The Sámi Language
An introduction to an indigenous Scandinavian language
When English speakers think of Scandinavia, they think about the usual suspects: Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish. However, there is a language that has been spoken in that region for thousands of years that most of us probably never even heard of:
Sámegiella, or in our tongue, the Sámi language.
If you’re savvy with Finnish, you must have seen the family resemblance right away from the Sámi word giella (Finnish: kieli, meaning “tongue, language”). Sámi is certainly a Uralic language, which means it shares a direct common ancestor with Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian — among others further east into Asia.
Sámi is a language that I hold particularly close to my heart. I first read about the language in Nansen’s På Ski Over Grønland (known in the anglosphere as The First Crossing of Greenland.) Ever since then, I have been infatuated with the language and culture — so much so that I have even written a novel called Wolf on the Fells which takes place in the heart of the Sámi homeland, called Sápmi.
This is a culture so rich and unique that it’s hard not to fall in love with it, and I hope to give you all a great first impression!
The Sámi People
Who speaks Sámi? Why, the Sámi people, of course! They have been living in the northernmost parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and northwest Russia for thousands of years — millennia before Vikings were even a thing.
For those who know them, they are best known for their ancient nomadic tradition of herding reindeer and their unique style of singing called joik, which is like Celtic lilting.
Before the arrival of Christianity, they had their own animistic religion with a pantheon of gods like Beaivi (sun goddess), Jábmeáhkká (underworld goddess), and the supreme creator god Rádienáhttje.
Due to the Sámi not being of Indo-European descent (i.e., the now obsolete term “Aryan”), they have been deeply affected by discrimination and forced assimilation from Scandinavian governments during the 18th to 20th centuries. Nowadays, the Sámi have parliaments in Sámi-majority parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland to ensure they maintain their rights, identity, and language.
So I hope to do my part in sharing what I know about Sámi and perhaps get people to be more conscious of this fascinating culture — and, of course, their beautiful language.
I always found lessons boring, so let’s just jump right in with example sentences and learn along the way!
Example Sentence #1
Let’s take my favorite sentence since there really is a lot to unpack:
Northern Sámi: Mun in sámás.
English: I don’t speak Sámi.
Only three words. How bad could it be?
Mun
This is the first-person singular pronoun meaning “I.” I’m afraid that this is the only easy part of this sentence!
In
In English, “not” is an adverb; in Sámi, it’s an actual verb. In is the first-person singular conjugation of the verb ii. For non-Uralic speakers, this may be hard to wrap your head around, but for now, just keep in mind two things about this word:
- It means “not”
- It’s referring to a first-person singular subject (i.e. “I”)
If you speak Finnish or Estonian, this is all child’s play for you, but even you may find the next word pretty surprising!
Sámás
This verb is extremely interesting. Its dictionary form is sámástit, and this one word means “to speak Sámi.”
So how is this verb conjugated in this sentence? This verb is taking the present connegative form (presens nektingsform). It is like a participle, but only used after the verb ii as mentioned above.
Thankfully, this verb stays the same no matter how you conjugate ii. However, keep in mind that ii only has a present tense, so if you want to express that you didn’t speak Sámi, you must use the past connegative form. Therefore, you would say:
in sámástan.
instead of
in sámás.
Example Sentence #2
The last sentence was pretty scary, but in general, Sámi grammar can be very straightforward. Here’s a sentence from the invaluable “Korp” Sámi-Norwegian corpus:
Northern Sámi: Hearggit ja reagat girdiledje váriid badjel Áltái.
English: The reindeer and sleds flew away over the mountains to Alta.
Hearggit
This plural nominative (subject) means “reindeer,” but not any old reindeer. A heargi specifically means a reindeer that is used to pull a sled.
There may be about 300 words for “snow” in Sámi, but there are about 1,000 words for “reindeer!”
Ja
This means “and.” Interestingly enough, this is a borrowing from the Proto-Germanic language, a language that existed as early as 500 BC. It must have been very popular because you can find this word in many different Finno-Samic languages.
Reagat
Plural nominative for “sled” (reahka). That’s all.
Girdiledje
“Flew away,” third-person plural preterite (past) of girdilit. This verb takes the nominative plural nouns, “reindeer and sleds.”
NOTE: Sámi has a dual grammatical number, but we are not using that here because, despite having two words as the subject, as long as at least one of them is plural, we will use the plural conjugation.
Váriid
Plural accusative (object) of várri, meaning “mountains.”
Badjel
This means “over,” but instead of being a preposition, this is a postposition. So váriid badjel means “over the mountains.” This postposition takes an accusative noun.
Áltái
This means “to Alta.” Alta is a city on the northern coast of Finnmark county, Norway. That -i at the end of the word tells us that we are using the illative case. This means that motion is happening towards the noun — in this case, it’s the reindeer pulling the sleds towards Alta.
No need for “to” in Sámi; inflecting the noun in the illative does the job just fine!
Example Sentence #3
Just because I love this language so much!
Northern Sámi: Muhtumin áhččán ja vielljan válddiiga mu mielde vuovdái, čájeheigga ráppi.
English: One day, my father and my brother took me into the forest [and] showed [me] a carcass.
Bit of a strange sentence, but it’s rich with grammar!
Muhtumin
This is an adverb that means “occasionally, sometimes,” but given that the sentence seems to refer to a specific event in time, we could better translate this to “one day.”
Áhččán
This means “my father.” The root noun for “father” is áhčči, and in Sámi, possessives are (normally) expressed as suffixes. These suffixes have a whole inflection table of their own, but let’s just worry about the one for “my.”
This noun is nominative singular.
Vielljan
This means, “my brother.” I’m sure you can see the pattern for the first-person singular possessive suffix!
This noun is also nominative singular.
Válddiiga … mielde
The verb here is the third-person dual preterite for váldit, which means “to take.” The dual conjugation is only used if there are two singular entities as the subjects of the sentence. Here are some bullet points to help you get used to it:
- The man and the woman: dual
- The women: plural
- The woman and the men: plural
- The women and the men: plural
- The two women: dual
So when John and Paul were singing, “two of us riding nowhere,” they would use the first-person dual present form riidejetne for “ride,” and not the plural riidet. That is, if they were writing in Sámi, of course!
The word mielde (“with”) is used as an adverb here, conveying the sense of “taking someone along.” I always thought that the use of this adverb here looks suspiciously Norwegian.
Mu
This is an accusative first-person pronoun (“me.”)
Vuovdái
The illative strikes again! This is the singular illative of vuovdi (“forest.”) Since the illative indicates motion towards the noun, then this word must mean, “to the forest.”
Čájeheigga
This means, “the two showed” in the third-person dual preterite. Since it’s dual and in the third person, we know it must be referring back to the subject at the front of the sentence: áhččán ja vielljan.
Mu (“me”) is not written here again, but given the context, it really doesn’t need to be.
With this construction, you can also translate the sentence as “the two took me into the forest to show me a carcass.”
Ráppi
Accusative singular of rábbi, meaning “carcass.”
Conclusion
Sámi is a wonderful language, and I hold her very closely to my heart. This is not a widely known culture or language by any means; even Norwegians themselves think of the Sámi-majority parts of Norway as a whole other world. It’s as if the language was caught in those deep Finnmark winters, plunging the land into perpetual darkness for weeks on end.
But who knows: maybe Beaivi will be pleased with this article and shine new light on this very ancient and beautiful language!
