Proto-Sámi is the hypothetical,
reconstructed common ancestor of the
Sámi languages
The Sámi languages ( ), also rendered in English language, English as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Indigenous Sámi peoples in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and extreme northwest ...
. It is a descendant of the
Proto-Uralic language
Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The reconstructed language is thought to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE (estimates vary), and then exp ...
.
Homeland and expansion
Proto-Sámi descends from
Proto-Uralic
Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The reconstructed language is thought to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE (estimates vary), and then exp ...
.
Finnic languages
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia.
Traditionally, ...
and
Sámi languages
The Sámi languages ( ), also rendered in English language, English as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Indigenous Sámi peoples in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and extreme northwest ...
are currently geographically adjacent and coexisting in the same areas. However, whether or not they are linguistically closely related is disputed. That is, the validity of a separate grouping of "
Finno-Sámic languages" not universally accepted and the existence of a separate "Proto-Finno-Sámic language" as parent language of Proto-Sámic is uncertain. Valter Lang (of
University of Tartu
The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country. ) posits that the
Baltic Finns
The Baltic Finnic peoples, often simply referred to as the Finnic peoples, are the peoples inhabiting the Baltic Sea region in Northern and Eastern Europe who speak Finnic languages. They include the Finns, Estonians (including Võros and Se ...
and the
Sámi
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
were already separate linguistic groups before they left the Uralic core area, and arrived to Fennoscandia via different routes. The Sámi entered Fennoscandia from the east or southeast. In contrast, Baltic Finns took a southern route from the
Daugava
The Daugava ( ), also known as the Western Dvina or the Väina River, is a large river rising in the Valdai Hills of Russia that flows through Belarus and Latvia into the Gulf of Riga of the Baltic Sea. The Daugava rises close to the source of ...
river (in today's Latvia) to northern Estonia and over the sea into western Finland. This makes a separately developed Finno-Sámic language chronologically untenable. Instead, if the Finno-Sámic group existed, it was at best a group of western Proto-Uralic dialects, not a separately language.
[Lang, Valter (2020). ''Homo Fennicus – Itämerensuomalaisten etnohistoria.'' Finnish Literature Society. pp. 253–255. ISBN 978-951-858-130-0.]
Although the current Sámi languages are spoken much further to the north and west, Proto-Sámi was likely spoken in the area of modern-day Southwestern Finland around the first few centuries CE. Local (in
Sápmi
is the cultural region traditionally inhabited by the Sámi people. Sápmi includes the northern parts of Fennoscandia, stretching over four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Most of Sápmi lies north of the Arctic Circle, boun ...
) ancestors of the modern
Sámi people
The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are the traditionally Sámi languages, Sámi-speaking indigenous people inhabiting the region of Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Kola Peninsula ...
likely still spoke non-Uralic,
"Paleoeuropean" languages at this point (see
Pre-Finno-Ugric substrate). This situation can be traced in
placenames as well as through the analysis of loanwords from Germanic, Baltic, and Finnic. Evidence also can be found for the existence of language varieties closely related to but likely distinct from Sámi proper having been spoken further east, with a limit around
Lake Beloye.
There is abundant toponymic evidence of Sámi settlement in even the southern parts of Finland, and the Sámi coexisted with Finns and Swedes in southern Finland as late as the 14th century.
Separation of the main branches (West Sámi and East Sámi) is also likely to have occurred in southern Finland, with these later independently spreading north into Sápmi. The exact routes of this are not clear: it is possible Western Sámi entered Scandinavia across
Kvarken
Kvarken ( (as opposed to South Kvarken); ) is the narrow region of the Gulf of Bothnia separating the Bothnian Bay (the inner part of the gulf) from the Bothnian Sea. The distance from the Sweden, Swedish mainland to the Mainland Finland, Finnish ...
rather than via land. Concurrently,
Finnic languages
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia.
Traditionally, ...
that would eventually end up becoming modern-day Finnish and Karelian were being adopted in the southern end of the Proto-Sámi area, likely in connection with the introduction of agriculture, a process that continued until the 19th century, leading to the extirpation of original Sámi languages in
Karelia
Karelia (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; , historically Коре́ла, ''Korela'' []; ) is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Russia (including the Soviet Union, Soviet era), Finland, and Sweden. It is currentl ...
and all but northernmost Finland.
Phonology
Consonants
The Proto-Sámi consonant inventory is mostly faithfully retained from Proto-Uralic, and is considerably smaller than what is typically found in modern Sámi languages. There were 16 contrastive consonants, most of which could however occur both short and
geminate
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
:
Stop and affricate consonants were split in three main allophones with respect to
phonation
The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defi ...
:
* Plain voiceless , , etc., occurred word-initially, adjacent to other voiceless consonants, and in the strong grade of single intervocalic consonants
* Lax voiceless , , etc., occurred between voiced sounds
*
Preaspirated , , etc., occurred in geminates
The
spirant also had two allophones, voiceless occurring word-initially and syllable-finally, and voiced elsewhere.
Consonant gradation
A detailed system of
allophony
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosiv ...
is reconstructible, known as
consonant gradation
Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation (mostly lenition but also assimilation) found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation ...
. Gradation applied to all intervocalic single consonants as well as all consonant clusters. This is unlike gradation in the related
Proto-Finnic
Proto-Finnic or Proto-Baltic-Finnic is the common ancestor of the Finnic languages, which include the national languages Finnish language, Finnish and Estonian language, Estonian. Proto-Finnic is not attested in any texts, but has been linguisti ...
and
its descendants, where it applied only to a subset. The conditioning factor was the same, however: the weak grade occurred if the following syllable was
closed, the strong grade if it was
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, and Edward Vesala album), 1979
* ''Open'' (Go ...
. This difference was originally probably realized as
length
Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with Dimension (physical quantity), dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a Base unit (measurement), base unit for length is chosen, ...
:
* A single consonant was short in the weak grade, e.g. , half-long in the strong grade
* A geminate consonant was long in the weak grade, overlong in the strong grade
* A consonant cluster had a short 1st member in the weak grade, e.g. , a half-long one in the strong grade,
Gradation only applied after a stressed syllable; after an unstressed syllable all medial consonants appeared in the weak grade.
In sources on Proto-Sámi reconstruction, gradation is often assumed but not indicated graphically. In this article, when it is relevant and necessary to show the distinction, the weak grade is denoted with an inverted breve below the consonant(s): ''s'' : ''s̯'', ''č'' : ''č̯'', ''tt'' : ''t̯t̯'', ''lk'' : ''l̯k̯''.
After the phonematization of gradation due to loss of word-final sounds, Sámi varieties could be left with as many as four different contrastive degrees of consonant length. This has only been attested in some dialects of
Ume Sámi. Most other Sámi varieties phonemically merged the weak grade of geminates with the strong grade of single consonants, leaving only three lengths. In some Sámi languages, other sound developments have left only two or three degrees occurring elsewhere.
Vowels
An asymmetric system of four short and five long vowel segments can be reconstructed.
* The four
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
s only occurred in stressed syllables, in
complementary distribution
In linguistics, complementary distribution (as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation) is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...
with the two long vowels occurring in unstressed syllables.
* did not generally occur in the last syllable of a word.
Prosody
Stress was not phonemic in Proto-Sámi. The first syllable of a word invariably received primary stress. Non-initial syllables of a word received secondary stress, according to a
trochaic
In poetic metre, a trochee ( ) is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, in qualitative meter, as found in English, and in modern linguistics; or in quantitative meter, as found in Latin and Ancien ...
pattern of alternating secondarily-stressed and unstressed syllables. Odd-numbered syllables (counting from the start) were stressed, while even-numbered syllables were unstressed. The last syllable of a word was never stressed. Thus, a word could end in either a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (if the last syllable was even-numbered) or a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (if the last syllable was odd-numbered). This gave the following pattern, which could be extended indefinitely (P = primary stress, S = secondary stress, _ = no stress):
* P
* P _
* P _ _
* P _ S _
* P _ S _ _
* P _ S _ S _
* etc.
Because the four diphthongs could only occur in stressed syllables, and consonant gradation only occurred after a stressed syllable, this stress pattern led to alternations between vowels in different forms of the same word. These alternations survive in many Sámi languages in the form of distinct inflectional classes, with words with a stressed second-last syllable following the so-called "even" or "two-syllable" inflection, and words with an unstressed second-last syllable following the "odd" or "three-syllable" inflection. Weakening and simplification of non-final consonants after unstressed syllables contributed further to the alternation, leading to differences that are sometimes quite striking. For example:
In compounds, which consisted of a combination of several root words, each word retained the stress pattern that it had in isolation, so that that stress remained lexically significant (i.e. could theoretically distinguish compounds from non-compounds). The first syllable of the first part of a compound had the strongest stress, with progressively weaker secondary stress for the first syllables of the remaining parts.
Grammar
Nominals
Nominals, i.e.
noun
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
s,
adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
s,
numerals
A numeral is a figure (symbol), word, or group of figures (symbols) or words denoting a number. It may refer to:
* Numeral system used in mathematics
* Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English ...
and
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...
s were systematically inflected for two
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic 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 can ...
s and ten
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Instances
* Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design
* Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of relate ...
s. The
personal pronouns
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''). Personal pronouns may also take different for ...
and
possessive suffix
In linguistics, a possessive affix (from ) 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 languages of the world. The '' Wor ...
es also distinguished the
dual number.
Cases
The cases included the core cases
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
,
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive 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", " ...
and
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
; the local cases
inessive,
elative,
illative
In grammar, the illative case (; abbreviated ; from "brought in") is a grammatical case used in the Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Hungarian languages. It is one of the locative cases, and has the basic meaning of "into (the inside ...
; as well as
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. 6 ...
,
partitive
In linguistics, a partitive is a word, phrase, or Grammatical case, case that indicates partialness. Nominal (linguistics), Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either ...
,
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 ...
, and
abessive.
The case system shows some parallel developments with the Finnic languages. Like Finnic, the original Uralic locative ''*-na'' was repurposed as an essive, the ablative case ''*-ta'' became the partitive, and new locative cases were formed from these by infixing ''*-s-''. Sámi lacks any equivalent to the Finnic "external" cases beginning with ''*-l-'', however. Moreover, the earliest stages of Sámic appear to have used these cases only in the singular, as several of the singular cases do not have a formational counterpart in the plural:
* The accusative plural developed out of the original ablative/partitive plural form, with plural infix ''-j-'' + partitive ''-ta''.
* The inessive plural is the original essive plural form, with plural infix ''-j-'' + locative ''-na''.
* The illative plural was formed in different ways in the various languages, so that no single form can be reconstructed for Proto-Sámic.
* The elative plural was likely formed relatively late as well, as it shows a three-consonant cluster, formed analogically by adding the plural ''-j-'' to the singular form.
* The comitative plural was in origin a periphrastic construction consisting of the genitive plural with the noun ''*kuojmē'' "companion".
Given the discrepancies in the plural locative cases, it is likely that this part of the case system was still partially in development during the late Proto-Sámi period, and developed in subtly different ways in the various descendants. In most Sámi languages, the case system has been simplified:
* The partitive has been lost in most western languages.
* In several languages the genitive and accusative singular have coincided, and in Northern Sámi this led to an analogical merger in the plural. Southern and Pite Sámi still keep the two cases separate.
* A sound change *sn > *st that occurred in the history of several mostly eastern Sámi languages caused a merging of the inessive and elative singular, creating a single "locative" case. Several languages merged the plural cases analogically, but some languages chose the former inessive plural form, while others chose the elative plural.
Possession
Verb inflection
* The
conditional mood
The conditional mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual.
It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
had the mood marker ''*-kćē-'' (cognate to the
Estonian
Estonian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe
* Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent
* Estonian language
* Estonian cuisine
* Estonian culture
See also ...
conditional marker ''-ks-''), to which past tense endings were attached. In Western Sámi, a new conditional mood was innovated, consisting of the connegative form of the verb joined to a past-tense form of the copula ''*leatēk''.
* The
potential mood
In linguistics, irrealis moods (abbreviated ) are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened at the moment the speaker is talking. This contrasts with the realis moods. They ar ...
had the mood marker ''*-ńćë-'' (cognate to the
Finnish conditional marker ''-isi-''). It received present-tense endings.
The following non-finite forms were also present:
* Infinitive ''*-tēk'', identical with the Finnic ending ''*-dak''.
* Verbal noun ''*-mē'', identical with the Finnic verbal noun suffix ''*-ma''.
* Present participle ''*-jē'', originally an agent noun suffix, cognate to the Finnic agent noun suffix ''*-ja''.
* Past participle ''*-më'' or extended ''*-mëńćë''. The extended form is identical with the Finnish verbal noun/"fourth infinitive" suffix ''*-minen'' ~ ''*-mice-''.
Lexicon
The vocabulary reconstructible for Proto-Sámi has been catalogued by Lehtiranta (1989), who records approximately 1500 word roots for which either a pre-Sámi ancestry is assured, or whose distribution across the Sámi languages reaches at least from Lule Sámi to Skolt Sámi. Later work has increased the number of reconstructed words to 3421.
Within this sample, loanwords from the Finnic and
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
already constitute major subsets of the language with 24% of the 3421 root words coming from North Germanic. One oddity is that the plurality of words, 35% are of uncertain origin, likely from a theorized group of languages called
Proto-Laplandic.
Words describing natural elements such as reindeer or snow tend to be of unknown origin whereas those for more modern things such as tools contain larger Germanic influence.
Development
From Proto-Uralic
* followed by > followed by .
* > , a change shared with the
Finnic and
Mordvinic languages
The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (, ''mordovskiye yazyki''),
are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language, both spoken in Mordovia ...
. This change
counterfeeds the previous one.
* > .
* Loss of
vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...
(if it existed). In non-initial syllables, front, and back harmonic allophones collapsed into one: > and > .
* > , a development also shared with Finnic and Mordvinic.
* >
* Vowels are lengthened before .
* > before a vowel. is lost elsewhere.
* >
* >
* >
This approximate point of Pre-Sámi marks the introduction of the oldest Western Indo-European loanwords from Baltic and Germanic. Loans were also acquired from its southern relative Finnic, substituting the early Finnic sound with Sámi . Likely contemporary to these were the oldest loanwords adapted from extinct Paleo-European
substrate languages
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for 'layer') or strate is a historical layer of language that influences or is influenced by another language through contact. The notion of "strata" was first developed by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia A ...
during the northwestward expansion of Pre-Sámi. Prime suspects for words of this origin include replacements of Uralic core vocabulary, or words that display consonant clusters that cannot derive from either PU or any known Indo-European source. A number of the later type can be found in the Finnic languages as well.
Examples:
* PU > preS > PS 'uncle'
* PU > preS > PS 'glue'
* PU > preS > PS 'tree stump'
* PU > preS > PS 'to sell'
* Baltic → preS > PS 'frost'
* Germanic 'red' → preS > PS 'iron'
* Germanic → preS > PS 'guest'
* Finnic → preS > PS 'rear'
* substrate? → preS > PS 'rock', in place of Uralic
* substrate? → preS or > PS "wood", in place of Uralic or
* substrate? → preS > PS 'perch' (cf. Finnish ''ahven'')
* substrate? → preS > PS 'feather' (cf. Finnish ''höyhen'')
Later consonant changes mostly involved the genesis of the consonant gradation system, but also the simplification of various consonant clusters, chiefly in loanwords.
* Geminate fricatives were introduced in certain loanwords.
* was denasalized before a
heterorganic obstruent
An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...
.
** PU → PS 'bow'
** PU → PS 'cavity'
Vowel shift
A fairly late but major development within Sámi was a complete upheaval of the vowel system, which has been compared in scope to the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of English phonology, pronunciation changes in the vowels of the English language that took place primarily between the 1400s and 1600s (the transition period from Middle English to Early Modern English), begi ...
of English.
The previous changes left a system consisting of in the first syllable in Pre-Sámi, and probably at least long . In unstressed syllables, only were distinguished. The source of is unclear, although it is frequently also found in Finnic.
The table below shows the main correspondences:
The processes that added up to this shift can be outlined as follows:
# Lowering: > , including unstressed .
# Raising: > before a following . There are also irregular examples with > (for example ''*kolmi'' 'three' > ''*kʊlmi'' > Proto-Sámi ''*kolmë'' > Northern Sámi ''golbma'').
# All non-close vowels are lengthened: > . If earlier long non-close vowels existed, they were merged with their short counterparts by this time.
At this point, the vowel system consisted of only two short vowels in initial syllables, alongside the full complement of long vowels . In non-initial syllables, the vowels were . After this, several
metaphonic changes then occurred that rearranged the distribution of long vowels in stressed syllables.
* > before and . This may indicate that second-syllable was a relatively open vowel such as .
* > before .
* > also elsewhere.
suggests the following four phases:
# Lowering of mid vowels before and .
# Raising of open vowels before , merging with the un-lowered mid vowels.
# Raising of remaining .
# Backing of remaining .
The inventory of long vowels in stressed syllables now featured seven members: . However, in native vocabulary remained in complementary distribution: the closed-mid vowel only occurred before following , the open-mid vowel only before following , .
Further changes then shifted the sound values of the unstressed syllables that had conditioned the above shift:
# > , regardless of following vowels.
# > , unless followed by in a third or later syllable.
# > before .
Lastly, a number of unconditional shifts adjusted the sound values of the vowel phonemes.
# > , in initial syllables. Word initially, > .
# > . There likely was an intermediate for the first of these.
# > .
To what extent the two last changes should be dated to Proto-Sámi proper is unclear. Although all Sámi languages show these changes in at least some words, in
Southern Sámi
Southern or South Sámi (; ; ) is the southwesternmost of the Sámi languages, and is spoken in Norway and Sweden. It is an endangered language. The designated main village of the language in Norway is Snåasen Municipality (Snåsa) where the c ...
and
Ume Sámi earlier , , , are regularly reflected as ''ij'', ''i'', ''u'', ''uv'' in stressed
open syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of Phone (phonetics), speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''ma ...
s. It is possible that these are
archaism
In language, an archaism is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a historical epoch beyond living memory, but that has survived in a few practical settings or affairs. lexicon, Lexical archaisms are single a ...
s, and shortening and lowering occurred only after the initial division of Proto-Sámi into dialects.
The effects of the vowel shift can be illustrated by the following comparison between Northern Sámi, and
Finnish, known for retaining vowel values very close to Proto-Uralic. All word pairs correspond to each other regularly:
Towards the modern Sámi languages
The main division among the Sámi languages is the split between eastern and western Sámi.
Changes that appear across the Eastern-Western divide are:
* Denasalisation of clusters of nasal plus homorganic consonant to geminate voiced or partially voiced stops (all except Akkala, Kildin and Ter Sámi). This appears to have originally been a Western Sámi innovation that then spread to Inari and Skolt Sámi, as it was still productive in those languages after the borrowing of certain words that escaped the process in Western Sámi. For example, Finnish ''anteeksi'' was borrowed into Northern Sámi as ''ándagassii'' after the change, thus with a newly introduced nasal, while Inari Sámi has ''addâgâs'', borrowed before the change and thus lacking the nasal.
* Preaspiration of single stops and affricates (all except Akkala, Kildin and Ter Sámi).
* Development of the rare phoneme ''*θ'' to ''*t'' word-initially. Southern Sámi and Ume Sámi have ''*h'' instead.
* Deaffrication of ''*c'' and ''*č'' before another consonant. This change occurred in a large area in the middle of the Sámi area, with the outliers Southern, Akkala, Kildin, Ter and partly also Skolt Sámi preserving the original affricates.
Western Sámi
Innovations common to the Western Sámi languages:
* Pre-stopped or pre-glottalised nasals develop from original geminate nasals (not in Sea Sámi).
* Vocalisation of ''*š'' to ''*j'' before a stop (not in Sea Sámi).
* Metathesis and fortition of ''*ŋv'' to ''*vk''.
* Assimilation of ''*ŋm'' to ''*mm'', which then becomes pre-stopped/pre-glottalised.
* Merging of clusters of stop plus homorganic nasal with single nasals.
The Southern West Sámi languages consist of
Southern Sámi
Southern or South Sámi (; ; ) is the southwesternmost of the Sámi languages, and is spoken in Norway and Sweden. It is an endangered language. The designated main village of the language in Norway is Snåasen Municipality (Snåsa) where the c ...
and
Ume Sámi, and have a number of further innovations:
* Lengthening of short syllables, either by lengthening stressed to /ij uv/ in open syllables, or geminating single consonants after other short vowels.
* Stressed are raised to /i u/ in open syllables (in Ume Sámi only if the next vowel is not ).
* Reduction of consonant gradation. It is only partly present in Ume Sámi, and entirely lost in Southern Sámi.
The Northern West Sámi languages consist of
Pite Sámi,
Lule Sámi, and Northern Sámi. They have one important common innovation:
* Pre-stopped or pre-glottalised nasals develop also from strong-grade single nasals (not in Sea Sámi).
Pite Sámi and Lule Sámi form their own smaller subgroup of shared innovations, which might be termed Northwestern West Sámi:
* 2nd syllable is assimilated to /o/ after 1st syllable /o/.
* The distinction between single and geminate stops ( etc.) is neutralized after the liquids /l/, /r/.
Northern Sámi by itself has its own unique changes:
* Change of *p to *k in clusters before a stop or sibilant.
* Merging of accusative and genitive cases.
* Merging of the inessive into the elative to form a common locative case, with the ending used depending on dialect.
* Loss of the past tense of the negative verb, in favour of a construction using the present tense of the negative verb with the past participle (like Finnish).
Eastern Sámi
The Eastern Sámi languages have the following innovations:
* Contraction of syllables before ''*nč''.
* Development of ''ŋ'' to ''v'' before another labial sonorant.
* Merging of clusters of stop plus homorganic nasal with geminate nasals.
The Mainland East Sámi languages,
Inari Sámi,
Skolt Sámi
Skolt Sámi (, , ; or , , ) is a Sámi languages, Sámi language that is spoken by the Skolts, with approximately 300 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi and approximately 20–30 speakers of the (Notozero) dialect in an area surround ...
, and
Akkala Sámi, share further innovations:
* Gemination of even in the weak grade.
* Merging of unstressed with .
Skolt and Akkala Sámi moreover share:
* Loss of final unstressed vowels.
* Merging of with .
* Development of stressed to /e o/ under certain conditions.
Peninsular East (Kola) Sámi, consisting of
Kildin Sámi and
Ter Sámi, share:
* Loss of after a consonant between unstressed syllables.
Overview
Reflexes in parentheses are retentions found in certain subdialects. In particular, in the coastal dialects of
North Sámi
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''north'' is ...
(known as Sea Sámi), several archaisms have been attested, including a lack of pre-stopping of geminate nasals, a lack of -vocalization, and a reflex of in certain positions. These likely indicate an earlier Eastern Sámi
substratum
Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to:
*Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth
*''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics
*Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere
* ...
.
Umlaut
In the history of Proto-Sámi, some sound changes were triggered or prevented by the nature of the vowel in the next syllable. Such changes continued to occur in the modern Sámi languages, but differently in each. Due to the similarity with
Germanic umlaut
The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut (linguistics), umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel (fronting (phonology), fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to ...
, these phenomena are termed "umlaut" as well.
The following gives a comparative overview of each possible Proto-Sámi vowel in the first syllable, with the outcomes that are found in each language for each second-syllable vowel.
=Long open
=
=Long open-mid
=
* In Ume Sámi, ''eä'' appears before a quantity 3 consonant, ''iä'' or ''ie'' before a quantity 1 or 2 consonant.
* In Pite Sámi, ''ä'' appears before a quantity 3 consonant, ''ie'' before a quantity 1 or 2 consonant.
* In Lule Sámi, ''ä'' and ''oa'' appear before a quantity 3 consonant, ''e'' and ''å̄'' before a quantity 1 or 2 consonant, if a short vowel follows.
* In Skolt Sámi, ''iẹʹ'' and ''uẹʹ'' appear before a quantity 2 consonant, ''eäʹ'' and ''uäʹ'' otherwise.
=Long close-mid
=
* In Ume Sámi, ''eä'' appears before a quantity 3 consonant, ''iä'' before a quantity 1 or 2 consonant. Some dialects have a pattern more like Pite Sámi, with ''ua'' or ''uä'' before a quantity 3 consonant, and ''uo'' or ''uö'' before a quantity 1 or 2 consonant.
* In Pite Sámi, ''ä'' and ''ua'' or ''uä'' appear before a quantity 3 consonant, ''ie'' and ''uo'' before a quantity 1 or 2 consonant.
* In Lule Sámi, original ''*ie'' does not undergo umlaut by regular sound change, but almost all ''e''-stems have acquired umlaut by analogy with original ''*ea'', as the two vowels fall together before original ''*ē''.
=Short mid
=
=Short close
=
* In Kildin Sámi, is written after the letter , in all other cases.
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Álgu: etymological database of the Sámi languages{{Uralic languages
Sámi
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
Sámi languages