Southern Sámi

Southern Sámi
åarjelsaemien gïele
Region	Norway, Sweden
Native speakers	(600 cited 1992)
Language family	Uralic Sámi Western Southern Sámi
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Norway Hattfjelldal Røros Snåsa Røyrvik
Recognised minority language in	Sweden
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sma
ISO 639-3	sma
Glottolog	sout2674
ELP	South Saami
Southern Sami language area (red) within Sápmi (grey)
South Saami is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)

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

Southern or South Sámi (Template:Lang-sma, Template:Lang-no, Template:Lang-sv) is the southwesternmost of the Sámi languages, and is spoken in Norway and Sweden. It is an endangered language; the strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa, Røyrvik, Røros (Trøndelag, Central Norway) and Hattfjelldal (Nordland, Northern Norway) in Norway.

It is possible to study Southern Sámi at Nord University in Levanger, Umeå University in Umeå, and Uppsala University in Uppsala. In 2018, two master's degrees were written in the language at Umeå University. Language courses are also offered in different Sámi language centres throughout the south Sámi area.

Writing system

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

Southern Sámi uses the Latin alphabet:

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	Ö ö
Å å

The Sámi Language Council recommended in 1976 to use ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨ö⟩, but in practice the latter is replaced by ⟨ø⟩ in Norway and the former by ⟨ä⟩ in Sweden. This is in accordance with the usage in Norwegian and Swedish, based on computer or typewriter availability. The ⟨Ï ï⟩ represents a back version of ⟨I i⟩, however many texts fail to distinguish between the two.

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

Phonology

Southern Sámi 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 italics:

	front		central		back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
close	i ⟨i⟩	y ⟨y⟩	ɨ ⟨ï⟩, ⟨i⟩	ʉ ⟨u⟩	u ⟨o⟩
mid	e ⟨e⟩, eː ⟨ee⟩	øː ⟨öö⟩			o ⟨å⟩, oː ⟨åå⟩
near-open	æ ⟨æ⟩, ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ee⟩
open	aː ⟨ae⟩				ɑ ⟨a⟩, ɑː ⟨aa⟩

The non-high vowels /e/, /æ/, /o/ and /ɑ/ 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:

	front	front to back	central to back	central to front	back to front	back
close to mid	/ie/ ⟨ie⟩	/yo/ ⟨yø⟩, ⟨yö⟩		/ʉe/ ⟨ue⟩; /ɨe/ ⟨ïe⟩, ⟨ie⟩		/uo/ ⟨oe⟩
close to open			/ʉɑ/ ⟨ua⟩
mid					/oe/ ⟨øø⟩, ⟨öö⟩
mid to open	/eæ/ ⟨ea⟩				/oæ/ ⟨åe⟩	/oɑ/ ⟨åa⟩

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩			ɲ ⟨nj⟩	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	unaspirated	p ⟨b⟩, ⟨p⟩	t ⟨d⟩, ⟨t⟩	ts ⟨ts⟩	tʃ ⟨tj⟩	c ⟨gi⟩, ⟨ki⟩	k ⟨g⟩, ⟨k⟩
	aspirated	pʰ ⟨p⟩	tʰ ⟨t⟩			cʰ ⟨ki⟩	kʰ ⟨k⟩
Fricative	voiceless	f ⟨f⟩		s ⟨s⟩	ʃ ⟨sj⟩			h ⟨h⟩
	voiced	v~ʋ ⟨v⟩
Approximant						j ⟨j⟩
Lateral				l ⟨l⟩
Trill				r ⟨r⟩

Grammar

Sound alternations

In Southern Sámi, the vowel in the second syllable of a word causes changes to the vowel in the first syllable, a feature called umlaut. The vowel in the second syllable can change depending on the inflectional ending being attached, and the vowel in the first vowel will likewise alternate accordingly. 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⟩ ~ ⟨öö⟩: vuelkedh 'to leave' : vualkam 'I leave' : vöölkim 'I left'

The following table gives a full overview of the alternations:

Proto-Samic first vowel	Followed by *ā	Followed by *ē	Followed by *ō	Followed by *ë	Followed by *i
*ā	aa	ae	aa	aa	ee
*ea	ea	ie	ea	aa	ee
*ie	ea	ie	ea	ïe	ie
*oa	åa	åe	åa	oe	öö
*uo	ua	ue	åa	oe	öö
*ë	a	e	æ, å	a, ï	e
*i	æ, ij	i	æ	ïj	i
*o	å	u	å, a	o, a, ov	u
*u	å, a	u	å	o, ov	u

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 Sami has 8 cases:

Case	Singular ending	Plural ending
Nominative	-	-h
Accusative	-m	-jte / -ite / -idie
Genitive	-n	-i / -j
Illative	-n / -se / -sse	-jte / -ite / -idie
Inessive	-sne / -snie	-ine / -jne / -inie
Elative	-ste / -stie	-jste / -jstie
Comitative	-ine / -jne / -inie	-igujmie / -jgujmie
Essive	-ine / -jne / -inie	(no plural form)

Verbs

Person

Southern Sámi verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

• first person
• second person
• third person

Grammatical number

Southern Sámi verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

• singular
• dual
• plural

Negative verb

Southern Sámi, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages, and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Southern Sámi, 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 Sámi languages, e.g. from Northern Sámi, which do not conjugate according to tense.

Southern Sámi negative verb, indicative forms

	Non-past indicative			Past indicative
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st	im	ean	ibie	idtjim	idtjimen	idtjimh
2nd	ih	idien	idie	idtjih	idtjiden	idtjidh
3rd	ij	eakan	eah	idtji	idtjigan	idtjin

Southern Sámi negative verb, imperative forms

	Non-past imperative			Past imperative
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st	aelliem	aellien	aellebe	ollem	ollen	ollebe
2nd	aellieh	aelleden	aellede	ollh	olleden	ollede
3rd	aellis	aellis	aellis	olles	olles	olles

Syntax

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

References

• Bergsland, Knut. Røroslappisk grammatikk, 1946.
• Jussi Ylikoski. South Saami, 2022.
• Knut Bergsland. Sydsamisk grammatikk, 1982.
• Knut Bergsland and Lajla Mattson Magga. Åarjelsaemien-daaroen baakoegærja, 1993.
• Hasselbrink, Gustav. Südsamisches Wörterbuch I–III

External links

• The Children's TV series Binnabánnaš in Southern Sámi
• 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