Southern Sami language

Southern Sami
Åarjelsaemien gïele
Region	Norway, Sweden
Native speakers	600  (1992)[1]
Language family	Uralic Sami Western Southern Sami
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Snåsa, Norway
Recognised minority language in	Norway; Sweden[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sma
ISO 639-3	sma
Glottolog	sout2674[3]
Southern Sami is 1 on this map.

Åarjel-saemiej skuvle (Southern Sami school) and maanagierte (kindergarten) in Snåsa.

Southern Sami (Åarjelsaemien gïele) is the southwestern-most of the Sami languages. It is a seriously endangered language; the last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa and Hattfjelldal in Norway. There are approximately 2,000 people considered ethnically Southern Sami in Norway and Sweden, but only approximately 600 of them can fluently speak the language.^[1]

Writing system

Southern Sami is one of the six Sami languages that has an official written language, but only a few books have been published for the language, one of which is a good-size Southern Sami–Norwegian dictionary.

Southern Sami uses the Latin script: A/a, B/b, D/d, E/e, F/f, G/g, H/h, I/i, (Ï/ï), J/j, K/k, L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, P/p, R/r, S/s, T/t, U/u, V/v, Y/y, Æ/æ, Ø/ø, Å/å

An alternative orthography replaces Æ/æ with Ä/ä and Ø/ø with Ö/ö. The variants Ä/ä, Ö/ö are used in Sweden, Æ/æ, Ø/ø in Norway, in accordance with the usage in Swedish and Norwegian, based on computer or type writer availability. The Ï/ï represents a back version of I/i, many texts do not distinguish between the two.

C/c, Q/q, W/w, X/x, Z/z are used in words of foreign origin.

Phonology

Southern Sami has two dialects, the northern and the southern dialect. The phonological differences between the dialects are relatively small; the phonemic system of the northern dialect is explained below.

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of the northern dialect are the following; orthographic counterparts are given in brackets:

¹The distinction between the vowels /i/ and /ɨ/ is normally not indicated in spelling: both of these sounds are written with the letter i. However, dictionaries and other linguistically precise sources use the character ï for the latter vowel.
²The letter æ is used in Norway, and ä in Sweden.

The non-high vowels e, ɛ, o and a contrast in length: they may occur as both short and long. High vowels only occur as short.

The vowels may combine to form ten different diphthongs:

Consonants

Grammar

Sound alternations

A typical feature of Southern Sami is the alternation of first-syllable vowels through Umlaut in the declension and conjugation of words. Often there are three different vowels that alternate with each other in the paradigm of a single word, for example as follows:

• ae ~ aa ~ ee: vaedtsedh 'to walk' : vaadtsam 'I walk' : veedtsim 'I walked'
• ue ~ ua ~ øø: vuelkedh 'to leave' : vualkam 'I leave' : vøølkim 'I left'

The Umlaut is often rendered in a table,

On the other hand, Southern Sami is the only Sami language that does not have consonant gradation. Hence consonants in the middle of words never alternate in Southern Sami, even though such alternations are frequent in other Sami languages. Compare, for instance, Southern Sami nomme 'name' : nommesne 'in the name' to Northern Sami namma : namas, with the consonant gradation mm : m.

Cases

Southern Sámi has 8 cases:

Southern Sámi is one of the few Sami languages that still differentiate between the accusative and the genitive morphologically.

Verbs

Person

Southern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

• first person
• second person
• third person

Mood

Tense

Grammatical number

Southern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

• singular
• dual
• plural

Negative verb

Southern Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Southern Sami, the negative verb conjugates according to tense (past and non-past), mood (indicative and imperative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural). This differs from some other the other Sami languages, e.g., from Northern Sami, which do not conjugate according to tense.

Syntax

Like Skolt Sami and unlike other Sami languages, Southern Sami is an SOV language.

References

• Bergsland, Knut. Røroslappisk grammatikk, 1946.
• Knut Bergsland. Sydsamisk grammatikk, 1982.
• Knut Bergsland and Lajla Mattson Magga. Åarjelsaemien-daaroen baakoegærja, 1993.
• Hasselbrink, Gustav. Südsamisches Wörterbuch I–III

External links

• Sámi lottit Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
• Southern Sámi grammatical resources
• Samien Sijte – Southern Sámi Museum and Cultural Center
• Sørsamisk forskning og undervisning – Universitetet i Tromsø