There are nine Sami languages, all of them endangered. Three of the Sami languages are spoken in Finland: Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami. Northern Sami is the best known and has most speakers; approximately 1500-2000 speakers in Finland, and almost ten times that in Sweeden and Norway, approximately 15,000 speakers. Inari Sami and Skolt Sami have some hundreds of speakers each, and almost all of them live in Finland. Historically, Inari Sami was a special case of a language that was only spoken in Finland, in a limited area surrounding the Inarijarvi Lake, but these days there are Inari Sami speakers in various parts of Finland and even abroad. Language nest and language revitalization activities have strengthened the vitality of the Sami languages.
Protecting and developing these minority languages poses challenges. The use of Sami languages has been supported with Sami-language kindergarten and language nest activities, and by extending Sami-language basic education to major cities outside the Sami homeland.
The most irreplaceable keepers of the Sami languages are those parents to sustain their determination to use Sami language with their children even in circumstances where being the only family to do so can be a cause for wonder.
A particularly strong factor that changed the linguistic world of Sami people was the compulsory basic education.
It was even punishable to use Sami languages in schools and boarding houses. As a result of this, many Sami who learnt the dominant language under such traumatic circumstances abandoned their own language to the point of using only the dominant language when speaking to their children in order to save them from similar experiences.
The generations who lost their Sami language because of this process have, however, increasingly started to reclaim their language in the recent decades by actively studying it as adults and by speaking it to their own children.
Even though Sami languages still form a central part of the Sami identity and are one of the most crucial symbols of Saaminess, only a fraction of modern Sami people speak a Sami language. Practically every Sami person knows the dominant language of the state where they live, and for many of them it’s their only native language. The majority languages – Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Russian – have for centuries had an impact on the development of Sami languages, the separation between today’s Sami languages, language shift, and the complete disappearance of some Sami languages.
In the 20th century urbanization led many Sami people to move south from the traditional Sami areas, particularly to Rovaniemi, Oulu, and to the Helsinki region. The majority of Sami children live outside of the Sami homeland.
A page from the early Inari Sami language ABC-book from 1859 compiled by E. W. Borg (1830-1910).
Photo: Füsun Kavrakoğlu, Rovaniemi, 2023.
Information panels of the Arcticum Museum Rovaniemi.
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