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Skolt Sámi ( , "the Sámi language", or , "the Eastern Sámi language", if a distinction needs to be made between it and the other Sámi languages) is a Uralic,
Sámi The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Ru ...
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
that is spoken by the
Skolts The Skolt Sámi or Skolts are a Sami ethnic group. They currently live in and around the villages of Sevettijärvi, Keväjärvi, Nellim in the municipality of Inari, at several places in the Murmansk Oblast and in the village of Neiden in the ...
, with approximately 300 speakers in
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, mainly in Sevettijärvi and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõʹttjäuʹrr (Notozero) dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
. Skolt Sámi also used to be spoken in the Neiden area of
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
. It is written using a modified Roman
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
which was made official in 1973. The term ''Skolt'' was coined by representatives of the majority culture and has negative connotation which can be compared to the term ''Lapp''. Nevertheless, it is used in cultural and linguistic studies.


History

On Finnish territory Skolt Sámi was spoken in four villages before 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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, and the Skolts were evacuated to the villages of
Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...
, Sevettijärvi and Nellim in the
Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...
municipality. On the Russian (then Soviet) side the dialect was spoken in the now defunct Sámi settlements of Motovsky, Songelsky, Notozero (hence its Russian name – the ''Notozersky'' dialect). Some speakers still may live in the villages of Tuloma and Lovozero. On Norwegian territory Skolt Sámi was spoken in the
Sør-Varanger Sør-Varanger ( sme, Máttá-Várjjat, fkv, Etelä-Varenki, fi, Etelä-Varanki, russian: Сёр-Вара́нгер/Syor-Varánger) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town ...
area with a cultural centre in Neiden. The language is not spoken as mother tongue any more in Norway.


Status


Finland

In Finland, Skolt Sámi is spoken by approximately 400 people. According to Finland's Sámi Language Act (1086/2003), Skolt Sámi is one of the three Sámi languages that the Sámi can use when conducting official business in Lapland. It is an official language in the municipality of
Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * 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 learn the language and continue to use it actively. Skolt Sámi is thus a seriously
endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...
, even more seriously than Inari Sámi, which has a nearly equal number of speakers and is even spoken in the same
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
. In addition, there are a lot of Skolts living outside of this area, particularly in the capital region.


Use


Media

From 1978 to 1986, the Skolts had a quarterly called Sääʹmođđâz published in their own language. Since 2013, a new magazine called Tuõddri peeʹrel has been published once a year. The Finnish news program Yle Ođđasat featured a Skolt Sámi speaking newsreader for the first time on August 26, 2016. Otherwise Yle Ođđasat presents individual news stories in Skolt Sámi every now and then. In addition, there have been various TV programs in Skolt Sámi on YLE such as the children's TV series ''Binnabánnaš''.


Religion

The first book published in Skolt Sámi was an
Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
prayer book (, ''Prayerbook for the Orthodox'') in 1983. Translation of the
Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
was published () in 1988 and
Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom The Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom is the most celebrated divine liturgy in the Byzantine Rite. It is named after its core part, the anaphora attributed to Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople in the 5th century. History It ...
(, ''Liturgy of our Holy Father John Chrysostom'') was published in 2002 Skolt Sámi is used together with
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
in worship of the Lappi Orthodox Parish () at churches of
Ivalo Ivalo ( smn, Avveel, se, Avvil, sms, Âʹvvel) is a village in the municipality of Inari, Lapland, Finland, located on the Ivalo River south of Lake Inari in the Arctic Circle. It has a population of 3,998 and a small airport. south of Iva ...
, Sevettijärvi and Nellim.


Music

Like Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi has recently borne witness to a new phenomenon, namely it is being used in rock songs sung by
Tiina Sanila-Aikio Tiina Juulia Sanila-Aikio or sms, Paavvâl Taannâl Tiina(born 25 March 1983 in Sevettijärvi, Inari, Finland) is a Skolt reindeer herder, musician, teacher, and a former vice-president and president of the Finnish Sámi Parliament. Early li ...
, who has published two full-length CDs in Skolt Sámi to date.


Education

In 1993,
language nest A language nest is an immersion-based approach to language revitalization in early-childhood education. Language nests originated in New Zealand in the 1980s, as a part of the Māori-language revival in that country. The term "language nest" is ...
programs for children younger than 7 were created. For quite some time these programs received intermittent funding, resulting in some children being taught Skolt Sámi, while others were not. In spite of all the issues these programs faced, they were crucial in creating the youngest generations of Skolt Sámi speakers. In recent years, these programs have been reinstated. In addition, 2005 was the first time that it was possible to use Skolt Sámi in a Finnish matriculation exam, albeit as a foreign language. In 2012, Ville-Riiko Fofonoff ( sms, Läärvan-Oʹlssi-Peâtt-Rijggu-Vääʹsǩ-Rijggu-Ville-Reeiǥaž) was the first person to use Skolt Sámi for the mother tongue portion of the exam; for this, he won the Skolt of the Year Award the same year.


Writing system

Skolt Sámi uses the
ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and ...
with the addition of some special characters: Notes: * The letters Q/q, W/w, X/x, Y/y and Ö/ö are also used, although only in foreign words or loans. Exactly like in
Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...
and
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
Ü/ü is alphabetized as ''y'', not ''u''. * No difference is made in the standard orthography between and . In dictionaries, grammars and other reference works, the letter is used to indicate . * The combinations and indicate the consonants and respectively. Additional marks are used in writing Skolt Sámi words: * A
prime symbol The prime symbol , double prime symbol , triple prime symbol , and quadruple prime symbol are used to designate units and for other purposes in mathematics, science, linguistics and music. Although the characters differ little in appearance fr ...
ʹ (U+02B9 MODIFIER LETTER PRIME) or standalone acute accent ´ or ˊ (U+00B4 ACUTE ACCENT or U+02CA MODIFIER LETTER ACUTE ACCENT) is added after the vowel of a syllable to indicate suprasegmental palatalization. * An apostrophe ʼ (U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE) is used in the combinations and to indicate that these are two separate sounds, not a single sound. It is also placed between identical consonants to indicate that they belong to separate prosodic feet, and should not be combined into a geminate. It distinguishes e.g. ''lueʹštted'' "to set free" from its causative ''lueʹštʼted'' "to cause to set free". * A hyphen – is used in compound words when there are two identical consonants at the juncture between the parts of the compound, e.g. ''ǩiõtt-tel'' "mobile phone". * A vertical line ˈ (U+02C8 MODIFIER LETTER VERTICAL LINE), typewriter apostrophe or other similar mark indicates that a geminate consonant is long, and the preceding diphthong is short. It is placed between a pair of identical consonants which are always preceded by a diphthong. This mark is not used in normal Skolt Sámi writing, but it appears in dictionaries, grammars and other reference works.


Phonology

Special features of this Sámi 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 modifier letter prime (ʹ).


Vowels

The system of vowel phonemes is as follows: Skolt Sámi has
vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
, but it co-occurs with contrasts in length of the following consonant(s). Before a long consonant, vowels are short, while before a short consonant vowels are long (written with a doubled letter). For example, ''leʹtt'' ‘vessel’ vs. ''leeʹtt'' ‘vessels’. The vowels can combine to form twelve opening diphthongs: Like the monophthongs, all diphthongs can be short or long, but this is not indicated in spelling. Short diphthongs are distinguished from long ones by both length and stress placement: short diphthongs have a stressed second component, whereas long diphthongs have stress on the first component. Diphthongs may also have two variants depending on whether they occur in a plain or palatalized environment. This has a clearer effect with diphthongs whose second element is back or central. Certain inflectional forms, including the addition of the palatalizing suprasegmental, also trigger a change in diphthong quality.


Consonants

The inventory of consonant phonemes is the following: * Unvoiced stops and affricates are pronounced preaspirated after vowels and sonorant consonants. * Voiced stops and affricates are usually pronounced just weakly voiced. * Older speakers realize the palatal affricates as plosives . * In initial position, is realized as glottal . Consonants may be phonemically short or long (
geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
) 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'. A short period of voicelessness or ''h'', known as preaspiration, before geminate consonants is observed, much as in Icelandic, but this is not marked orthographically, e.g. ''joʹǩǩe'' 'to the river' is pronounced .


Suprasegmentals

There is one phonemic
suprasegmental In linguistics, prosody () is concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, str ...
, 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: :: ''vääʹrr'' '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. Suprasegmental palatalization is independent of segmental palatals: inherently palatal consonants (i.e. consonants with palatal place of articulation) such as the palatal glide , the palatal nasal (spelled ) and the palatal lateral approximant (spelled ) 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.


Stress

Skolt 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 Sámi 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 In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated or ), caritive and privative (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition '' without'' or ...
and the
comitative In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
singular in a word appears to disrupt this system, however, in words of more than one syllable. The suffix, as can be expected, has tertiary stress, but the penultimate 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 Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
,
particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
and monosyllabic pronouns.


Grammar

Skolt Sámi is a synthetic, highly
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
language that shares many grammatical features with the other
Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
. However, Skolt Sámi is not a typical
agglutinative language An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to r ...
like many of the other Uralic languages are, as it has developed considerably into the direction of a
fusional language Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features. ...
, 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 Sámi are portmanteau morphemes that express several grammatical features at a time.


Umlaut

Umlaut is a pervasive phenomenon in Skolt Sámi, whereby the vowel in the second syllable affects the quality of the vowel in the first. The presence or absence of palatalisation can also be considered an umlaut effect, since it is also conditioned by the second-syllable vowel, although it affects the entire syllable rather than the vowel alone. Umlaut is complicated by the fact that many of the second-syllable vowels have disappeared in Skolt Sámi, leaving the umlaut effects as their only trace. The following table lists the Skolt Sámi outcomes of the Proto-Samic first-syllable vowel, for each second-syllable vowel. Some notes: * ''iẹʹ'' and ''uẹʹ'' appear before a quantity 2 consonant, ''eäʹ'' and ''uäʹ'' otherwise. As can be seen, palatalisation is present before original second-syllable ''*ē'' and ''*i'', and absent otherwise. Where they survive in Skolt Sámi, both appear as ''e'', so only the umlaut effect can distinguish them. The original short vowels ''*ë'', ''*u'' and ''*i'' have a general raising and backing effect on the preceding vowel, while the effect of original ''*ā'' and ''*ō'' is lowering. Original ''*ē'' is fronting (palatalising) without having an effect on height.


Nouns


Cases

Skolt Sámi has 9 cases in the singular (7 of which also have a plural form), although the genitive and accusative are often the same. The following table shows the inflection of ''čuäcc'' ('rotten snag') with the single
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
s marking noun stem, number, and case separated by
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figure ...
s for better readability. The last morpheme marks for case, ''i'' marks the plural, and ''a'' is due to epenthesis and does not have a meaning of its own.


=Nominative

= Like the other
Uralic languages The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
, the nominative singular is unmarked and indicates the subject or a
predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...
. The nominative plural is also unmarked and always looks the same as the genitive singular.


=Genitive

= The ''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 (''Tuʹst lij muu ǩeʹrjj.'' 'You have my book.' where muu is gen.) * to indicate number, if said the number is between 2 and 6. (''Sieʹzzest lij kuõʹhtt põõrt.'' 'My father's sister (my aunt) has two houses.', where põõrt is gen.) * with prepositions (''rääi + EN': 'by something', 'beyond something') * with most postpositions. (''Sij mõʹnne ääkkäd årra.'' 'They went to your grandmother's (house).', 'They went to visit your grandmother.', where ääkkäd is gen) The genitive has been replacing the partitive for some time and is nowadays more commonly used in its place.


=Accusative

= The
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
is the direct
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
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 tääʹlv'' ('the entire winter').


=Locative

= The locative marker in the singular is ''-st'' and ''-n'' in the plural. This case is used to indicate: * where something is (''Kuäʹđest lij ǩeʹrjj'': 'There is a book in the ''kota''.') * where it is coming from (''Niõđ puõʹtte domoi Čeʹvetjääuʹrest'': 'The girls came home from Sevettijärvi.') * who has possession of something (''Suʹst lij čâustõk'': 'He/she has a lasso.') In addition, it is used with certain verbs: * to ask someone s.t. : kõõččâd loc


=Illative

= The 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 The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
. This case is used to indicate: * where something is going * who is receiving something * the indirect
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...


=Comitative

= The
comitative In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
marker in the singular is ''-in'' and ''-vuiʹm'' in the plural. The comitative is used to state ''with whom or what'' something was done: * ''Njääʹlm sekstet leeiʹnin.'' The mouth is wiped with a piece of cloth. * ''Vuõʹlǧǧem paaʹrnivuiʹm ceerkvest.'' I left church with the children. * ''Vuõʹlǧǧem vueʹbbinan ceerkvest.'' I left church with my sister. To form the comitative singular, use the genitive singular form of the word as the
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
and ''-in''. To form the comitative plural, use the plural genitive root and ''-vuiʹm''.


=Abessive

= The
abessive In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated or ), caritive and privative (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition '' without'' or ...
marker is ''-tää'' in both the singular and the plural. It always has a tertiary stress. * ''Vuõʹlǧǧem paaʹrnitää ceerkvest.'' I left church without the children. * ''Sij mõʹnne niõđtää põʹrtte.'' They went in the house without the girl. * ''Sij mõʹnne niõđitää põʹrtte.'' They went in the house without the girls.


=Essive

= The dual form of the
essive In grammar, the essive case, or similaris case, (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case.O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. "Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure." Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. 6th ...
is still used with pronouns, but not with nouns and does not appear at all in the
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
.


=Partitive

= The
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
is only used in the singular and can be replaced by the genitive in most cases. The partitive marker is ''-d''. 1. It appears after numbers larger than six: * ''kääuʹc čâustõkkâd'': 'eight lassos' This can be replaced with ''kääʹuc čâustõõǥǥ''. 2. It is also used with certain
postpositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
: * ''kuäʹtte'd vuâstta'': 'against a kota' This can be replaced with ''kuäʹđ vuâstta'' 3. It can be used with the
comparative general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...
to express that which is being compared: * ''kåʹlled pueʹrab'': 'better than gold' This would nowadays more than likely be replaced by ''pueʹrab ko kåʹll''


Pronouns


= Personal pronouns

= The
personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s have three numbers: singular, plural and dual. The following table contains personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases. The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun ''he/she'' (no gender distinction) in various cases:


Possessive markers

Next to number and case, Skolt Sámi nouns also inflect for possession. However, usage of
possessive affix In linguistics, a possessive affix (from la, affixum possessivum) is an affix (usually suffix or prefix) attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive affixes are found in many language ...
es seems to decrease among speakers. The following table shows possessive
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
of the word ''muõrr'' ('tree').


Verbs

Skolt Sámi verbs inflect (inflection of verbs is also referred to as conjugation) for
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
, mood,
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
, and tense. A full inflection table of all person-marked forms of the verb ''kuullâd'' ('to hear') is given below. It can be seen that inflection involves changes to the verb stem as well as inflectional suffixes. Changes to the stem are based on verbs being categorized into several inflectional classes. The different inflectional suffixes are based on the categories listed below.


Person

Skolt Sámi
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
s conjugate for four
grammatical person In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others ( third pe ...
s: * first person * second person * third person * fourth person, also called the indefinite person


Mood

Skolt Sámi has 5 grammatical moods: *
indicative A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...
* imperative (''Pueʹtted sõrgg domoi!'' 'Come home soon!') * conditional *
potential Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability. The term is used in a wide variety of fields, from physics to the social sciences to indicate things that are in a state where they are able to change in ways ranging from the simple r ...
*
optative The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...


Number

Skolt Sámi
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
s conjugate for two
grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages pres ...
s: * singular *
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
Unlike other Sámi varieties, Skolt Sámi verbs do not inflect for dual number. Instead, verbs occurring with the dual personal pronouns appear in the corresponding plural form.


Tense

Skolt Sámi has 2 simple tenses: *
past The past is the set of all events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience ...
(''Puõʹttem škoouʹle jåhtta.'' 'I came to school yesterday.') * non-past (''Evvan puätt mu årra täʹbbe''. 'John is coming to my house today.') and 2 compound tenses: * perfect *
pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...


Non-finite verb forms

The verb forms given above are person-marked, also referred to as
finite Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to: * Finite number (disambiguation) * Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number * Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...
. In addition to the finite forms, Skolt Sámi verbs have twelve
participial In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
and
converb In theoretical linguistics, a converb (abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adver ...
forms, as well as the
infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
, which are non-finite. These forms are given in the table below for the verb ''kuullâd'' ('to hear').


Auxiliary verbs

Skolt Sámi has two
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...
s, one of which is ''lee´d'' ( glossed as 'to be'), the other one is the negative auxiliary verb (see the following paragraph). Inflection of ''lee´d'' is given below. ''Lee'd'' is used, for example, to assign tense to
lexical verb In linguistics a lexical verb or main verb is a member of an open class of verbs that includes all verbs except auxiliary verbs. Lexical verbs typically express action, state, or other predicate meaning. In contrast, auxiliary verbs express gramm ...
s in the conditional or potential mood which are not marked for tense themselves: * ''Jiõm âʹte mon ni kõõjjče, jos mon teâđčem, leʹččem veär raajjâm ouddâl.'' (negation (1st P. Sg.) – then – 1st P. Sg. – even – ask (negated conditional) – if – 1st P. Sg. – know (1st P. Sg. conditional) – be (1st P. Sg. conditional) – soup – make (past participle, no tense marking) – before) 'I wouldn't even ask if I knew, if I had made soup before!'


=Negative verb

= Skolt Sámi, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a
negative verb Dryer defined three different types of negative markers in language. Beside negative particles and negative affixes, negative verbs play a role in various languages. The negative verb is used to implement a clausal negation. The negative predic ...
. In Skolt Sámi, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative),
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
(1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) and
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
(singular and plural). Note that ''ij'' + ''leat'' is usually written as ''iʹlla'', ''iʹlleäkku'', ''iʹllää'' or ''iʹllä'' and ''ij'' + ''leat'' is usually written as ''jeäʹla'' or ''jeäʹlä''. Unlike the other Sámi languages, Skolt Sámi no longer has separate forms for the dual and plural of the negative verb and uses the plural forms for both instead.


Word order


Declarative clauses

The most frequent word order in simple,
declarative sentence In linguistics and grammar, a sentence is a linguistic expression, such as the English example "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." In traditional grammar, it is typically defined as a string of words that expresses a complete thought, ...
s in Skolt Sámi is subject–verb–object (SVO). However, as cases are used to mark relations between different
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s, and verb forms mark person and number of the subject, Skolt Sámi word order allows for some variation. An example of an SOV sentence would be: * ''Neezzan suâjjkååutid kuårru.'' (woman (Pl., Nominative) – protection (Sg., Nominative) + skirt (Pl., Accusative) – sew (3rd P. Pl., Past)) 'The women sewed protective skirts.' Intransitive sentences follow the order subject-verb (SV): * ''Jääuʹr kâʹlmme.'' (lake (Pl., Nominative) – freeze (3rd P. Pl., Present)) 'The lakes freeze.' An exception to the SOV word order can be found in sentences with an
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...
. While in other languages, an OV word order has been found to correlate with the auxiliary verb coming after the
lexical verb In linguistics a lexical verb or main verb is a member of an open class of verbs that includes all verbs except auxiliary verbs. Lexical verbs typically express action, state, or other predicate meaning. In contrast, auxiliary verbs express gramm ...
, the Skolt Sámi auxiliary verb ''lee'd'' ('to be') precedes the lexical verb. This has been related to the verb-second (V2) phenomenon which binds the
finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...
to at most the second position of the respective clause. However, in Skolt Sámi, this effect seems to be restricted to clauses with an auxiliary verb. An example of a sentence with the auxiliary in V2 position: * ''Kuuskõõzz leʹjje ääld poorrâm.'' (northern light (Pl., Nominative) – be (3rd P. Pl., Past) – female reindeer (Sg., Accusative) – eat (Past Participle)) 'The northern lights had eaten the female reindeer.'


Interrogative clauses


= Polar questions

= In Skolt Sámi, polar questions, also referred to as yes-no questions, are marked in two different ways. Morphologically, an interrogative
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
, ''-a'', is added as an affix to the first word of the clause. Syntactically, the element which is in the scope of the question is moved to the beginning of the clause. If this element is the verb, subject and verb are inversed in comparison to the declarative SOV word order. * ''Vueʹlǧǧveʹted–a tuäna muu ooudâst eččan ääuʹd ool?'' (leave (2nd P. Pl., Present, Interrogative) – 2nd P. Dual Nominative – 1st P. Sg. Genitive – behalf – father (Sg. Genitive 1st P. Pl.) – grave (Sg. Genitive) – onto) 'Will the two of you go, on my behalf, to our father's grave?' If an auxiliary verb is used, this is the one which is moved to the initial sentence position and also takes the interrogative affix. * ''Leäk–a ääʹvääm tõn uus?'' (be (2nd P. Sg., Present, Interrogative) – open (Past Participle) – that (Sg. Accusative) – door (Sg. Accusative)) 'Have you opened that door?' * ''Leäk–a ton Jefremoff?'' (be (2nd P. Sg., Interrogative) – 2nd P. Sg. Nominative – Jefremoff) 'Are you Mr. Jefremoff?' A negated polar question, using the negative auxiliary verb, shows the same structure: * ''Ij–a kõskklumâs villjad puättam?'' (Negation 3rd P. Sg., Interrogative – middle – brother (Sg. Nominative, 2nd P. Sg.) – come (Past Participle)) 'Didn't your middle brother come?' An example of the interrogative particle being added to something other than the verb, would be the following: * ''Võl–a lie mainnâz?'' (still (Interrogative) – be (3rd P. Sg., Present) – story (Pl., Nominative)) 'Are there still stories to tell?'


= Information questions

= Information questions in Skolt Sámi are formed with a question word in clause-initial position. There also is a gap in the sentence indicating the missing piece of information. This kind of structure is similar to
Wh-movement In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object position ...
in languages such as
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
. There are mainly three question words corresponding to the English 'what', 'who', and 'which' (out of two). They inflect for number and case, except for the latter which only has singular forms. It is noteworthy that the illative form of ''mii'' ('what') corresponds to the English 'why'. The full inflectional paradigm of all three question words can be found below. Some examples of information questions using one of the three question words: * ''Mâiʹd reäǥǥak?'' (what (Sg., Accusative) – cry (2nd P. Sg., Present)) 'What are you crying about?' * ''Mõõzz pueʹttiǩ?'' (what (Sg., Illative) – come (2nd P. Sg., Past)) 'Why did you come?' * ''Ǩii tuʹst leäi risttjeäʹnn?'' (who (Sg., Nominative) – 2nd P. Sg., Locative – be (3rd P. Sg., Past) – godmother (Sg., Nominative) 'Who was your godmother?' * ''Kuäbbaž alttad heibbad?'' (which (Sg., Nominative) – begin (3rd P. Sg., Present) – wrestle (Infinitive)) 'Which one of you will begin to wrestle?' In addition to the above-mentioned, there are other question words which are not inflected, such as the following: * ''koʹst'': 'where', 'from where' * ''koozz'': 'to where' * ''kuäʹss'': 'when' * ''mäʹhtt'': 'how' * ''måkam'': 'what kind' An example sentence would be the following: * ''Koozz vuõʹlǧǧiǩ?'' (to where – leave (2nd P. Sg., Past)) 'Where did you go?'


Imperative clauses

The Skolt Sámi imperative generally takes a clause-initial position. Out of the five imperative forms (see above), those of the second person are most commonly used. * ''Puäʹđ mij årra kuâssa!'' (come (2nd P. Sg., Imperative) – 1st P. Pl., Genitive – way – on a visit) 'Come and visit us at our place!' Imperatives in the first person form, which only exist as plurals, are typically used for
hortative In linguistics, hortative modalities (; abbreviated ) are verbal expressions used by the speaker to encourage or discourage an action. Different hortatives can be used to express greater or lesser intensity, or the speaker's attitude, for or a ...
constructions, that is for encouraging the listener (not) to do something. These imperatives include both the speaker and the listener. * ''Äʹlǧǧep heibbad!'' (start (1st P. Pl., Imperative) – wrestle (Infinitive)) 'Let's start to wrestle!' Finally, imperatives in the third person are used in jussive constructions, the mood used for orders and commands. * ''Kuärŋŋaz sij tieʹrm ool!'' (climb (3rd P. Pl., Imperative) – 3rd P. Pl., Nominative – hill (Sg., Genitive) – onto) 'Let them climb to the top of the hill!'


References


Bibliography

* Feist, Timothy.
A Grammar of Skolt Saami
'' Manchester, 2010. * Feist, Timothy. ''A Grammar of Skolt Saami'' Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura Helsinki 2015. * Korhonen, Mikko. Mosnikoff, Jouni. Sammallahti, Pekka. ''Koltansaamen opas.'' Castreanumin toimitteita, Helsinki 1973. * Mosnikoff, Jouni and Pekka Sammallahti. ''Uʹcc sääm-lääʹdd sääʹnnǩeârjaž = Pieni koltansaame-suomi sanakirja''. Jorgaleaddji 1988. * Mosnikoff, Jouni and Pekka Sammallahti. ''Suomi-koltansaame sanakirja = Lääʹdd-sääʹm sääʹnnǩeʹrjj''. Ohcejohka : Girjegiisá 1991. * Moshnikoff, Satu. ''Muu vuõssmõs sääʹmǩeʹrjj'' 1987.
Sámi Language Act
*


External links

*
The Children's TV series Binnabánnaš in Skolt Sámi

Nuõrttsääʹmǩiõl alfabeeʹtt – koltankieliset aakkoset
�Skolt Saami alphabet by the Finnish Saami Parliament
Say it in Saami
Yle's colloquial Northern Saami-Inari Saami-Skolt Saami-English phrasebook online
Surrey Morphology Group – Skolt Saami
*Skolt Saami verb paradigm visualisations. Feist,Timothy, Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett & Erich Round. 2019. Surrey Lexical Splits Visualisations (Skolt Saami). University of Surrey. https://lexicalsplits.surrey.ac.uk/skoltsaami.html

A very small Skolt Sámi – English vocabulary (< 500 words)
Skolt Sámi - Finnish/English/Russian dictionary
(robust finite-state, open-source)
Northern Sámi – Inari Sámi – Skolt Sámi – English dictionary
(requires a password nowadays)
Names of birds
found in
Sápmi (, smj, Sábme / Sámeednam, sma, Saepmie, sju, Sábmie, , , sjd, Са̄мь е̄ммьне, Saam' jiemm'n'e) is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi is in Northern and Eastern Europe and includes the ...
in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
Sääʹmjieʹllem
Sámi Museum site on the history of the Skolt Sámi in Finland

A number of linguistic articles on Skolt Sámi.
Erkki Lumisalmi talks in Skolt Sámiarchive
(mp3)
The Palatalization Mark in Skolt Sámi.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skolt Sámi Language Languages of Finland Languages of Russia Fusional languages Sámi in Finland Sámi in Russia Eastern Sámi languages Skolts Endangered Uralic languages