Southern Sami

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Southern Sami

Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languagesSami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Norway,...
. It is a seriously endangered language; the last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of SnåsaSnåsa

Snsa is a municipality in the county of Nord-Trndelag, Norway....
and HattfjelldalHattfjelldal

Hattfjelldal is a municipality in the county of Nordland, Norway....
in NorwayNorway

Insert non-formatted text hereNorway is a Nordic country on the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, bordering S...
. There are approximately 2000 people considered ethnically Southern Sami in Norway and Sweden, but only approximately 500 of them can fluently speak the language.

Writing system

Southern Sámi is one of the six Sámi languagesSami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Norway,...
that has an official written language, but only a few books have been published for the language, one of which is a good-size Southern Sámi-Norwegian dictionary.

Southern Sami uses the latin alphabetLatin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world tod...
:
A/a, B/b, D/d, E/e, F/f, G/g, H/h, I/i, (Ï/ï), J/j, K/k, L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, P/p, R/r, S/s, T/t, U/u, V/v, Y/y, Æ/æ, Ø/ø, Å/å

Ä/ä is a variant of Æ/æ, Ö/ö is a variant of Ø/ø. The variants Ä/ä, Ö/ö are used in SwedenSweden

The Kingdom of Sweden is a Nordic country in Scandinavia....
, Æ/æ, Ø/ø in Norway, in accordance with the usage in SwedishSwedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland, especially along the coast an...
and NorwegianNorwegian language

Norwegian is a Germanic language spoken in Norway....
. The Ï/ï represents a back version of I/i, many texts do not distinguish between the two.

C/c, Q/q, W/w, X/x, Z/z are used in words of foreign origin.

Phonology

Southern Sami has two dialects, the northern and the southern dialect. The phonological differences between the dialects are relatively small; the phonemic system of the northern dialect is explained below.

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of the northern dialect are the following; orthographic counterparts are given in brackets:

	frontFront vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....		centralCentral vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....		backBack vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
closeClose vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages....	(i)	(y)	(ï/i)¹	(u)		(o)
midMid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	(e)					(å)
openOpen vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages....	(æ/ä)²				(a)

¹The distinction between the vowels and is normally not indicated in spelling: both of these sounds are written with the letter i. However, dictionaries and other linguistically precise sources use the character ï for the latter vowel.

²The letter æ is used in Norway, and ä in Sweden.

The non-high vowels e, ?, o and a contrast in lengthVowel length

, [[Hawaiian lan...
: they may occur as both short and long. High vowels only occur as short.

The vowels may combine to form ten different diphthongsDiphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel ...
:

	frontFront vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	frontFront vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages.... to backBack vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	centralCentral vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages.... to backBack vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	centralCentral vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages.... to frontFront vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	backBack vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	backBack vowel Overview A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages.... to frontFront vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages....
closeClose vowel Overview A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages.... to midMid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages....	(ie)	(yø/yö)		(ue), (ie/ïe)	(oe)
closeClose vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages.... to openOpen vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages....			(ua)
closeClose vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages....						(øø/öö)
midMid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages.... to openOpen vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages....	(ea)				(åa)	(åe)

Consonants

Grammar

Sound alterations

A typical feature of Southern Sami is the alteration of first-syllable vowels through UmlautI-mutation Summary

I-mutation is an important type of sound change, more precisely a category of regressive metaphony, in which a back vowel is...
in the declension and conjugation of words. Often there are three different vowels that alterate with each other in the paradigm of a single word, for example as follows:

ae ~ aa ~ ee: vaedtsedh 'to walk' : vaadtsam 'I walk' : veedtsim 'I walked'
ue ~ ua ~ øø: vuelkedh 'to leave' : vualkam 'I leave' : vøølkim 'I left'

On the other hand, Southern Sami is the only Sami language that does not have consonant gradationConsonant gradation

Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades"....
. Hence consonants in the middle of words never alterate in Southern Sami, even though such alterations are frequent in other Sami languages. Compare, for instance, Southern Sami nomme 'name' : nommesne 'in the name' to Northern SamiNorthern Sami

Northern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages....
namma : namas, with the consonant gradation mm : m.

Cases

Southern Sámi has 8 casesGrammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role...
:

Case	Singular ending	PluralPlural Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world.... ending
Nominative	-	-h
GenitiveGenitive case In grammar, the genitive case is the case that marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun....	-n	-i / -j
AccusativeAccusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb....	-m	-jte / -ite / -idie
Inessive	-sne / -snie	-ine / -jne / -inie
ElativeElative *Elative case is a grammatical case in e.g....	-ste / -stie	-jste / -jstie
Illative	-n / -se / -sse	-jte / -ite / -idie
Comitative	-ine / -jne / -inie	-igujmie / -jgujmie
Essive	-ine / -jne / -inie	(no plural form)

Southern Sámi is one of the few Sámi languagesSami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Norway,...
that still differentiates between the accusative and the genitive morphologically.

Verbs

Person

Southern Sami verbsVerb

A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action , occurrence , or a state of being ....
conjugate for three grammatical personsGrammatical person Summary

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the add...
:

first person
second person
third person

Mood

Tense

Grammatical number

Southern Sami verbsVerb

A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action , occurrence , or a state of being ....
conjugate for three grammatical numbersGrammatical number

In linguistics, the term grammatical number refers to ways of expressing quantity by inflecting words....
:

singularGrammatical number

In linguistics, the term grammatical number refers to ways of expressing quantity by inflecting words....
dual
pluralPlural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world....

Negative verb

Southern Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verbNegative verb

A negative verb is a verb with help of which negative forms of verbs are formed....
. In Southern Sámi, the negative verb conjugates according to tenseGrammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs....
(past and non-past), moodGrammatical mood

In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality ...
(indicative and imperative), personGrammatical person Overview

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the add...
(1st, 2nd and 3rd) and numberGrammatical number

In linguistics, the term grammatical number refers to ways of expressing quantity by inflecting words....
(singular, dual and plural). This differs from some other the other Sami languagesSami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Norway,...
, e.g., from Northern SamiNorthern Sami

Northern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages....
, which do not conjugate according to tenseGrammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a way languages express the time at which an event described by a sentence occurs....
.

Southern Sami negative verb, indicative forms
	Non-past indicative			Past indicative
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st	im	ean	ibie	idtjim	idtjimen	idtjimh
2nd	ih	idien	idie	idtjih	idtjiden	idtjidh
3rd	ij	eakan	eah	idtji	idtjigan	idtjin

Southern Sami negative verb, imperative forms
	Non-past imperative			Past imperative
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st	aelliem	aellien	aellebe	ollem	ollen	ollebe
2nd	aellieh	aelleden	aellede	ollh	olleden	ollede
3rd	aellis	aellis	aellis	olles	olles	olles

Syntax

Unlike the other Sámi languagesSami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Norway,...
, Southern Sámi is an SOV languageSubject Object Verb

In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence ap...
.

External links

Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
- Southern Sámi Museum and Cultural Center
- Universitetet i Tromsø