Southern Sami

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Southern Sami

Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languages

Sami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe....
. It is a seriously endangered language; the last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa

Snåsa

Sn?sa is a Municipalities of Norway in Nord-Tr?ndelag Counties of Norway, Norway. It is part of the Innherad Districts of Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Sn?sa....
and Hattfjelldal

Hattfjelldal

Hattfjelldal is a Municipalities of Norway in Nordland Counties of Norway, Norway. It is part of the Helgeland Districts of Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Hattfjelldal....
in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
. There are approximately 2000 people considered ethnically Southern Sami in Norway and Sweden, but only approximately 500 of them can fluently speak the language.

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

An alternative ortography replaces Æ/æ with Ä/ä and Ø/ø with Ö/ö.

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Encyclopedia

Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languages

Sami languages

Snåsa

Hattfjelldal

Norway

Writing system

Southern Sámi is one of the six Sámi languages

Sami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe....
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 alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
: 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

An alternative ortography replaces Æ/æ with Ä/ä and Ø/ø with Ö/ö. The variants Ä/ä, Ö/ö are used in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
, Æ/æ, Ø/ø in Norway, in accordance with the usage in Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
and Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....
. 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:

	front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....		central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel....		back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....	(i)	(y)	(ï/i)¹	(u)		(o)
mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel....	(e)					(å)
open Open vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....	(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 length

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English....
: they may occur as both short and long. High vowels only occur as short.

The vowels may combine to form ten different diphthongs

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
:

	front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....	front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.... to back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....	central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.... to back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....	central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.... to front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....	back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....	back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.... to front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.... to mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel....	(ie)	(yø/yö)		(ue), (ie/ïe)	(oe)
close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.... to open Open vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....			(ua)
close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....						(øø/öö)
mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel.... to open Open vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound of a type used in most spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth....	(ea)				(åa)	(åe)

Consonants

Grammar

Sound alterations

A typical feature of Southern Sami is the alternation of first-syllable vowels through Umlaut

I-mutation

I-mutation is an important type of sound change, more precisely a category of regressive metaphony, in which a back vowel is fronted , and/or a front vowel is Raising , if the following syllable contains /i/, /i/ or /j/ ....
in the declension and conjugation of words. Often there are three different vowels that alternate 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 gradation

Consonant gradation

Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternation between various "grades". It is found in some Finno-Lappic languages such as Finnish language, Estonian language and Sami language, as well as in the Samoyed languages language Nganasan language....
. 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 Sami

Northern Sami

Northern or North Sami 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....
namma : namas, with the consonant gradation mm : m.

Cases

Southern Sámi has 8 cases

Grammatical case

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

Case	Singular ending	Plural Plural Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers.... ending
Nominative	-	-h
Genitive Genitive case In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....	-n	-i / -j
Accusative Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....	-m	-jte / -ite / -idie
Inessive	-sne / -snie	-ine / -jne / -inie
Elative Elative Elative has two slightly differing meanings in the grammar of two language groups:*Elative case, a grammatical case in, e.g., the Finno-Ugric languages...	-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 languages

Sami languages

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

Verbs

Person

Southern Sami verbs

Verb

In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
conjugate for three grammatical persons

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
:

first person
second person
third person

Mood

Tense

Grammatical number

Southern Sami verbs

Verb

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
:

singular
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
dual
plural
Plural

Plural is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers....

Negative verb

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

Negative verb

A negative verb is a type of auxiliary verb with help of which negative forms of verbs are formed. The action itself has no personal endings, while the negative verb takes the inflection....
. In Southern Sámi, the negative verb conjugates according to tense

Grammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a temporal language quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and grammatical person, which verb forms may express....
(past and non-past), mood

Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
(indicative and imperative), person

Grammatical person

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(singular, dual and plural). This differs from some other the other Sami languages

Sami languages

Northern Sami

Grammatical tense

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 languages

Sami languages

Subject Object Verb

In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject , object , and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order....
.

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