Northern Sami orthography
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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 mos ...
used to write
Northern Sámi Northern or North Sámi ( ; se, davvisámegiella ; fi, pohjoissaame ; no, nordsamisk; sv, nordsamiska; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the ...
has experienced numerous changes since the first writing systems for the language were developed. Traditionally,
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
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 ...
— the three countries where Northern Sámi is spoken — used separate orthographies for teaching the Sámi within their borders. This changed in 1979 when a
Saami Council The Saami Council ( se, Sámiráđđi; smj, Sámeráde; sma, Saemienraerie; smn, Sämirääđi; sms, Sääʹmsuåvtõs; sjd, Са̄мь Соббар; sje, Sámerárre) is a voluntary, non-governmental organization of the Sámi people made u ...
-led effort to standardize a pan-Scandinavian orthography for Northern Sámi. The roots of the current orthography for Northern Sámi were laid by Danish linguist Rasmus Rask, who, after discussions with Norwegian cleric Nils Vibe Stockfleth, published in 1832 ''Ræsonneret lappisk sproglære efter den sprogart, som bruges af fjældlapperne i Porsangerfjorden i Finmarken: En omarbejdelse af Prof. Knud Leems Lappiske grammatica'' (Reasonable Lappish Language Learning According to the Language Used by the Mountain Lapps in the Porsangerfjord in Finnmark: A recast of Prof. Knud Leem's Lappian Grammar). Rask established an orthography based on the principle of a single
grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
for each sound, i.e., it should be a phonemic orthography. All the Northern Sámi orthographies developed since 1832 trace their roots back to Rask's system. This means diacritics are used with some consonants (č, đ, ŋ, š, ŧ and ž), which caused data-processing problems before
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 ...
was introduced. In 2006, Norwegian seventh grade students began to be taught the Northern Sámi alphabet as part of their lessons.


The various orthographies

The region in parentheses following the name of the orthography or its inventor is where the orthography was used. It was only in 1979 that Norway, Sweden, and Finland had a common orthography for Northern Sámi. *
Knud Leem Sami noaidi with a drum used for runic divination">Sami shamanism-->Sami noaidi with a drum used for runic divination (''meavrresgárri''). Illustrations printed from copperplates by O.H. von Lode in Florence, after drawings made by Knud Leem for ...
(Norway) * Nils Vibe Stockfleth (Norway) * J.A. Friis (Norway) *
Konrad Nielsen Konrad Hartvig Isak Rosenvinge Nielsen (28 August 1875 – 27 November 1953) was a Norwegian philologist. He spent most of his career as a professor at the Royal Frederick University (University of Oslo) as a lecturer, textbook writer, lexicograp ...
(in scientific works throughout the 20th century) * Paavo Ravila (1934) (Finland) * Erkki Itkonen (1951) (Finland) * BergslandRuong orthography (Norway, Sweden) * 1979 orthography (Norway, Sweden, Finland)


Background

Four main points were considered in launching new orthographies for Northern Sámi: # Knowing in principle the details of the orthography # Recognizing the linguistic changes that affect Northern Sámi # Selecting which dialect to use for the Northern Sámi literary language # Considering the Northern Sámi spelling in other countries A common joke, although one with a grain of truth, is that the Northern Sámi orthography changed each time the professor of Sámi languages changed at the
University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
, i.e., with Nils Vibe Stockfleth, J. A. Friis,
Konrad Nielsen Konrad Hartvig Isak Rosenvinge Nielsen (28 August 1875 – 27 November 1953) was a Norwegian philologist. He spent most of his career as a professor at the Royal Frederick University (University of Oslo) as a lecturer, textbook writer, lexicograp ...
,
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 Kr ...
, and
Ole Henrik Magga Ole Henrik Magga (born 12 August 1947) is a Sami people, Sámi linguistics, linguist, professor and politician from Kautokeino, Norway. As a linguist As a linguist, Magga is best known for his work on syntax. His master's thesis at the Unive ...
. However, this generalization is no longer true as the 1979 orthography was the result of a collective effort by Sámi from all three countries where Northern Sámi is spoken, working together to reach a consensus over a ten-year period.


The Leem/Rask orthography

The alphabet used by Rask in ''Ræsonneret lappisk sproglære'' (1832) aimed to use a single grapheme for each sound.


The Stockfleth orthography

Inspired by his conversations with Rask, Nils Vibe Stockfleth published a Sami grammar in 1837 that used several unique letters, including C̀ c̀ (''tshje'') and S̀ s̀ (''eshi''), as well as ǥ (''gh''), ƞ (''engh''), ʒ (''eds''), and ʒ̀ (''edshi''), which appeared only in lowercase forms.


The Friis orthography

The ''Friis orthography'' was used in the Sámi version of the
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
published in 1895, as well as by the Sámi newspaper Muitalægje and Nuorttanaste, a religious publication of the Lapp Mission, which was first published in 1898. The one thing that sets the Friis orthography apart from the other orthographies used to write the various Sámi languages is that it is the one the greatest number of Sámi have learned over the past 100 years. It uses the same alphabet as Stockfleth did in ''Abes ja låkkam-girje'' with the elimination of the vowel Å å. J.A. Friis starting working on translating the Bible into Northern Sámi as Stockfleth had only managed to translate the
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
. In his translation work, Friis was notably assisted by people who spoke Northern Sámi as their
mother tongue A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
. In 1854, Friis was joined by Hans Jacobsen Hætta, who had been previously jailed in Kristiania following the
Sami revolt in Guovdageaidnu The Sami revolt in Guovdageaidnu, also known as the Kautokeino uprising, was a revolt in the town of Kautokeino in northern Norway in 1852 by a group of Sami who attacked representatives of the Norwegian authorities. The rebels killed the local ...
. In 1874, their reworked version of Stockfleth's New Testament in Northern Sámi was published. Friis went on to also publish the
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
in cooperation with
Lars Hætta Lars Hætta ( se, Jáhkoš-Lasse; 21 January 1834 – 17 February 1896) was a Norwegian Sami people, Sami reindeer herder, prisoner, wood carver and Bible translator. Following the Sami revolt in Guovdageaidnu in 1852 he received a death senten ...
and Norwegian linguist
Just Knud Qvigstad Just Knud Qvigstad (4 April 1853 – 15 March 1957) was a Norwegian philologist, linguist, ethnographer, historian and cultural historian. He was also a headmaster in Tromsø, and a politician for the Conservative Party who served as mayor of Tro ...
in 1895. Qvigstad modified the Friis orthography to use an apostrophe to mark strong and extra strong consonants.


The Nielsen orthography

Konrad Nielsen developed his orthography for use in his dictionary and textbooks. This orthography is still used when quoting examples of Northern Sámi in international Finno-Ugric works.


Vowels

The following table shows the correspondence between the vowels used in Nielsen's orthography and in the orthography approved in 1979.


The Ravila orthography

Also, referred to as the Sámi Čuvgehussearvi orthography, was developed by Paavo Ravila in (1934) and was aligned to Finnish orthographic conventions, for example using ''p'', ''k'', and ''t'' instead of ''b'', ''g'', and ''d''. It was modified in 1951 by Erkki Itkonen and continued to be used for Northern Sámi in Finland until 1979.


The Bergsland-Ruong orthography

The Bergsland-Ruong orthography was developed by
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 Kr ...
and Israel Ruong and was in use from 1948 to 1978 in Norway and Sweden. Only about 100 books were published in Norway using this orthography. The Nordic Sámi Institute journal '' Dieđut'' was originally published as ''Dieđot'' using the Bergsland-Ruong orthography.


The 1979 orthography

In 1979, the
Saami Council The Saami Council ( se, Sámiráđđi; smj, Sámeráde; sma, Saemienraerie; smn, Sämirääđi; sms, Sääʹmsuåvtõs; sjd, Са̄мь Соббар; sje, Sámerárre) is a voluntary, non-governmental organization of the Sámi people made u ...
approved a new pan-Scandinavian orthography for Northern Sámi, marking the first time a single writing system would be used in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It quickly replaced previous orthographies. Minor revisions were made to the orthography in 1985.


Examples of the various orthographies for Northern Sámi

Extracts of text from the
New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
,
Matthew Matthew may refer to: * Matthew (given name) * Matthew (surname) * ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 * ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith * Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Ch ...
12:1-8.


English version (King James Version, Matthew chapter 12, verses 1-8)

At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day. But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I WILL HAVE MERCY, AND NOT SACRIFICE, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.


Nils Vibe Stockfleth 1840


J.A. Friis 1874 (reworked by J.Qvigstad for the 1895 version of the Bible)


Konrad Nielsen orthography


Bergsland-Ruong orthography (1948)


1979 orthography


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Northern Sami Orthography Northern Sámi Languages of Norway Languages of Sweden Languages of Finland Sámi orthography