- Inari Sami
Infobox Language
name=Inari Sámi
nativename=anarâškielâ
region=Finland
speakers=~400
iso2=smn
iso3=smn
familycolor=Uralic
fam1=Uralic
fam2=Finno-Ugric
fam3=Finno-Permic
fam4=Finno-Volgaic
fam5=Finno-Lappic
fam6=Sami
fam7=Eastern
script=Latin alphabet Inari Sámi ("anarâškielâ") is a Finno-Ugric, Sami
language spoken inFinland by some 300-400 people, the majority of which are middle-aged or older and live in the municipality of Inari. It is the only Sami language that is spoken exclusively in Finland. The language is classified as being seriously endangered as few children learn the language.History
The first book in Inari Sámi was "Anar sämi kiela aapis kirje ja doctor Martti Lutherus Ucca katkismus", which was written and translated by Edvard Wilhelm Borg in 1859. The written history of modern Inari Sámi, however, is said to begin with Lauri Arvid Itkonen's translation of the history of the
Bible in 1906, although he had already translated some other books into Inari Sámi before that (Martin Luther and John Charles Ryles). After that, Inari Sami was mainly published in books written by linguists, Frans Äimä and Erkki Itkonen, in particular. For many years, very little literature was written in Inari Sami, although Sämitigge has funded and published a lot of books, etc., in recent years.Since 1992, Finland's Sami have had the right to interact with officials in their own language in areas where they have traditionally lived: in
Enontekiö ,Utsjoki , Inari and the northern part ofSodankylä as official policy favors the conservation of the language. All announcements in Inari, which is the only officially quadrilingual municipality inFinland , must be made in Finnish,North Sami , Inari Sami andSkolt Sami . Only about 10% of the public servants in the area, however, can actually serve the Inari Saami-speaking population in Inari Saami, so Finnish is used by the remaining 90%.In 1986, the
Anarâškielâ servi (Inari Sámi Language Association) was founded in order to promote the language and its use. The association also publishes a lot of books, textbooks, a calendar, etc., in Inari Sami. They have also established a language immersion program in 1997 for 3-6-year-old children in a day care inInari andIvalo . In 2007, the association also started publishing an Inari Sámi newspaper calledKierâš online.A new phenomenon has been the fact that Inari Sami is currently being used in rap songs by Mikkal Morottaja, whose stage name is [http://www.mikseri.net/artists/?id=21483 Amoc] . Morottaja has also published the first full-length Inari Sámi rap CD in the world on
February 6 , 2007 (Sami National Day ).Geographic distribution
Along with Finnish,
Skolt Sami andNorthern Sami , Inari Sámi is one of the four official languages in the municipality of Inari, in particular in the following villages [cite web|url=http://www.siida.fi/anaras/english/kieli/kieli.html |title= Language |accessdate=2008-01-09] located on the shore ofLake Inari (the Inari Sámi name for the village is enclosed in parentheses):*
Nellim (Njellim)
*Inari (Avveel)
*Menesjärvi (Menišjävri)
*Repojoki (Riemâšjuuhâ)
*Tirro (Mosshâš)
*the village of Inari (Aanaar markkân)
*Kaamanen (Kaamâs)
*Aksujärvi (Ákšujävri)
*Syysjärvi (Čovčjävri)
*Iijärvi (Ijjävri)
*Sevettijärvi (Čevetjävri)
*Partakko (Päärtih)Orthography
Inari Sámi is written using an extended version of the
Latin alphabet . The alphabet currently used for Inari Sami was made official in 1996 and stands as follows:A/a, (Â/â), B/b, C/c, Č/č, D/d, Đ/đ, E/e, F/f, G/g, H/h, I/i, J/j, K/k, L/l, M/m, N/n, O/o, P/p, R/r, S/s, Š/š, T/t, U/u, V/v, Y/y, Z/z, Ž/ž, Ä/ä, (Á/á).
The phonetic values are the same as in Karelian, and đ represents the
voiced dental fricative (in English "the"). Q/q, W/w, X/x, Å/å, Ö/ö are also used in words of foreign origin. Á is traditionally pronounced in the middle of /a/ and /ä/, but in modern Inari Sámi the difference between á and ä is nonexistent. In text, Á and ä are nevertheless considered as separate characters. Ä is used only, if 1) it is in a first syllable of a word, and there is an "e" or "i" in a second syllable of the same word,2) it is in a word, which does have only one syllable (although á is also used), or3) it is a part of diphthong "iä".Ä however is not used, if it is supposed to be a part of diphthong "uá" (uá and uä are pronounced almost the same, but only uá is correct).Grammar
Cases
Inari Sámi has 9 cases, although the genitive and accusative are often the same:
*
Nominative
*Genitive
*Accusative
*Locative
*Illative
*Comitative
*Abessive
*Essive
*Partitive The
partitive appears to be a highly unproductive case in that it appears to only be used in the singular. In addition, unlike Finnish, Inari Sámi does not make use of the partitive case for objects of transitive verbs. Thus "Mun puurâm leeibi" could translate into Finnish as either "Minä syön leivän" (English: "I eat the bread") or "Minä syön leipää" ("I eat some bread" or generally "I eat bread").Pronouns
The personal pronouns have three numbers - singular, plural and dual. The following table contains personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases.
The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun "I/we (dual)/we (plural)" in the various cases:
Verbs
Person
Inari Sami
verb s conjugate for threegrammatical person s:*first person
*second person
*third personMood
Inari Sami has 5
grammatical mood s:*indicative
*imperative
*conditional
*potential
*optativeGrammatical number
Inari Sami
verb s conjugate for threegrammatical number s:*singular
*dual
*plural Tense
Inari Sami has 2 simple tenses:
and 2
compound tenses :*perfect
*pluperfectVerbal nouns
Negative verb
Inari Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a
negative verb . In Inari Sami, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural).Ind. pres. Imperatiiva Optatiiva sg. du pl. sg. du pl. sg. du pl. 1 jie'm ián ep 1 - - 1 iällum iäl'loon iällup 2 jie'h eppee eppeđ 2 ele ellee elleđ 2 ele ellee elleđ 3 ij iä'vá iä 3 - - 3 iä'lus iällus iällus
References
*Itkonen, Erkki. "Inarilappisches Wörterbuch." Lexica societatis fenno-ugricae: 20. Suomalais-ugrilainen seura. Helsinki. ISBN 951-9019-94-4.
*Sammallahti, Pekka. Morottaja, Matti. "Säämi-suoma sänikirje. Inarinsaamelais-suomalainen sanakirja." Girjegiisá. Ykkösoffset Oy, Vaasa 1993. ISBN 951-8939-27-6.
*Olthuis, Marja-Liisa. "Kielâoppâ." Inari : Sämitigge, 2000.
*Østmo, Kari. "Sämikielâ vieres kiellân vuáðuškoovlâst." Helsinki : Valtion painatuskeskus, 1988.Links
* [http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_report.html Salminen, Tapani. "UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages." 1993.]
* [http://www.uta.fi/~km56049/same/inarinsaame.html Kimberli Mäkäräinen] A minute vocabulary (Inari Sámi-English) (233 words)
* [http://www.kirjasto.oulu.fi/saamilottit/ Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.]
* [http://video.helsinki.fi/Media-arkisto/inarin_saamelaiset.html Clip about keeping Inari Sami alive] (requiresRealPlayer )
* [http://www.ling.canterbury.ac.nz/personal/toivonen/sami/ The Inari Sami Language by Toivonen and Nelson]
* [http://www.helsinki.fi/~sugl_smi/aani/Kielinaytteet/Inarinsaame.MP3 Hans Morottaja speaks about himself, etc. in Inari Sámi]
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