TheSámi languages (/ˈsɑːmi/SAH-mee),[3] also rendered inEnglish asSami andSaami, are a group ofUralic languages spoken by the IndigenousSámi peoples inNorthern Europe (in parts of northernFinland,Norway,Sweden, and extreme northwesternRussia). There are, depending on the nature and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings have been used for the Sámi languages, includingSámi,Sami,Saami,Saame,Sámic,Samic andSaamic, as well as theexonymsLappish andLappic. The last two, along with the termLapp, are now often consideredpejorative.[4]
The Sámi languages form a branch of theUralic language family. According to the traditional view, Sámi is within the Uralic family most closely related to theFinnic languages (Sammallahti 1998). However, this view has recently been doubted by some scholars who argue that the traditional view of a commonFinno-Sami protolanguage is not as strongly supported as had been earlier assumed,[5] and that the similarities may stem from anareal influence on Sámi from Finnic.
In terms of internal relationships, the Sámi languages are traditionally divided into the two groups of western and eastern. The groups may be further divided into various subgroups and ultimately individual languages. (Sammallahti 1998: 6-38.) Recently it has been proposed on the basis of (1) different sound substitutions seen between the Sámi languages in the Proto-Scandinavian loanwords and (2) historical phonology that the first unit to branch off from Late Proto-Sámi was Southern Proto-Sámi, from which descend South Sámi, Ume Sámi, and Gävle Sámi (extinct during the 19th century).[6][7]
Parts of the Sámi language area form adialect continuum in which the neighbouring languages may bemutually intelligible to a fair degree, but two more widely separated groups will not understand each other's speech. There are, however, some sharp language boundaries, in particular betweenNorthern Sami,Inari Sami andSkolt Sami, the speakers of which are not able to understand each other without learning or long practice. The evolution of sharp language boundaries seems to suggest a relative isolation of the language speakers from each other and not very intensive contacts between the respective speakers in the past. There is some significance in this, as the geographical barriers between the respective speakers are no different from those in other parts of the Sámi area.
This map shows the geographic distribution of Sámi languages and offers some additional information, such as number of native Sámi speakers and locations of the Sámi parliaments.[17]Administrative living areas and municipalities that recognise Sámi as an official language in the Nordic CountriesSami languages and settlements in Russia:
The Sami languages are spoken inSápmi inNorthern Europe, in a region stretching over the four countriesNorway,Sweden,Finland andRussia, reaching from the southern part of centralScandinavia in the southwest to the tip of theKola Peninsula in the east. The borders between the languages do not align with the ones separating the region's modern states.
During theMiddle Ages andearly modern period, now-extinct Sami languages were also spoken in the central and southern parts ofFinland andKarelia and in a wider area on theScandinavian Peninsula. Historical documents as well asFinnish andKarelianoral 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 extinct later, under the wave of the Finno-Karelian agricultural expansion.
TheProto-Sámi language is believed to have formed in the vicinity of theGulf of Finland between 1000 BC to 700 AD, deriving from a common Proto-Sami-Finnic language (M. Korhonen 1981).[18] However, reconstruction of any basic proto-languages in the Uralic family have reached a level close to or identical toProto-Uralic (Salminen 1999).[19] According to the comparative linguist Ante Aikio, the Proto-Samic language developed in South Finland or in Karelia around 2000–2500 years ago, spreading then to northern Fennoscandia.[20] The language is believed to have expanded west and north intoFennoscandia during theNordic Iron Age, reaching centralScandinavia during theProto-Scandinavian period ca. 500 AD (Bergsland 1996).[21] The language assimilated several strata of unknownPaleo-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 modernSápmi today. (Aikio 2004, Aikio 2006).[20][22]
At present there are nine living Sami languages. Eight of the languages have independent literary languages; the other one has no written standard, and of it, there are only a few, mainly elderly, speakers left. TheISO 639-2 code for all Sami languages without their own code is "smi". The eight 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.[citation needed]ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2: se/sme
The other Sami languages are critically endangered (moribund, have very few speakers left) or extinct. Ten speakers ofTer Sami were known to be alive in 2004.[25] The last speaker ofAkkala Sami is known to have died in December 2003,[26] and the eleventh attested variety,Kemi Sami, became extinct in the 19th century. An additional Sami language,Kainuu Sami, became extinct in the 18th century, and probably belonged to the Eastern group like Kemi Sami, although the evidence for the language is limited.
The use of Ææ and Øø in Norway vs. Ää and Öö in Sweden merely reflects the orthographic standards used in theNorwegian andSwedish alphabets, respectively, not differences in pronunciations.
Sámi languages tend to prefer the N-form eng for the uppercase letter.
The capital letter Ŋ (eng) is commonly presented in Sámi languages using the "N-form" variant based the usual Latin uppercase N with a hook added.[27] Unicode assigns code point U+014A to the uppercase eng, but does not prescribe the form of the glyph.[28]
The Skolt Sámi standard uses ʹ (U+02B9) as a soft sign,[29] but other apostrophes, such as ' (U+0027), ˊ (U+02CA) or ´ (U+00B4), are also sometimes used in published texts.
TheKildin Sámi orthography uses the RussianCyrillic script with these additional letters: А̄а̄ Ӓӓ Е̄е̄ Ё̄ё̄ Һһ/ʼ Ӣӣ Јј/Ҋҋ Ӆӆ Ӎӎ Ӊӊ Ӈӈ О̄о̄ Ҏҏ Ӯӯ Ҍҍ Э̄э̄ Ӭӭ Ю̄ю̄ Я̄я̄
In December 2023,Apple has providedon-screen keyboards for all eight Sámi languages still spoken (withiOS andiPadOS releases 17.2), thus enabling Sámi speakers to use their language oniPhones andiPads without restrictions or difficulties.[30]
A quadrilingual street sign inInari in (from top to bottom) Finnish, Northern Saami, Inari Saami, and Skolt Saami, sayingSámi Regional Education Center [fi]. Inari is the only municipality in Finland with 4 official languages.
InFinland, the Sami language act of 1991 granted the Northern, Inari, and Skolt Sami the right to use their languages for all government services. TheSami Language Act of 2003 (Northern Sami:Sámi giellaláhka;Inari Sami:Säämi kielâlaahâ;Skolt Sami:Sääʹmǩiõll-lääʹǩǩ;Finnish:Saamen kielilaki;Swedish:Samisk språklag) made Sami an official language inEnontekiö,Inari,Sodankylä andUtsjokimunicipalities. Some documents, such as specific legislation, are translated into these Sami languages, but knowledge of any of these Sami languages among officials is not common. As the major language in the region is Finnish, Sami speakers are essentially always bilingual with Finnish.Language nest daycares have been set up for teaching the languages to children. In education, Northern Sami, and to a more limited degree, Inari and Skolt Sami, can be studied at primary and secondary levels, both as a mothertongue (for native speakers) and as a foreign language (for non-native speakers).
The words below illustrate similarities and differences between the different Sámi languages. The cultural influence of the majority language spoken around the Sámi is also reflected in the words used for the different country names.
The word for language is almost identical across languages despite differences in spelling, /kielːa/, although in Skolt Sámi more changes have taken place /ˈciɤlː/. The words for "Finland" bear a resemblance not only to the word for Sápmi, but also to the Finnish word for their country,Suomi. On the other hand, the word for "Norwegian" /daru/ is etymologically related to the word meaning "foreigner"’. Interestingly, in both Ume and Lule Sámi, the same word is used for both Norwegian and Swedish,dáruongiälla anddárogiella, respectively.
^T. Salminen: Problems in the taxonomy of the Uralic languages in the light of modern comparative studies. — Лингвистический беспредел: сборник статей к 70-летию А. И. Кузнецовой. Москва: Издательство Московского университета, 2002. 44–55. AND[1]
^Korhonen, Mikko 1981: Johdatus lapin kielen historiaan. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seuran toimituksia ; 370. Helsinki, 1981
^: Problems in the taxonomy of the Uralic languages in the light of modern comparative studies. — Лингвистический беспредел: сборник статей к 70-летию А. И. Кузнецовой. Москва: Издательство Московского университета, 2002. 44–55.
^abAikio, Ante (2004). "An essay on substrate studies and the origin of Saami". In Hyvärinen, Irma; Kallio, Petri; Korhonen, Jarmo (eds.).Etymologie, Entlehnungen und Entwicklungen: Festschrift für Jorma Koivulehto zum 70. Geburtstag. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki. Vol. 63. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. pp. 5–34.
^Knut Bergsland: Bidrag til sydsamenes historie, Senter for Samiske Studier Universitet i Tromsø 1996
^Aikio, A. (2006).On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 91: 9–55.
^According to researcher Joshua Wilbur and Pite Sami dictionary committee leader Nils Henrik Bengtsson, March 2010.
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.
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