Northern Sámi
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (June 2007) |
| Northern Sami | |
|---|---|
| davvisámegiella / sámegiella | |
| Region | Norway, Sweden, Finland |
Native speakers | 15,000-25,000 (estimated) |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | se |
| ISO 639-2 | sme |
| ISO 639-3 | sme |
| ELP | North Saami |
 | |
Northern or North Sami (also written Sámi or Saami; formerly Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000.
History
Northern Sámi was first described by Knud Leem (En lappisk Grammatica efter den Dialect, som bruges af Field-Lapperne udi Porsanger-Fiorden) in 1748 and in dictionaries in 1752 and 1768. One of Leem's fellow grammaticians was Anders Porsanger, who studied at the Trondheim Cathedral School and other schools, but who was unable to publish his work on Sámi due to racist attitudes at the time. Unfortunately, the majority of his work has disappeared.
The roots of the current orthography for Northern Sámi were laid by Rasmus Rask who, after discussions with Nils Vibe Stockfleth, published Ræsonneret lappisk sproglære efter den sprogart, som bruges af fjældlapperne i Porsangerfjorden i Finmarken. En omarbejdelse af Prof. Knud Leems Lappiske grammatica in 1832. Rask felt that the orthography should be based on the principle of one sound — one letter. All of the orthographies that have been used for Northern Sámi trace their roots back to Rask's system, unlike the orthographies used for Lule and Southern Sámi, which are mainly based on the orthographical conventions of Swedish and Norwegian. Following in the tradition of Rask meant that diacritics were used with some consonants (č, đ, ŋ, š, ŧ and ž), which caused data-processing problems before Unicode was introduced. Both Stockfleth and J.A. Friis went on to publish grammar books and dictionaries for Sámi. It can be said that Northern Sámi was better described than Norwegian was before Ivar Aasen published his grammar on Norwegian.
Northern Sámi was and is still used in three separate countries, each of which used its own orthography for a number of years. Friis' orthography was used when work on translating the Bible into Northern Sámi commenced, in the first Sámi newspaper called Saǥai Muittalægje, and in the Finnemisjonen's own newspaper Nuorttanaste. The groundwork for Northern Sámi lexicography was laid by Konrad Nielsen who used an orthography of his own creation in his dictionary Lappisk ordbok. Starting in 1948, the orthographies used in Norway and Sweden were combined into a single orthography entitled the Bergsland-Ruong orthography. This orthography, however, was not greatly used in Norway. In addition, the authorities there instituted a policy that prohibited Sámi from being used in practice. In 1979, an official orthography for Northern Sámi was adopted for use in Norway, Sweden and Finland.
In Norway, Northern Sámi is currently the official language of two counties (Finnmark and Troms) and six municipalities (Kautokeino, Karasjok, Nesseby, Tana, Porsanger and Kåfjord). Sámi born before 1977 have never learned to write Sámi according to the currently used orthography in school, so it is only in recent years that there have been Sámi capable of writing their own language for various administrative positions.
Phonology
Vowels
Consonants
Stress
Zero stress can be said to be a feature of conjunctions, postpositions, particles and monosyllabic pronouns.
Syntax
Northern Sami is an SVO language.
Orthography
The Northern Sami language has had more than one orthography, but in 1979 a common orthography was created. It was last modified in 1985.
Northern Sami is written in an extended version of the Latin alphabet.
| A a | Á á | B b | C c | Č č | D d | Đ đ | E e | F f | G g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | á | be | ce | če | de | đe | e | eff | ge |
| /ɑ/ | /a/ | /b/ | /ts/ | /tʃ/ | /d/ | /ð/ | /e/ | /f/ | /ɡ/ |
| H h | I i | J j | K k | L l | M m | N n | Ŋ ŋ | O o | P p |
| ho | i | je | ko | ell | emm | enn | eŋŋ | o | pe |
| /h/ | /i/ | /j/ | /k/ | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /ŋ/ | /o/ | /p/ |
| R r | S s | Š š | T t | Ŧ ŧ | U u | V v | Z z | Ž ž | |
| err | ess | eš | te | ŧe | u | ve | ez | ež | |
| /r/ | /s/ | /ʃ/ | /t/ | /θ/ | /u/ | /v/ | /dz/ | /dʒ/ |
In some older publications, Ć/ć, Ś/ś, and Ź/ź may be found as variants for Č/č, Š/š, and Ž/ž, respectively.
Until the official orthography currently in use was adopted in 1979, each country had had its own, slightly different standard, so it is quite possible to come across older books that are difficult to understand for people unacquainted with the orthography:
1. Maanat leät poahtan skuvllai.
2. Mánát leat boahtán skuvllai.
(The children have come to school.)
The first sentence is from Antti Outakoski's Samekiela kielloahpa from 1950; the second is how it would be written according to the current orthography.
Dialects
Northern Sámi can be divided into three major dialect groups: Torne, Finnmark and Sea Sami.
Grammar
Northern Sami is an agglutinative, highly inflected language that shares many grammatic features with the other Uralic languages. Sami has also developed considerably into the direction of fusional and inflected morphology, much like Estonian to which it is distantly related. Therefore, morphemes are marked not only by suffixes but also by morphophonological modifications to the root. Of the various morphophonological alterations, the most important and complex is the system of consonant gradation.
Cases
Northern Sami has 7 cases in the singular, although the genitive and accusative are the same, so some people might state that it only has 6 cases:
The form taken by the essive (marker: -n) is the same in the singular and in the plural, i.e., mánnán (as a child/as children).
Pronouns
The personal pronouns have three numbers - singular, plural and dual. The following table contains personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases.
| English | nominative | English | genitive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First person (singular) | I | mun | my | mu |
| Second person (singular) | you (thou) | don | your, yours | du |
| Third person (singular) | he, she | son | his, her | su |
| First person (dual) | we (two) | moai | our | munno |
| Second person (dual) | you (two) | doai | your | dudno |
| Third person (dual) | they (two) | soai | theirs | sudno |
| First person (plural) | we | mii | our | min |
| Second person (plural) | you | dii | your | din |
| Third person (plural) | they | sii | their | sin |
The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun he/she (no gender distinction) in various cases:
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | son | soai | sii |
| Genitive-Accusative | su | sudno | sin |
| Locative | sus | sudnos | sis |
| Illative | sutnje | sudnuide | sidjiide |
| Comitative | suinna | sudnuin | singuin |
| Essive | sunin | sudnon | sinin |
Verbs
Person
Northern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:
- first person
- second person
- third person
Mood
Northern Sami has 4 grammatical moods:
Grammatical number
Northern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:
Tense
Northern Sami has 2 simple tenses:
and 2 compound tenses:
Verbal nouns
Negative verb
Northern Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb that conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural).
Ind. pres. Imperative Optative Supinum? sg. du. pl. sg. du. pl. sg. du. pl. sg. du. pl. 1 in ean eat 1 - - - 1 allon allu allot 1 aman amame amamet 2 it eahppi ehpet 2 ale alli allet 2 ale alli allet 2 amat amade amadet 3 ii eaba eai 3 - - - 3 allos alloska alloset 3 amas amaska amaset
The negative verb in Northern Sami does not conjugate according to tense.
References
- Kimberli Mäkäräinen A Northern Sámi-English vocabulary (5211 words in Sámi as of 13 March 2007)
- Northern Sámi - Inari Sámi - Skolt Sámi - English dictionary (requires a password nowadays)
- Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
- Sámi language technology project
- Sámi dictionary and terminology database
- Sámi proofing tools project
- Sátnemeahccái project for children
- Gradation described
- Wordlist with sound files
- Gulahalan, a course on North Sámi in Swedish (has sound files)
- Irja Seurujärvi-Kari talks in Northern Sámi
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