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. The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people The Sami people are the Indigenous people of northern Europe inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of northern Sweden, Norway Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Northern Europe is a term for the northern part of Europe. The United Nations defines Northern Europe as (Finland Sami is frequently (and erroneously) believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami languages: Saami, Sámi, Samic, Saamic, Lappish and Lappic. The last two are, along with the term Lapp, considered derogatory by some. Words and phrases are pejorative if they imply disapproval or contempt

Classification

The Sami languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people According to the traditional view, Sami is within the Uralic family most closely related to the Baltic-Finnic languages (Sammallahti 1998). The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group 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 [1]^[1], 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: the western and the eastern ones. 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 others' speech. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing There are, however, sharp and absolute 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
• Ume Sami
• Pite Sami
• Lule Sami
• Northern Sami

Eastern Sami languages

• Inari Sami
• Kemi Sami (extinct)
• Skolt Sami
• Akkala Sami (extinct)
• Kildin Sami
• Ter Sami

Geographic distribution

Historically verified distribution of the Sami languages: 1. Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languages. Ume Sami is a Sami language spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a dying language with only about 10 native speakers left and is spoken mainly along Pite Sami, also known as Arjeplog Sami is a Sami language spoken in Sweden and Norway. Lule Sami (julevsámegiella is a Finno-Ugric, Sami Language spoken in Lule Lappmark i Northern or North Sami ( Davvisápmi, formerly Davvisámi or Davvisaami; improperly Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely Inari Sámi ( anarâškielâ) is a Finno-Ugric, Sami Language spoken in Finland by some 300-400 people the majority of which Kemi Sami is a Sami language that was originally spoken in the southernmost district of Finnish Lapland as far south as the Sami siidas around Kuusamo Akkala Sami is a Sami language that was spoken in the Sami villages of A´kkel and Ču´kksuâl in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia Kildin Sami (also spelled Sámi or Saami; formerly Lappish) is a Sami language spoken by approximately 500 people on the Kola Peninsula Ter Sami is the easternmost of the Sami languages. It was traditionally spoken in the northeastern part of the Kola Peninsula, but now it is a dying language 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. Etymology Sápmi (and corresponding terms in other Sámi languages refers to both the Sámi land and the Sámi people Northern Europe is a term for the northern part of Europe. The United Nations defines Northern Europe as (Finland Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Terminology and usage As a cultural term "Scandinavia" has no official definition and is subject to usage by those who identify with the culture in question as well The Kola Peninsula (from Sami language Guoládat) (Кольский полуостров Kol'skij poluostrov) is a Peninsula in the far

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. The early modern period is a term used by historians to refer to the period in Western '''Europe''' and its first colonies which spans the three centuries between Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Karelia ( Karelian and Finnish Karjala, Карелия ( Kareliya) Karelen the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Historical documents as well as Finnish and Karelian oral tradition contain many mentions of the earlier Sami inhabitation in these areas (Itkonen 1947). Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily Mutually intelligible. Oral tradition, oral culture and oral lore is a way for a society to transmit history, literature, law and other Knowledges 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). A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation These Sami languages, however, became later extinct under the wave of the Finno-Karelian agricultural expansion.

History

In recent linguistics research it has been revealed that there is a large substratum lexicon in the Sami languages in certain semantic fields related to topographical nouns, the biological world and cultural items and concepts, possibly attributable to the lost languages of the first hunter-gatherer ancestors of the Sami in northern Fennoscandia It has been suggested that the language shift from Paleo-European to Proto-Sami happened no earlier than the iron age and was completed no later than 500 AC. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields In Contact linguistics, a substratum ( lat sub: under + stratum: layer → lower layer) is a Language In Linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν of a language is its Vocabulary, including its words and expressions Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from Topography ( topo-, "place" and graphia, "writing" is the study of Earth 's Surface features or those of Planets Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia are geographic and geological terms used to describe the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, Karelia This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age for the mythological Iron Age see Ages of Man. It is not known if the earlier language was related to the Uralic languages, and so far no support has been found for this. The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people Therefore, there is reason to believe that there has been a considerable cultural continuity throughout the language shift (Aikio 2004^[2], Aikio 2006^[3]).

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". ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages 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. Northern or North Sami ( Davvisápmi, formerly Davvisámi or Davvisaami; improperly Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2: se/sme
• Lule Sami (Norway, Sweden): The second largest group with an estimated 1,500 speakers. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages Lule Sami (julevsámegiella is a Finno-Ugric, Sami Language spoken in Lule Lappmark i ISO 639-2: smj
• Southern Sami (Norway, Sweden): 500 speakers (estimated). ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languages. ISO 639-2: sma
• Inari Sami (Enare Sami) (Inari, Finland): 500 speakers (estimated). ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages Inari Sámi ( anarâškielâ) is a Finno-Ugric, Sami Language spoken in Finland by some 300-400 people the majority of which Inari (Aanaar Anár Aanar and Enare is a municipality in Finland. 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). Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages Inari (Aanaar Anár Aanar and Enare is a municipality in Finland. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending SIL code: LPK, ISO 639-2: sms
• Kildin Sami (Kola Peninsula, Russia): 650 speakers (estimated). Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages Kildin Sami (also spelled Sámi or Saami; formerly Lappish) is a Sami language spoken by approximately 500 people on the Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (from Sami language Guoládat) (Кольский полуостров Kol'skij poluostrov) is a Peninsula in the far SIL code: LPD

The other Sami languages are moribund and have very few speakers left. Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian In Linguistics, language death (also language extinction, linguistic extinction, and sometimes pejoratively as linguicide) is a process Ten speakers of Ter Sami were known to be alive in 2004,^[4] and Pite Sami and Ume Sami likely have under 20 speakers left. Ter Sami is the easternmost of the Sami languages. It was traditionally spoken in the northeastern part of the Kola Peninsula, but now it is a dying language Pite Sami, also known as Arjeplog Sami is a Sami language spoken in Sweden and Norway. Ume Sami is a Sami language spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a dying language with only about 10 native speakers left and is spoken mainly along The last speaker of Akkala Sami is known to have died in December 2003,^[5] and the eleventh attested variety Kemi Sami became extinct in the 19th century. Akkala Sami is a Sami language that was spoken in the Sami villages of A´kkel and Ču´kksuâl in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia Kemi Sami is a Sami language that was originally spoken in the southernmost district of Finnish Lapland as far south as the Sami siidas around Kuusamo

Orthographies

Main article: Sami orthography

The Sámi languages use an extended version of the Latin alphabet. Sami orthography refers to the various orthographies used by the six Sámi languages that have their own Literary language: Southern Sami,

Northern Sámi:	Áá Čč Đđ Ŋŋ Šš Ŧŧ Žž
Inari Sámi:	Áá Ââ Ää Čč Đđ Šš Žž
Skolt Sámi:	Áá Ââ Čč Ʒʒ Ǯǯ Đđ Ǧǧ Ǥǥ Ǩǩ Ŋŋ Õõ Šš Žž Åå Ää (+soft sign ´)
Lule Sámi in Sweden:	Áá Åå Ńń Ää
Lule Sámi in Norway:	Áá Åå Ńń Ææ
Southern Sámi in Sweden:	Ïï Ää Öö Åå
Southern Sámi 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. The soft sign (Ь ь is a symbol in the Cyrillic alphabet. In the Old Slavic language, it represented a short -like vowel but in modern Slavic Cyrillic writing In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Faroese ( føroyskt ˈføːɹɪst or) often also spelled Faeroese (cf

Note also that the extra characters used by the Southern Sámi in Norway have the same sound as Southern Sámi in Sweden.

Kildin Sámi 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. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by It also uses macrons, which are difficult to show on the Internet due to technical restrictions. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally

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

Official status

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 Constitution of Norway was first adopted on May 16, 1814 by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll (a small town north of the " The Sami Language Act went into effect in the 1990s. Sami is an official language of the municipalities of Kautokeino, Karasjok, Kåfjord, Nesseby, Porsanger, Tana, Tysfjord, and Snåsa. Guovdageaidnu ( Sami language) or Kautokeino ( Norwegian) ( Koutokeino in Finnish language) is a municipality in the Porsanger ( Norwegian) or Porsáŋgu ( Northern Sami) or Porsanki ( Kven / Finnish) is a municipality in the Tysfjord ( Norwegian) or Divtasvuodna ( Lule Sami) is a municipality in the county of Nordland, Norway Snåsa ( Southern Sami: Snåase is a municipality in the county of Nord-Trøndelag, Norway.

A bilingual street sign in Enontekiö in both Finnish 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. Enontekiö ( Northern Sami: Eanodat, Swedish: Enontekis) is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. The Sami language act of 2003 made Sami an official language in Enontekiö, Inari, Sodankylä and Utsjoki municipalities. Enontekiö ( Northern Sami: Eanodat, Swedish: Enontekis) is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with Inari (Aanaar Anár Aanar and Enare is a municipality in Finland. Sodankylä (Suáđigil Soađegilli Suäˊđjel is a town and municipality of Finland. Utsjoki (Ohcejohka Uccjuuhâ Uccjokk is a municipality in Finland. ||-||}The municipalities ( kunta in Finnish, kommun in Swedish) represent the local level of administration in Finland and

On April 1, 2002 Sami became one of five recognized minority languages in Sweden. Events 527 - Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne In 1999 the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five minority languages of Sweden: Finnish, Sami language, Romani It can be used in dealing with public authorities in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk and Kiruna. The Municipalities of Sweden ( kommun) are the Local government entities of Sweden. Arjeplog Municipality ( Arjeplogs kommun) is a municipality in Norrbotten County, northern Sweden, where Arjeplog is the seat Gellivara redirects here For the asteroid see 1073 Gellivara Gällivare Municipality ( Gällivare kommun) is a municipality in Jokkmokk Municipality ( Jokkmokks kommun) is a municipality in Norrbotten County, northern Sweden, of which the town of Jokkmokk is Kiruna Municipality ( Kiruna kommun) is a Swedish municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden.

See also: Sami parliaments of Finland, Norway, and Sweden

External links

• Kimberli Mäkäräinen "Sámi-related odds and ends," including 5000+ word vocabulary list
• Risten Sámi dictionary and terminology database. The Sami Parliaments ( Sámediggi in Northern Sami, Sämitigge in Inari Sami, Sää´mte´ǧǧ in Skolt
• 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)

References

• 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. Finno-Ugrian Society ( Société Finno-Ougrienne, Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura is a Finnish Learned society, dedicated to the study of Finno-Ugric languages Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.
• Sammallahti, Pekka (1998). Pekka Lars Kalervo Sammallahti ( May 21, 1947 in Helsinki is a professor of Sámi languages at the Giellagas Institute at the University of Oulu The Saami Languages: an introduction. Kárášjohka: Davvi Girji OS. ISBN 82-7374-398-5.