While I am still making language lessons, I have discovered that I would like to do more to promote minority languages. These posts will not only offer basic background information about the languages, but will also confront the misunderstandings and prejudices that follow them. Today’s post will acquaint you with a minority language found in the northernmost parts of Scandinavia – Northern Sami.
Northern Sami is spoken in parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland.
- Northern Sami is an officially recognized minority language in two counties in Norway (Finnmark and Troms)
‘Sami’ is actually a name of a group of languages which are part of the larger Uralic language family
- More commonly known Uralic languages are Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian
- Of all the Sami languages, Northern Sami has the most speakers (the exact number is unknown though according to various sources, it is between 15,000 to 25,000)
- Sometimes spelled as ‘Saami’
Northern Sami uses a version of Latin script
- Letters such as Áá Čč Đđ Ŋŋ Šš Ŧŧ Žž have been put into use in order to represent sounds specific to Northern Sami
Northern Sami can be divided into three main dialect groups (or four depending on how you look at it)
- Torne
- Inland – East, West
- Coastal (one source refers to it as Sea Sami)
Northern Sami used to be referred to as Lapp or Lappish
- These are now considered derogatory terms
And now for some useful tidbits regarding the language, courtesy of my friend Marit, a native speaker of the language (her video is included in the next section)
1. Depending on which town you are in, the word ‘talk’ is translated differently.
- In Kautekeino, it is ‘hupmat’
- In Karasjok, it is ‘hallat’
- In Karesuando, it is ‘sardnot’
2. You can listen to Sami language on radio channels
- NRK Sapmi broadcasts in Sami
- GLR is a multilingual station that also broadcasts in Sami language
3. You can watch Sami shows on TV
- Ardna
- Studio Sapmi
- Sami Manaid TV (for children)
- Sami Music Awards
4. She also suggested a couple of great sites with Sami language resources
If you’re interested in the language
Want to learn more about Northern Sami?
- Visit the links mentioned above
- Basic language profile: http://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/sme/
- Wikipedia page with more in depth information on the language: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Sami
- Wikipedia in Northern Sami: https://se.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portála:Ovdasiidu
Want to hear Northern Sami?
- Bible based videos and articles that you can listen to as you read the text: https://www.jw.org/da/publikationer/?contentLanguageFilter=se
- My friend, a native speaker, made an awesome video for this course (also mentioned below)
- Also check out this awesome sample of Sami music:
Want to learn Northern Sami?
Begin by learning some basics with this awesome video made by my friend, a native speaker of Northern Sami:
And then check these out:
- General resources: http://oahpa.no/index.eng.html, http://giellatekno.uit.no/index.eng.html
- Some phrases: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/northernsami.htm
- Sami lessons for all ages: http://www.e-skuvla.no/en/
- YouTube lesson about numbers 0-9: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xGoE2_TX-jQ
Further resources for learning this language will be added to this page I created specifically for learning the language.
Polyglot in Progress 