Sámi languages ( ), in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of

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 ...

spoken by the

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 ...

people in

Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...

(in parts of northern

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 ...

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 t ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, and extreme northwestern

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

). There are, depending on the nature and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings have been used for the Sámi languages, including ''Sámi'', ''Sami'', ''Saami'', ''Saame'', ''Sámic'', ''Samic'' and ''Saamic'', as well as the

exonyms An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

Lappish and ''Lappic''. The last two, along with the term ''Lapp'', are now often considered

pejorative A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...

Classification

The Sámi languages form a branch of the

Uralic language family 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 ...

. According to the traditional view, Sámi is within the Uralic family most closely related to the

Finnic languages The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...

(Sammallahti 1998). However, this view has recently been doubted by some scholars who argue that the traditional view of a common Finno-Sami protolanguage is not as strongly supported as had been earlier assumed, and that the similarities may stem from an areal influence on Samic from Finnic. In terms of internal relationships, the Sami languages are divided into the two groups of western and eastern. The groups may be further divided into various subgroups and ultimately individual languages. (Sammallahti 1998: 6-38.) Parts of the Sami language area form a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

in which the neighbouring languages may be

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

to a fair degree, but two more widely separated groups will not understand each other's speech. There are, however, some sharp language boundaries, in particular between

Northern Sami Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

Inari Sami 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 Skolt Sami, the speakers of which are not able to understand each other without learning or long practice. The evolution of sharp language boundaries seems to suggest a relative isolation of the language speakers from each other and not very intensive contacts between the respective speakers in the past. There is some significance in this, as the geographical barriers between the respective speakers are no different from those in other parts of the Sami area.

Western Sami languages

* Southwestern **

Southern Sami Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

(600 speakers) *** Åsele dialect *** Jämtland dialect **

Ume Sami ''Prunus mume'' is an East Asian and Southeast Asian tree species classified in the ''Armeniaca'' section of the genus ''Prunus'' subgenus ''Prunus''. Its common names include Chinese plum, Japanese plum, and Japanese apricot. The flower, long ...

(<20 speakers) * Northwestern ** Northwestern proper ***

Pite Sami Pite may refer to: * Piteå, town in Sweden known as Pite in local dialect * Pite (food), Albanian foodstuff *Pite River, Swedish river * Pité (born 1994), Portuguese footballer People with the surname * Arthur Beresford Pite Arthur Beresfo ...

(20-50 speakers) ***

Lule Sami Lule may refer to: * Lule people, an indigenous people of northern Argentina * Lule language, a possibly extinct language of Argentina * Lule Sami language, a language spoken in Sweden and Norway * Luleå, also known as Lule, a town in Sweden * Lul ...

(1,000–2,000 speakers) **

(20,000 speakers) *** Torne Sami *** Finnmark Sami *** Sea Sami

Eastern Sami languages

Sami dialects and settlements in Russia map

* Mainland **

(400 speakers) ** Kemi Sami (extinct) ** Skolt Sami (420 speakers) ** Akkala Sami (extinct) ** Kainuu Sami (extinct) *Peninsular **

Kildin Sami Kildin may refer to: * Kildin Island * Kildin class destroyer * Kildin Sami * Ostrov (air base) Ostrov (Russian: ''Веретье'' ("Veret"); also Ostrov-5, Gorokhovka) is a Russian Air Force air base

(340 speakers) ** Ter Sami (2–10 or fewer speakers, presumed extinct) ''The above figures are approximate.''

Geographic distribution

The Sami languages are spoken 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 region stretching over the four countries

and

, reaching from the southern part of central

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

in the southwest to the tip of the

Kola Peninsula sjd, Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк , image_name= Kola peninsula.png , image_caption= Kola Peninsula as a part of Murmansk Oblast , image_size= 300px , image_alt= , map_image= Murmansk in Russia.svg , map_caption = Location of Murmansk Oblas ...

in the east. The borders between the languages do not align with the ones separating the region's modern states. During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

and early modern period, now-extinct Sami languages were also spoken in the central and southern parts of

and

Karelia Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for ...

and in a wider area on the

Scandinavian Peninsula The Scandinavian Peninsula ( sv, Skandinaviska halvön; no, Den skandinaviske halvøy (Bokmål) or nn, Den skandinaviske halvøya; fi, Skandinavian niemimaa) is a peninsula located in Northern Europe, which roughly comprises the mainlands ...

. Historical documents as well as

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 Karelian

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...

contain many mentions of the earlier Sami inhabitation in these areas (Itkonen, 1947). Also,

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

s as well as place-names of Sami origin in the southern dialects of Finnish and Karelian dialects testify of earlier Sami presence in the area (Koponen, 1996; Saarikivi, 2004; Aikio, 2007). These Sami languages, however, became extinct later, under the wave of the Finno-Karelian agricultural expansion.

History

The

Proto-Samic language Proto-Sami is the hypothetical, linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed common ancestor of the Sami languages. It is a descendant of the Proto-Uralic language. Homeland and expansion Although the current Sami languages are spoken much further t ...

is believed to have formed in the vicinity of the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland ( fi, Suomenlahti; et, Soome laht; rus, Фи́нский зали́в, r=Finskiy zaliv, p=ˈfʲinskʲɪj zɐˈlʲif; sv, Finska viken) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and E ...

between 1000 BC to 700 AD, deriving from a common Proto-Sami-Finnic language (M. Korhonen 1981).Korhonen, Mikko 1981: Johdatus lapin kielen historiaan. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seuran toimituksia ; 370. Helsinki, 1981 However, reconstruction of any basic proto-languages in the Uralic family have reached a level close to or identical to

Proto-Uralic Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The hypothetical language is believed to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE, and expanded to give different ...

(Salminen 1999).: Problems in the taxonomy of the Uralic languages in the light of modern comparative studies. — Лингвистический беспредел: сборник статей к 70-летию А. И. Кузнецовой. Москва: Издательство Московского университета, 2002. 44–55. According to the comparative linguist Ante Aikio, the Proto-Samic language developed in South Finland or in Karelia around 2000–2500 years ago, spreading then to northern Fennoscandia. The language is believed to have expanded west and north into

Fennoscandia __NOTOC__ Fennoscandia (Finnish language, Finnish, Swedish language, Swedish and no, Fennoskandia, nocat=1; russian: Фенноскандия, Fennoskandiya) or the Fennoscandian Peninsula is the geographical peninsula in Europe, which includes ...

during the

Nordic Iron Age Iron Age Scandinavia (or Nordic Iron Age) was the Iron Age, as it unfolded in Scandinavia. Beginnings The 6th and 5th centuries BC were a tipping point for exports and imports on the European continent. The ever-increasing conflicts and wars ...

, reaching central

during the Proto-Scandinavian period ca. 500 AD (Bergsland 1996).

Knut Bergsland Knut Bergsland (7 March 1914 – 9 July 1998) was a Norwegian linguist. Working as a professor at the University of Oslo from 1947 to 1981, he did groundbreaking research in Uralic (especially Sami) and Eskaleut languages. Career He was born in K ...

: Bidrag til sydsamenes historie, Senter for Samiske Studier Universitet i Tromsø 1996 The language assimilated several layers of unknown

Paleo-European languages The Paleo-European languages, or Old European languages, are the mostly unknown languages that were spoken in Europe prior to the spread of the Indo-European and Uralic families caused by the Bronze Age invasion from the Eurasian steppe of pastor ...

from the early hunter-gatherers, first during the Proto-Sami phase and second in the subsequent expansion of the language in the west and the north of Fennoscandia that is part of modern Sami today. (Aikio 2004, Aikio 2006).Aikio, A. (2006). ''On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory.'' Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 91: 9–55.

Written languages and sociolinguistic situation

At present there are nine living Sami languages. Eight of the languages have independent literary languages; the other one has no written standard, and of it, there are only a few, mainly elderly, speakers left. The

ISO 639-2 ISO 639- 2:1998, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code'', is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for eac ...

code for all Sami languages without their own code is "smi". The eight written languages are: *

(Norway, Sweden, Finland): With an estimated 15,000 speakers, this accounts for probably more than 75% of all Sami speakers in 2002.

ISO 639-1 ISO 639-1:2002, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages—Part 1: Alpha-2 code'', is the first part of the ISO 639 series of international standards for language codes. Part 1 covers the registration of two-letter codes. There are 18 ...

: se/sme *

(Norway, Sweden): The second largest group with an estimated 1,500 speakers.

: smj *

(Norway, Sweden): likely has under 20 speakers left.

: smu *

has about 30–50 speakers,

: sje *

(Norway, Sweden): 500 speakers (estimated).

: sma *

(''Enare Sami'') (

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, ...

, Finland): 500 speakers (estimated).

SIL code ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

: LPI,

: smn * Skolt Sami (Näätämö and the Nellim-Keväjärvi districts,

municipality, Finland, also spoken in

, previously in Norway): 400 speakers (estimated).

: LPK,

: sms *

(

, Russia): 608 speakers in

Murmansk Oblast Murmansk Oblast (russian: Му́рманская о́бласть, p=ˈmurmənskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ, r=Murmanskaya oblast, ''Murmanskaya oblast''; Kildin Sami: Мурман е̄ммьне, ''Murman jemm'ne'') is a federal subject (an oblast) of ...

, 179 in other Russian regions, although 1991 persons stated their Saami ethnicity (1769 of them live in

)

: LPD,

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for i ...

: sjd The other Sami languages are critically endangered (

moribund Moribund refers to a literal or figurative state near death. Moribund may refer to: * ''Moribund'' (album), a 2006 album by the Norwegian black metal band Koldbrann * " Le Moribond", a song by Jacques Brel known in English as "Seasons in the Sun ...

, have very few speakers left) or extinct. Ten speakers of Ter Sami were known to be alive in 2004. The last speaker of Akkala Sami is known to have died in December 2003, and the eleventh attested variety, Kemi Sami, became extinct in the 19th century. An additional Sami language, Kainuu Sami, became extinct in the 18th century, and probably belonged to the Eastern group like Kemi Sami, although the evidence for the language is limited.

Orthographies

Most Sámi languages use

Latin alphabets The lists and tables below summarize and compare the letter inventories of some of the Latin-script alphabets. In this article, the scope of the word "alphabet" is broadened to include letters with tone marks, and other diacritics used to repres ...

, with these respective additional letters. : The use of Ææ in Norway vs. Ää in Sweden merely reflects the orthographic standards used in the

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

and

Swedish alphabet The Swedish alphabet ( sv, Svenska alfabetet) is a basic element of the Latin writing system used for the Swedish language. The 29 letters of this alphabet are the modern 26-letter basic Latin alphabet (A through Z) plus Å, Ä, and Ö, in t ...

s, respectively, not differences pronunciations. The letter Đ in Sámi languages is a capital D with a bar across it (

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

code point In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...

: U+0110), which is also used in

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

, etc., not the near-identical capital

eth (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...

(Ð; U+00D0) used in Icelandic, Faroese or

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

Latin letter Eng (first variant of capital form)

The capital letter Ŋ ( eng) is commonly presented in Sámi languages using the "N-form" variant based the usual Latin uppercase N with a hook added. Unicode assigns code point U+014A to the uppercase eng, but does not proscribe the form of the glyph. The Skolt Sámi standard uses ʹ (U+02B9) as a soft sign, but other apostrophes, such as ' (U+0027), ˊ (U+02CA) or ´ (U+00B4), are also sometimes used in published texts. The Kildin Sámi orthography uses the Russian

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...

with these additional letters: А̄а̄ Ӓӓ Е̄е̄ Ё̄ё̄ Һһ/ʼ Ӣӣ Јј/Ҋҋ Ӆӆ Ӎӎ Ӊӊ Ӈӈ О̄о̄ Ҏҏ Ӯӯ Ҍҍ Э̄э̄ Ӭӭ Ю̄ю̄ Я̄я̄

Official status

Norway

Norwegian Labour Party shirt in three Saami languages

Adopted in April 1988, Article 110a of the

Norwegian Constitution nb, Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov nn, Kongeriket Noregs Grunnlov , jurisdiction = Kingdom of Norway , date_created =10 April - 16 May 1814 , date_ratified =16 May 1814 , system =Constitutional monarchy , ...

states: "It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop its language, culture and way of life". The Sami Language Act went into effect in the 1990s. Sámi is an official language alongside Norwegian in the "administrative area for Sámi language", that includes eight municipalities in the northern half of Norway, namely

Kautokeino Kautokeino ( no, Kautokeino; se, Guovdageaidnu ; fkv, Koutokeino; fi, Koutokeino) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino. Other villages ...

Karasjok ( se, Kárášjohka ; fkv, Kaarasjoki) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Karasjok. Other villages include Dorvonjárga, Šuoššjávri, and Váljohka. Th ...

, Gáivuotna – Kåfjord – Kaivuono,

Nesseby or (also unofficially ''Uuniemi'' in Kven) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Varangerbotn. Other villages in Nesseby include Gandvik, Karlebotn, Nesseby, an ...

Porsanger Porsanger ( se, Porsáŋgu; fkv, Porsanki) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lakselv. Other villages in t ...

Tana Tana may refer to: Places Africa * Lake Tana, a lake in Ethiopia (and a source of the Nile River) * Tana Qirqos, an island in the eastern part of Lake Tana in Ethiopia, near the mouth of the Gumara River * Tana River County, a county of Coast P ...

Tysfjord Tysfjord ( smj, Divtasvuodna) is a former municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1869 until its dissolution in 2020. The municipality was part of the traditional district of Ofoten. The administrative centre of th ...

Lavangen Lavangen ( se, Loabák) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Tennevoll. Other villages in Lavangen include Fossbakken and Spansdalen (in the inland areas) and ...

and

Snåsa Snåsa (; sma, Snåase) is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Innherred region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Snåsa. Other villages include Agle and Jørstad. Snåsa is one of the ...

.Tromsø positiv til samisk språk

NRK NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting Aksjeselskap, AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and ...

In 2005 Sámi,

Kven KVEN (1520 AM, "La Voz 1520 AM & 96.3 FM") is a commercial radio station that is licensed to Port Hueneme, California and serves the Ventura County area. The station is owned by Gold Coast Broadcasting and broadcasts a Spanish-language news/tal ...

Romanes Romani (; also Romany, Romanes , Roma; rom, rromani ćhib, links=no) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan ISO 639 macrolanguage, macrolanguage of the Romani people, Romani communities. According to ''Ethnologue'', seven varieties of Romani ...

and

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

were recognised as "regional or minority languages" in Norway within the framework of the

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, the ...

.Minoritetsspråk

Language Council of Norway The Language Council of Norway ( no, Språkrådet, ) is the consultative body of the Norwegian state on language issues. It was established in 2005 and replaced the Norwegian Language Council (, ) which existed from 1974 to 2005. It is a subsidiar ...

Sweden

On 1 April 2000, Sami became one of five recognized

minority languages A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...

.Hult, F.M. (2004). Planning for multilingualism and minority language rights in Sweden. ''Language Policy'', 3(2), 181–201.Hult, F.M. (2010). Swedish Television as a mechanism for language planning and policy. Language Problems and Language Planning, 34(2), 158–181. It can be used in dealing with public authorities in the

municipalities 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 ...

Arjeplog Arjeplog (; Pite Sami: ) is a locality and the seat of Arjeplog Municipality in Norrbotten County, province of Lapland, Sweden with 1,977 inhabitants in 2010. It is a popular winter test site for the Asian and European car industries and feature ...

Gällivare Gällivare (; fi, Jällivaara; se, Jiellevárri or ; smj, Jiellevárre or ; fit, Jellivaara) is a locality and the seat of Gällivare Municipality in Norrbotten County, province of Lapland, Sweden with 8,449 inhabitants in 2010. The town was ...

Jokkmokk Jokkmokk (; smj, Jåhkåmåhkke or ; se, Dálvvadis; fi, Jokimukka) is a locality and the seat of Jokkmokk Municipality in Norrbotten County, province of Lapland, Sweden, with 2,786 inhabitants in 2010. The Lule Sami name of the place (composed ...

, and

Kiruna (; se, Giron ; fi, Kiiruna ) is the northernmost Stad (Sweden), city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland, Sweden, Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norr ...

. In 2011, this list was enlarged considerably. In Sweden the University of Umeå teaches North, Ume and South Sami, and Uppsala University has courses in North, Lule and South Sami.

Finland

, the Sami language act of 1991 granted the Northern, Inari, and Skolt Sami the right to use their languages for all government services. The ''Sami Language Act of 2003'' ( se, Sámi giellaláhka; smn, Säämi kielâlaahâ; sms, Sääʹmǩiõll-lääʹǩǩ; fi, Saamen kielilaki; sv, Samisk språklag) made Sami an official language in

Enontekiö Enontekiö (; sme, Eanodat ; sv, Enontekis; smn, Iänudâh; sms, Jeänõk) is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approx. inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very spars ...

Sodankylä Sodankylä (; sme, Soađegilli ; smn, Suáđigil; sms, Suäʹđjel) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the region of Lapland, and lies at the northern end of Highway 5 ( E63) and along Highway 4 ( E75). The Kitinen River flows nea ...

and

Utsjoki Utsjoki (; sme, Ohcejohka ; smn, Uccjuuhâ; sms, Uccjokk; no, Utsjok) is a municipality in Finland, the northernmost in the country. It is in Lapland and borders Norway as well as the municipality of Inari. The municipality was founded in 18 ...

. Some documents, such as specific legislation, are translated into these Sami languages, but knowledge of any of these Sami languages among officials is not common. As the major language in the region is Finnish, Sami speakers are essentially always bilingual with Finnish.

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 a ...

daycares have been set up for teaching the languages to children. In education, Northern Sami, and to a more limited degree, Inari and Skolt Sami, can be studied at primary and secondary levels, both as a mothertongue (for native speakers) and as a foreign language (for non-native speakers).

Russia

, Sámi has no official status, neither on the national, regional or local level. It is included in the list of indigenous minority languages. (Kildin) Sami has been taught at the

Murmansk State Technical University Murmansk State Technical University or MSTU is one of the oldest universities on the Kola peninsula. The university was founded in 1950. Initially it had a name of the High Marine School (HMS). Later it received the status of the Russian State A ...

since 2012; before then, it was taught at the

Institute of the Peoples of the North The Institute of the Peoples of the North (russian: Институт Народов Севера) is a research and later educationary institute based in Saint Petersburg. Its objective is to examine topics related to the northern minorities in th ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

References

Sources

* Fernandez, J. 1997. Parlons lapon. – Paris. * Itkonen, T. I. 1947. Lapparnas förekomst i Finland. – Ymer: 43–57. Stockholm. * Koponen, Eino 1996. Lappische Lehnwörter im Finnischen und Karelischen. – Lars Gunnar Larsson (ed.), Lapponica et Uralica. 100 Jahre finnisch-ugrischer Unterricht an der Universität Uppsala. Studia Uralica Uppsaliensia 26: 83–98. * Saarikivi, Janne 2004. Über das saamische Substratnamengut in Nordrußland und Finnland. – Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen 58: 162–234. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne. * * Wilbur, Joshua. 2014. A grammar of Pite Saami. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Open access

External links

Ođđasat TV Channel in Sami languages

On line radio stream in various sami languages

Introduction to the history and current state of Sami

Kimberli Mäkäräinen
"Sámi-related odds and ends," including 5000+ word vocabulary list

Sámi dictionary and terminology database.
Giellatekno
Morphological and syntactic analysers and lexical resources for several Sami languages
Divvun
Proofing tools for some of the Sami languages
Sámedikki giellastivra
– Sami language department of the Norwegian Sami parliament (in Norwegian and Northern Sami) *

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Sámi Language Act

All about Sami Languages with glossaries, scholarly articles, resources
Álgu database
an etymological database of the Sami languages (in Finnish and North Sámi)
Sami anthems
Sami anthems in various Sami languages

The

Internationale "The Internationale" (french: "L'Internationale", italic=no, ) is an international anthem used by various communist and socialist groups; currently, it serves as the official anthem of the Communist Party of China. It has been a standard of th ...

in Northern Sami

An extensive intro to Saami languages and grammar from How To Learn Any Language * ''

Sámi Dieđalaš Áigečála ''Sámi Dieđalaš Áigečála'' is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary open access journal published by the University of Tromsø Arctic University Center for Sámi Studies in Tromsø and the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Guovdageai ...

'', the only peer-reviewed journal in Saami languages {{DEFAULTSORT:Sami Languages Languages of Finland Languages of Norway Languages of Russia Languages of Sweden L01