Sámi orthography refers to the various

orthographies An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and emphasis. Most national and international languages have an established writing syst ...

used by the eight

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 ...

that have their own

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

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 ...

, Ume Sámi, Pite Sámi,

Lule Sámi Lule Sámi (, , ) is a Uralic-Sámi language spoken around the Lule River in Sweden and in the northern parts of Nordland county in Norway. In Norway it is especially seen in Hamarøy Municipality (formerly Tysfjord Municipality), where Lule Sámi ...

Northern Sámi Northern Sámi or North Sámi ( ; ; ; ; ; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Geographic distr ...

Inari Sámi Inari Sámi may refer to: *Inari Sámi language *Inari Sámi people Inari or Aanaar Sámi (Inari Sámi language, Inari Sámi: ''anarâšah'') are a group of Sámi people who inhabit the area around Lake Inari, Finland. They speak the Inari Sámi l ...

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

Kildin Sámi Kildin Sámi, also spelt as Kildin Saami is a Sámi languages, Sámi language spoken on the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia by the Sámi people, Kildin Sámi, who have historically inhabited the peninsula. The Sámi languages closest to ...

Orthographical trends

Three different orthographical trends can be identified for these Sámi languages. The first one uses the principle of having the Sámi orthography be the same as it is for the majority language of that country as its basis. This trend goes back to the traditions where the Sámi language was first being used as a written language, i.e., in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. The literary language there that followed this principle was based on the old Ume Sámi literary language from the 18th century. This same literary language was partially used as the basis for the modern literary languages of

and

. The oldest orthography for Northern Sámi in Norway, that of Knud Leem, upholds this tradition. The second tradition goes back to Rasmus Rask's revision of Leem's orthography, as Rask builds on the phonemic principle. North Sámi, Inari Sámi, and Skolt Sámi follow this tradition. The third tradition is represented by the Kildin Sámi language for which a written language has been created three times: first by Russian missionaries using the Cyrillic alphabet as the basis for the language's orthography, then using the Latin alphabet at the end of 1920s into the 1930s as part of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's language policy for minority languages, and finally once again returning to the Cyrillic alphabet at the end of the 1970s.

A unified literary language

The Sámi strongly feel that they are one people. For this reason, proposals for a united Sámi literary language have been made. The differences amongst the various languages are, however, too large to make this feasible.

The eight literary languages

With the exception of

, the Sámi languages that have their own literary language are written with the standard

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

with the addition of some special characters.

Southern Sámi

Southern Sámi follows the principle of using the majority language of the particular country it is being used in as the basis for its orthography and thus has two separate versions: the Norwegian standard and the Swedish standard. The letters enclosed in parentheses are letters that are only used in foreign words. In addition, ''ï'' is a central version of ''i'' . Although this difference is clearly indicated in dictionaries, most texts do not distinguish between the two. The collating order is however based on Norwegian across both sides of the border.

In Norway

In Sweden

=Bergsland–Hasselbrink orthography

= The Bergsland–Hasselbrink orthography was in use in 1957 and is similar to the orthography used for Northern Sámi during the same period:

=The current orthography

Ume Sámi

The Ume Sámi orthography has been in use for decades, but was finally approved in 2016:

Pite Sámi

On August 20, 2019, an official orthography was approved for Pite Sámi, containing the following letters:

Lule Sámi

Like Southern Sámi, Lule Sámi follows the principle of using the majority language of the particular country it's being written in as the basis for its orthography and thus has two separate versions: the Norwegian standard and the Swedish standard. The standard orthography for Lule Sámi was approved in 1983. * In Norway, Áá, Åå, Ŋŋ, and Ææ are known to be used. * In Sweden, Áá, Åå, Ŋŋ, and Ää are known to be used.

Northern Sámi

Northern Sámi has a long orthographic history, which has witnessed no less than nine different versions. The most recent version was approved in 1979 and last modified in 1985:

Inari Sámi

The following alphabet for Inari Sámi was approved in 1996.

Skolt Sámi

Kildin Sámi

The latest version of the official orthography for Kildin Sámi uses

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

: Note that ' is a variant of Һ and Ҋ is a variant of Ј, there is also a variant of the alphabet not using these two letters at all.

References

{{Language orthographies Sámi languages Languages of Norway Languages of Sweden Languages of Finland Languages of Russia