Sámi languages
Sámi | |
---|---|
Sami, Saami, Samic | |
Native to | Sámi |
Native speakers | (30,000 cited 1992–2013)[1] |
Early form | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Norway;[2][3] recognized as a minority language in several municipalities of Finland and Sweden. |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | smi |
ISO 639-3 | Variously:sma – Southernsju – Umesje – Pitesmj – Lulesme – Northernsjk – Kemismn – Inarisms – Skoltsia – Akkalasjd – Kildinsjt – Ter |
Glottolog | saam1281 |
Recent distribution of the Sami languages: 1. Southern Sami, 2. Ume Sami, 3. Pite Sami, 4. Lule Sami, 5. Northern Sami, 6. Inari Sami, 7. Skolt Sami, 8. Kildin Sami, 9. Ter Sami. Striped areas are multilingual or overlapping. |
Sámi languages (
Classification
The Sámi languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. According to the traditional view, Sámi is within the Uralic family most closely related to the 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 had been earlier assumed,[6] and that the similarities may stem from an areal influence on Samic from Finnic.
In terms of internal relationships, the Sami languages are 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.) Parts of the Sami language area form a
- Sámi
- Eastern Sámi
- Mainland Eastern Sámi
- Akkala Sámi †
- Inari Sámi (300 speakers)[7]
- Kemi Sámi †
- Kainuu Sámi †
- Skolt Sámi (320 speakers)[8]
- Peninsular Eastern Sámi
- Kildin Sámi (600 speakers)[9]
- Ter Sámi (2 speakers)[10]
- Mainland Eastern Sámi
- Western Sámi
- Central Western Sámi
- Southwestern Sámi
- Southern Sámi (600 speakers)[14]
- Ume Sámi (20 speakers)[15]
- Eastern Sámi
The above figures are approximate.
Geographic distribution
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 borders between the languages do not align with the ones separating the region's modern states.
During the Middle Ages and early modern period, 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 extinct later, under the wave of the Finno-Karelian agricultural expansion.
History
The
Written languages and sociolinguistic situation
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. The ISO 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
- Lule Sami (Norway, Sweden): The second largest group with an estimated 1,500 speakers.[citation needed] ISO 639-2: smj
- Ume Sami (Norway, Sweden): likely has under 20 speakers left. ISO 639-2: smu
- : sje
- Southern Sami (Norway, Sweden): 500 speakers (estimated).[citation needed] ISO 639-2: sma
- SIL code: LPI, ISO 639-2: smn
- SIL code: LPK, ISO 639-2: sms
- SIL code: LPD, ISO 639-3: sjd
The other Sami languages are critically endangered (
Orthographies
Most Sámi languages use Latin alphabets, with these respective additional letters.
Northern Sámi: Áá Čč Đđ Ŋŋ Šš Ŧŧ Žž Inari Sámi: Áá Ââ Ää Čč Đđ Ŋŋ Šš Žž Skolt Sámi: Ââ Čč Ʒʒ Ǯǯ Đđ Ǧǧ Ǥǥ Ǩǩ Ŋŋ Õõ Šš Žž Åå Ää Lule Sámi (Sweden): Áá Åå Ŋŋ Ää Lule Sámi (Norway): Áá Åå Ŋŋ Ææ Southern Sámi (Sweden): Ïï Ää Öö Åå Southern Sámi (Norway): Ïï Ææ Øø Åå Ume Sámi: Áá Đđ Ïï Ŋŋ Ŧŧ Üü Åå Ää Öö Pite Sámi: Áá Đđ Ŋŋ Ŧŧ Åå Ää
The use of Ææ and Øø in Norway vs. Ää and Öö in Sweden merely reflects the orthographic standards used in the
The letter Đ in Sámi languages is a capital
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.[26] Unicode assigns code point U+014A to the uppercase eng, but does not prescribe the form of the glyph.[27]
The Skolt Sámi standard uses ʹ (U+02B9) as a soft sign,[28] but other apostrophes, such as ' (U+0027), ˊ (U+02CA) or ´ (U+00B4), are also sometimes used in published texts.
The
Availability
In December 2023,
-
Pite Sámi (apparently faulty in iOS/iPadOS 17.2, missing đ/ŧ)
The Finnish
-
Original SFS-5966 layout; dead diacritic keys in red
Official status
Norway
Adopted in April 1988, Article 110a of the
Sweden
On 1 April 2000, Sami became one of five recognized
Finland
In
Russia
In Russia, Sámi has no official status, neither on the national, regional or local level. It is included in the list of indigenous minority languages. (Kildin) Sami has been taught at the Murmansk State Technical University since 2012; before then, it was taught at the Institute of the Peoples of the North in Saint Petersburg.[citation needed]
See also
- Sami parliamentsof Finland, Norway, and Sweden
- Norwegianization
- Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate
References
- ^ Southern at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Ume at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Pite at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Lule at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Northern at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Kemi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
(Additional references under 'Language codes' in the information box) - ^ Vikør, Lars S.; Jahr, Ernst Håkon; Berg-Nordlie, Mikkel. "språk i Norge" [languages of Norway]. Great Norwegian Encyclopedia (in Norwegian Bokmål). Retrieved 30 August 2020.
- ^ Kultur- og kirkedepartementet (27 June 2008). "St.meld. nr. 35 (2007-2008)". Regjeringa.no (in Norwegian Nynorsk).
- ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
- ISBN 978-0-415-43914-5.
- ^ 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]
- ^ Saami, Inari at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, Skolt at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, Kildin at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, Ter at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, Lule at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, Pite at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, North at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, South at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Saami, Ume at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "Mapping SÁMI Languages". Cartography M.Sc. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Aikio, 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.
- Russian Census (2002). Data from http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_02.php?reg=0
- ^ Tiuraniemi Olli: "Anatoli Zaharov on maapallon ainoa turjansaamea puhuva mies", Kide 6 / 2004.
- ^ "Nordisk samekonvensjon: Utkast fra finsk-norsk-svensk-samisk ekspertgruppe, Oppnevnt 13. november 2002, Avgitt 26. oktober 2005" (PDF). 20 July 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 July 2011.
- ^ "Character design standards - Uppercase for Latin 1: Uppercae Eng". Microsoft Typography documentation. 2022-06-09. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ^ Cunningham, Andrew (2004-02-04). Global & local dimensions of emerging community languages support (PDF). VALA2004 12th Biennial Conference and Exhibition. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. p. 15. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ^ "Documentation for Skolt Sami keyboards". UiT Norgga árktalaš universitehta: Sámi Text-to-Speech project. Archived from the original on 2018-08-16.
- ^ "About iOS 17 Updates". Apple Inc. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
- ^ "New Finnish Keyboard Layout" (PDF). 2005-11-30. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04.
- ^ "Suomalainen monikielinen näppäimistökaavio, viimeiseksi tarkoitettu luonnos" (PDF) (in Finnish). 2006-06-20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-20.
- ^ Tromsø positiv til samisk språk, NRK
- ^ Minoritetsspråk, Language Council of Norway
- ^ Hult, F.M. (2004). Planning for multilingualism and minority language rights in Sweden. Language Policy, 3(2), 181–201.
- ^ Hult, F.M. (2010). Swedish Television as a mechanism for language planning and policy. Language Problems and Language Planning, 34(2), 158–181.
Sources
- 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 Forschungen58: 162–234. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.
- ISBN 82-7374-398-5.
- Wilbur, Joshua. 2014. A grammar of Pite Saami. Berlin: Language Science Press. (Open access)
External links
- Ođđasat TV Channel in Sami languages
- On line radio stream in various sami languages
- 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
- [2], The Internationalein Northern Sami
- [3] An extensive intro to Saami languages and grammar from How To Learn Any Language
- Sámi Dieđalaš Áigečála, the only peer-reviewed journal in Saami languages