Talk:Sami people

The Bubonic plague - Removed an inaccurate map of the Black Death...

I removed the following map:

Spread of the Black Death from 1346 to 1351

It is inaccurate. The plague did not start in southern Russia, but in China years before 1347. See: Black Death page.

Claims of mass sterilizations

I'm deleting this sentence:

"This and similar actions in Scandinavian countries, e.g., the sterilization of Sami women by Swedish authorities, are debated to be an act of ethnic cleansing, and perhaps a genocide."

This is an un-sourced accusation and the sterilizations that took place were far to few in number to be called 'genocidal' even if such a term was appropriate for describing mass sterilization. (http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tv%C3%A5ngssterilisering_i_Sverige) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.155.116 (talk) 05:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

This is an outrage!

Why are the Sami people considered indigenous and the Norwegian/Swedish/Finnish not, When studies show Sami have only been in Scandinavia 2500 years?

This is an outrage!

Why are the Sami people considered indigenous and the Norwegian/Swedish/Finnish not, When studies show Sami have only been in Scandinavia 2500 years?86.183.205.209 (talk) 23:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Numbers don't add up

The numbers in the "regions with significant populations" box don't add up. The Sami population of all Sápmi is given as 133,400, whereas if you add up the Sami populations listed for all the countries that contain some part of Sápmi, the total only comes to 63,831.

That aside, the source provided for Sami population in Norway does not actually say anything about Sami population numbers at all. What it does give is population numbers for "The application area of the Sami Parliament subsidy schemes for business development". This includes the entire population of that area, most of whom would self-identify as Norwegians. On the other hand, it excludes Sami living outside that area. The actual Sami population of Norway could in fact be much larger or much smaller, depending on the definition of "Sami" being used (blood/genetics, language or self-identification). No reliable numbers are available for "Sami by blood" (and high levels of admixture, involving Norwegians and Sami as well as a large number of Finns, would likely complicate any attempt to compile such numbers), but (in 2009) 13 890 people had registered to vote in Sami Parliament elections. The requirements to register to vote are that the person must be at least 18 years old, must have at least one parent, grandparent or great-grandparent who spoke Sami at home and must self-identify as Sami. In short, one could theoretically register to vote despite having very little Sami blood, but the electoral roll does give some indication of how many adults in Norway self-identify as Sami. On the other hand, since registration is voluntary, it's quite possible that many who self-identify as Sami choose not to register simply due to lack of interest in Sami politics. Maitreya (talk) 09:23, 1 February 2013 (UTC)