Northern Sami

Infobox Language
name=Northern Sami
nativename=davvisámegiella / sámegiella
region=Norway, Sweden, Finland
speakers=15,000-25,000 (estimated)
iso1=se
iso2=sme
iso3=sme
familycolor=Uralic
fam1=Uralic
fam2=Finno-Ugric
fam3=Finno-Permic
fam4=Finno-Volgaic
fam5=Finno-Lappic
fam6=Sami
fam7=Western
script=Latin alphabet

Northern or North Sami (Davvisápmi, formerly Davvisámi or Davvisaami; improperly 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 as well as northwestern parts of Russia. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2000 of these live in Finland [cite web|url=http://www.samediggi.fi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74&Itemid=167 |title=Samediggi - Saamelaiskäräjät - Sámi language |accessdate=2008-09-21 ] and between 5000 and 6000 in Sweden. [cite web|url=http://www.eng.samer.se/servlet/GetDoc?meta_id=1186 |title=The Sami dialects |accessdate=2008-09-21 ]

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 Gáivuotna (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

tress

Zero stress can be said to be a feature of conjunctions, postpositions, particles and monosyllabic pronouns.

yntax

Northern Sami is an SVO language.

Orthography

Northern Sami has a long orthographic history, which has witnessed no less than 9 different extended versions of the Latin alphabet. The most recent version was approved in 1979 and last modified in 1985:

Verbs

Person

Northern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

*first person
*second person
*third person

Mood

Northern Sami has 4 grammatical moods:

*indicative
*imperative
*conditional
*potential

Grammatical number

Northern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

*singular
*dual
*plural

Tense

Northern Sami has 2 simple tenses:

*past
*non-past

and 2 compound tenses:

*perfect
*pluperfect

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

External links

* [http://www.uta.fi/~km56049/same/svocab.html Kimberli Mäkäräinen] A Northern Sámi-English vocabulary (5211 words in Sámi as of 13 March 2007)
* [http://www.idolphin.fi/sanastotietopankki/ Northern Sámi - Inari Sámi - Skolt Sámi - English dictionary] (requires a password nowadays)
* [http://www.kirjasto.oulu.fi/saamilottit/ Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.]
* [http://giellatekno.uit.no/english.html Sámi language technology project]
* [http://risten.no Sámi dictionary and terminology database]
* [http://divvun.no Sámi proofing tools project]
* [http://www.lohkan.no/ Sátnemeahccái project for children]
* [http://ling.osu.edu/~odden/Saami.pdf Gradation described]
* [http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~odden/saamidict/Saami%20Online%20Words.htm Wordlist with sound files]
* [http://www4.ur.se/gulahalan/ Gulahalan, a course on North Sámi in Swedish] (has sound files)
* [http://www.helsinki.fi/~sugl_smi/aani/Kielinaytteet/Pohjoissaame.MP3 Irja Seurujärvi-Kari talks in Northern Sámi]