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Skolt Sami
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Skolt Sami is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken by approximately 400 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi, and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõ´ttjäu´rr (Notozero) dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. Skolt Sami used to also be spoken on the Neiden area of Norway, although it has died out there. It is written using a Roman orthography that was made official in 1973.
HistorySkolt Sámi was spoken in four villages on Finnish territory prior to the Second World War. In Petsamo, Skolt Sámi was spoken in Suonikylä and the village of Petsamo. This area was ceded to Russia in the Second World War, and the Skolts were evacuated to the villages of Inari, Sevettijärvi and Nellim in the Inari municipality.
StatusSkolt Sami is spoken by approximately 400 individuals, nearly all of whom live in Finland; very few speakers remain today on the Russian side. On the Finnish side of the border, the language is recognized by the government as one of the official Sami languages used in Lapland and can thus be used by anyone conducting official business in that area. It is an official language in the municipality of Inari, and elementary schools there offer courses in the language, both for native speakers and for students learning it as a foreign language. Only a small number of youths do learn the language and continue to use it actively. Skolt Sami is thus a seriously endangered language, even more seriously than Inari Sami in the same municipality, which has a nearly equal number of speakers.
In 1993, language immersion programs for children younger than 7 were created. At present, however, no funding has been forthcoming for these programs in years and as a result they are on hold. These programs were extremely important in creating the youngest generation of Skolt Sami speakers.
Like Inari Sami, Skolt Sami has recently borne witness to a new phenomenon, namely it is being used in rock songs
sung by Tiina Sanila, who has published two full-length CDs in Skolt Sami to date.
In addition, 2005 saw the first time that it was possible to use Skolt Sámi in a Finnish matriculation examination, albeit as a foreign language.
Writing systemSkolt Sami uses the standard Latin alphabet with the addition of some special characters:
The letters Q/q, W/w, X/x, Y/y and Ö/ö are also used, although only in foreign words or loans.
A short period of voicelessness or h before geminate consonants is observed, but this is not marked, e.g., jo´kke ‘to the river’ is pronounced . The epenthetic vowels are not phonemic or syllabic, and are thus not marked, e.g., mie´ll ‘sandbank’ cf. mielle [mielle] ‘to the mind’.
PhonologySpecial features of this Sami language include a highly complex vowel system and a suprasegmental contrast of palatalized vs. non-palatalized stress groups; palatalized stress groups are indicated by a “softener mark”, represented by the free-standing acute accent (´).
ConsonantsThe inventory of consonant phonemes is the following; their orthographic representations are given in brackets:
1Unvoiced stops and affricates are pronounced preaspirated after vowels and sonorant consonants.
2Voiced stops and affricates are usually pronounced just weakly voiced.
3 has the allophone [h] in initial position.
Consonants may be phonemically short or long both word-medially or word-finally; both are exceedingly common. Long and short consonants also contrast in consonant clusters, cf. kuõskkâd 'to touch' : kuõskâm 'I touch'.
SuprasegmentalsThere is one phonemic suprasegmental, the palatalizing suprasegmental that affects the pronunciation of an entire syllable. In written language the palatalizing suprasegmental is indicated with a free-standing acute accent between a stressed vowel and the following consonant, as follows:
vää´rr 'mountain, hill' (suprasegmental palatalization present)
cf. väärr 'trip' (no suprasegmental palatalization)
The suprasegmental palatalization has three distinct phonetic effects:
- The stressed vowel is pronounced as slightly more fronted in palatalized syllables than in non-palatalized ones.
- When the palatalizing suprasegmental is present, the following consonant or consonant cluster is pronounced as weakly palatalized. It should be noted that suprasegmental palatalization is independent of segmental palatalization: inherently palatal consonants such as the palatal glide /j/ and the palatalized nasal /n/ (spelled <nj>) can occur both in non-palatalized and suprasegmentally palatalized syllables.
- If the word form is monosyllabic and ends in a consonant, a non-phonemic weakly voiced or unvoiced vowel is pronounced after the final consonant. This vowel is e-colored if suprasegmental palatalization is present, but a-colored if not.
StressSkolt Sámi has four different types of stress for words:
- Primary stress
- Secondary stress
- Tertiary stress
- Zero stress
The first syllable of any word is always the primary stressed syllable in Skolt Sami as Skolt is a fixed-stress language. In words with two or more syllables, the final syllable is quite lightly stressed (tertiary stress) and the remaining syllable, if any, are stressed more heavily than the final syllable, but less than the first syllable (secondary stress).
Using the abessive and the comitative singular in a word appears to disrupt this system, however, in words of more than one syllable. The suffix, as can be expected, has teratiary stress, but the penult syllable also has tertiary stress, even though it would be expected to have secondary stress.
Zero stress can be said to be a feature of conjunctions, postpositions, particles and monosyllabic pronouns.
GrammarSkolt Sami is a synthetic, highly inflected language that shares many grammatical features with the other Uralic languages. However, Skolt Sami is not a typical agglutinative language like many of the other Uralic languages are, as it has developed considerably into the direction of a fusional language, much like Estonian. Therefore, cases and other grammatical features are also marked by modifications to the root and not just marked with suffixes. Many of the suffixes in Skolt Sami are portmanteau morphemes that express several grammatical features at a time.
Cases Skolt Sámi has 9 cases in the singular, although the genitive and accusative are often the same:
NominativeLike the other Uralic languages, the nominative singular is unmarked and indicates the subject or a predicate.
The nominative plural is also unmarked and always looks the same as the genitive singular.
GenitiveThe genitive singular is unmarked and looks the same as the nominative plural. The genitive plural is marked by an -i. The genitive is used:
- to indicate possession (Tu´st lij mu .: You have my book.)
- to indicate number, if said the number is between 2 and 6. (Sie´zzest lij kuõ´htt põõrt. My father’s sister (my aunt) has two houses.)
- with prepositions (rääi + [GEN]: by, beyond something)
- with most postpositions. (Sij mõ´nne ääkkäd årra.: They went to your grandmother’s (house). They went to visit your grandmother.)
The genitive has been replacing the partitive for some time and is nowadays more commonly used in its place.
AccusativeThe accusative is the direct object case and it is unmarked in the singular. In the plural, its marker is -d, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural illative. The accusative is also
used to mark some adjuncts, e.g., obb tää´lv (the entire winter).
LocativeThe locative marker in the singular is -st and -n in the plural. This case is used to indicate:
- where something is (Kuä´dest lij : There is a book in the kota.)
- where it is coming from (Niõd puõ´tte domoi Ce´vetjääu´rest. The girls came home from Sevettijärvi.)
- who has possession of something (Su´st lij câustõk: He/she has a lasso.)
In addition, it is used with certain verbs:
- to ask someone s.t. : kõõccâd [+loc]
IllativeThe illative marker actually has three different markers in the singular to represent the same case: -a, -e and -u. The plural illative marker is -d, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural accusative. This case is used to indicate:
- where something is going
- who is receiving something
- the indirect object
ComitativeThe comitative marker in the singular is -in and -vui´m in the plural. The comitative is used to state with whom or what something was done:
- Njää´lm sekstet leei´nin. The mouth is wiped with a piece of cloth.
- Vuõ´lggem paa´rnivui´m ceerkvest. I left church with the children.
- Vuõ´lggem vue´bbinan ceerkvest. I left church with my sister.
To form the comitative singular, use the genitive singular form of the word as the root and -in. To form the comitative plural, use the plural genitive root and -vui´m.
AbessiveThe abessive marker is -tää in both the singular and the plural. It always has a tertiary stress.
- Vuõ´lggem paa´rnitää ceerkvest. I left church without the children.
- Sij mõ´nne niõdtää põ´rtte. They went in the house without the girl.
- Sij mõ´nne niõditää põ´rtte. They went in the house without the girls.
EssiveThe dual form of the essive is still used with pronouns, but not with nouns and does not appear at all in the plural.
PartitiveThe partitive is only used in the singular and can always be replaced by the genitive. The partitive marker is -d.
1. It appears after numbers larger than 6:
- kääu´c câustõkkâd: eight lassos
This can be replaced with .
2. It is also used with certain postpositions:
- kuä´tted vuâstta: against a kota
This can be replaced with kuä'd vuâstta.
3. It can be used with the comparative to express that which is being compared:
- Kå´lled pue´rab : better than gold
This would nowadays more than likely be replaced by pue´rab ko kå´ll
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 | mon | my | muu | | Second person (singular) | you (thou) | ton | your, yours | tuu | | Third person (singular) | he, she | son | his, her | suu | | First person (dual) | we (two) | muäna | our | muännai | | Second person (dual) | you (two) | tuäna | your | tuännai | | Third person (dual) | they (two) | suäna | theirs | suännai | | First person (plural) | we | mij | our | mij | | Second person (plural) | you | tij | your | tij | | Third person (plural) | they | sij | their | sij |
The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun he/she (no gender distinction) in various cases:
| | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|
| Nominative | son | suäna | sij | | Genitive | suu | suännai | sij | | Accusative | suu | suännaid | si´jjid | | Illative | su´nne | suännaid | si´jjid | | Locative | su´st | suännast | sii´st | | Comitative | suin | suännain | si´jjivui´m | | Abessive | suutää | suännaitää | si´jjitää | | Essive | suu´nen | suännan | -- | | Partitive | suu´ded | -- | -- |
VerbsPersonSkolt Sami verbs conjugate for four grammatical persons:
- first person
- second person
- third person
- fourth person, also called the indefinite person
MoodSkolt Sami has 5 grammatical moods:
Grammatical numberSkolt Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:
TenseSkolt Sami has 2 simple tenses:
- past (Puõ´ttem škoou´le jåhtta.: I came to school yesterday.)
- non-past (Evvan puätt mu årra tä´bbe. John is coming to my house today.)
and 2 compound tenses:
Verbal nounsSkolt Sami verbs have 6 nominal forms:
- the infinitive
- the gerund
- the active participle (progressive)
- the abessive
- the present participle
- the past participle
Negative verbSkolt Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Skolt Sami, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) and number (singular, dual and plural).
Ind. pres.Imperative Optative
sg. du/pl. sg. du/pl. sg. du/pl.
1 jiõm jeä´p 1 - - 1 ? jeällap
jim jep
2 jiõk jeä´ped 2 jie´l jie´lled 2 jie´l jie´lled
jik je´ped je´l je´lled je´l je´lled
3 ij jiâ, jeä, jie 3 - - 3 jeälas jeällaz
4 jeä´t
Note that ij + leat is usually written as i´lla, i´lleäkku, i´llää or i´llä and ij + leat is usually written as jeä´la or jeä´lä.
Unlike the other Sami languages, Skolt Sami no longer has separate forms for the dual and plural of the negative verb and uses the plural forms for both instead.
External links- A very small Skolt Sámi - English vocabulary (<500 words)
- (requires a password nowadays)
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- Sámi Museum site on the history of the Skolt Sámi in Finland
- A number of linguistic articles on Skolt Sámi.
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