ń (n-acute), and å (a-ring). Traditionally, the character n-acute (Ń/ń) has been used to represent the [ŋ] sound, found, for example, in the English word "song". In place of n-acute (found in Unicode, but not in Latin-1 or traditional Nordic keyboards), many have used ñ or even ng. In modern orthography, such as in the official publications of the Swedish government and the recently published translation of the New Testament, it is usually replaced with ŋ, in accordance with the orthography of many other Sami languages.

References

  1. ↑ Lule Sami at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ "To which languages does the Charter apply?". European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe. p. 3. Retrieved 2014-04-03.
  3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Lule Sami". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
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