Top picture: Sami clothing in the Arktikum museum, in Rovaniemi, Finland. Credit: Zouavman Le Zouave
Skolt Sami is an endangered language spoken in Finland and Russia. In the past it was also spoken in Norway.
- In Finland, it is mainly spoken in Sevettijärvi.
- There are about 20-30 speakers of a Skolt Sami dialect in Russia.
- It is one of four official languages spoken in Inari municipality in Finland.
Skolt Sami is written with a modified form of Latin script.
- The orthography was made official in 1973.
- The Skolt Sami alphabet:
Skolt Sami is used in songs sung by Tiina Sanila.
- She has recorded two albums in Skolt Sami.
- Check the Skolt Sami resource page mentioned below for a sample of her songs.
- More of her songs can be found on YouTube.
Skolt Sami has nine grammatical cases:
- nominative
- genitive
- accusative
- locative
- illative
- comitative
- abessive
- essive
- partitive
Like other Sami languages, Skolt Sami has three grammatical numbers:
- singular
- dual
- plural
However,unlike the other Sami languages, the dual is only used for forming pronouns.
The language is taught in schools in Finland.
- However, few children are learning the language.
Here is a sample of spoken Skolt Sami:
You can find resources for Skolt Sami here.
References
Polyglot in Progress 