Jens Andreas Friis

Jens Andreas Friis (born 2 May 1821 in Sogndal Norway, died 16 February 1896 in Kristiania) was a Norwegian linguist, author and is widely recognized as the founder of the Sami language studies.

Friis was appointed reader in Sami languages at the University of Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1863. Three years later he was entiteled a chair in the "Lapp and Kven language", with a special duty in translation. He published extensively on Sami language, mythology as well as travel literature from Northern Norway. His novel "Lajla" from 1881, which was has later been adapted in tree movies.

Friis established the northern Sami orthography, which although modified through three spelling reforms is still widely used. Fact|date=June 2008. Until the Konrad Nielsen's dictionary was published, Friis' Sami dictionary was the most important of its kind.

Friis' ethographical maps

Friis published tree series of thematic maps covering Norway north of the Ofotfjord. First edition in 1861, second in 1888/1890. Each household was coded by a trivariate symbology denoting (1) ethnic group (2) household member's fluency in the Norwegian, Sami and Kven language and (3) whether the family lived in a goahti. These maps, in addition to the censuses of 1865, 1875, 1891 og 1900 provide a valuable resource of knowledge of the ethnicity and language in the Circumpolar region decades before the enforcement of Norwegian as the single official language in schools.

Links

* [http://www.dokpro.uio.no/friiskartene/1861/1861oversikt.html Friis Ethographical maps of Norther Norway]