page_title: Sámi people
section_title: Language
hierarchical_section_title: Sámi people / Demographics / Language
caption_attribution_description: English: Page from a A-B-C book that is now public domain
context_page_description: The Sámi people are an indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula within the Murmansk Oblast of Russia. The Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders. Sámi ancestral lands are not well-defined. Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family. The terms "Lapp" and "Lapland" are regarded as offensive by some Sámi people, who prefer the area's name in their own language, "Sápmi".
  Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. Currently about 10% of the Sámi are connected to reindeer herding, providing them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sámi people are actively involved in reindeer herding on a full-time basis in Norway. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sámi people in some regions of the Nordic countries.
context_section_description: There is no single Sámi language, but a group of ten distinct Sámi languages. Six of these languages have their own written standards. The Sámi languages are relatively closely related, but not mutually intelligible; for instance, speakers of Southern Sámi cannot understand Northern Sámi. Especially earlier, these distinct languages were referred to as "dialects", but today, this is considered misleading due to the deep differences between the varieties. Most Sámi languages are spoken in several countries, because linguistic borders do not correspond to national borders.
  All Sámi languages are at some degree of endangerment, ranging from what UNESCO defines as "definitely endangered" to "extinct". This is due in part to historic laws prohibiting the use of Sámi languages in schools and at home in Sweden and Norway. Sámi languages, and Sámi song-chants, called yoiks, were illegal in Norway from 1773 until 1958. Then, access to Sámi instruction as part of schooling was not available until 1988. Special residential schools that would assimilate the Sámi into the dominant culture were established. These were originally run by missionaries, but later, controlled by the government. For example, in Russia, Sámi children were taken away when aged 1–2 and returned when aged 15–17 with no knowledge of their language and traditional communities. Not all Sámi viewed the schools negatively, and not all of the schools were brutal. However, being taken from home and prohibited from speaking Sámi has resulted in cultural alienation, loss of language, and lowered self-esteem.
  The Sámi languages belong to the Uralic language family, linguistically related to Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian. Due to prolonged contact and import of items foreign to Sámi culture from neighboring Scandinavians, there are a number of Germanic loanwords in Sámi, particularly for "urban" objects. The majority of the Sámi now speak the majority languages of the countries they live in, i.e., Swedish, Russian, Finnish and Norwegian. Efforts are being made to further the use of Sámi languages among Sámi and persons of Sámi origin. Despite these changes, the legacy of cultural repression still exists. Many older Sámi still refuse to speak Sámi. In addition, Sámi parents still feel alienated from schools and hence do not participate as much as they could in shaping school curricula and policy.
  In Norway, the name of the language is samisk, and the name of the people is Same; in Finland, the name of the language is spelled saame and the name of the people saamelainen.
  American scientist Michael E. Krauss published in 1997 an estimate of Sámi population and their languages.
  Kemi Sámi language became extinct in the 19th century.
  Many Sámi do not speak any of the Sámi languages any more due to historical assimilation policies, so the number of Sámi living in each area is much higher.
  Intelligence studies of Sámi have found them to score similarly to other Nordic populations.
caption: E.W. Borg alphabet book, published in 1859 in Finnish-Inari Sámi
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