Ter Sámi is the easternmost of the

Sámi languages Sámi languages ( ), in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and extreme northwestern Russia). There are, dependin ...

. It was traditionally spoken in the northeastern part 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 ...

, but now it is an

extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...

; in 2004, only ten speakers were left. By 2010, the number of speakers had decreased to two. In 2020, they were presumed dead or uncontactable. Other estimates counted about 30 Ter Sámi speakers in Murmansk oblast, as well as in

St. 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 ...

, in 2007. The mean age of the youngest Ter Sámi speakers at that time was 50. Sami dialects and settlements in Russia map

History

In the end of the 19th century, there were six Ter Sámi villages in the eastern part of the Kola Peninsula, with a total population of approximately 450. In 2004, there were approximately 100 ethnic Ter Sámi of whom two elderly persons speak the language; the rest have shifted their language to

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

.Tiuraniemi Olli: "Anatoli Zaharov on maapallon ainoa turjansaamea puhuva mies", ''Kide'' 6 / 2004. The rapid decline in the number of speakers was caused by Soviet collectivisation, during which its use was prohibited in schools and homes in the 1930s, and the largest Ter Sámi village, Yokanga, was declared " perspectiveless" and its inhabitants were forced to move to the

Gremikha Ostrovnoy (russian: Островно́й), previously known as Murmansk-140 (), is a closed town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 2,171; down from 5,032 recorded in the 2002 Census. History The first naval ...

military base A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...

Phonology

Consonants

* All consonants except for /j/ may be palatalized � * Consonants /t, d/ can also sound as half-palatalized.

Vowels

* After palatalized consonants, /ɛ/ is realized as

Documentation

There are no educational materials or facilities in Ter Sámi, and the language has no standardized

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 ...

. The language is incompletely studied and documented, though text specimens and audio recordings as well as dictionaries for linguistic purposes exist.

Writing system

A spelling system for Ter Sámi using the Latin alphabet and based on Skolt Sámi was developed in the 1930s. After the Second World War, this was replaced by a system using the Cyrillic alphabet, and based on Kildin Sámi. This system was used by the Sámi poet Oktyabrina Voronova.

Example of words in Ter Sámi

Grammar

Ter saami has 8 cases, Nominative, Genitive,

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 ...

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 ...

, Inessive- Lative, Dative- Illative,

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

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 ...

. Examples of the Genitive (in the UPA) abre' paл = raining cloud pɛci̮ pal'čemi̮š = slaughter of deer taja oлmi̮j = German inhabitant tara parnɛ = Russian boys Plurals In the Nominative case the base word changes when a plural is made. The word "ku", meaning: who, which in the cases.

Notes

External links

*
Ter saami dictionaryDie Struktur der Nominalphrase im Tersaamischen
(in German)
Koltan- ja kuolanlapin sanakirja
(dictionary in German, contains Ter Saami)
Koltan- ja kuolanlappalaisia satuja
(texts in Kola Saami languages, includes Ter Saami) {{Uralic languages Sámi in Russia Eastern Sámi languages Languages of Russia Endangered Uralic languages Endangered languages of Europe