[HN Gopher] Sami Languages and Dialects (2015)
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Sami Languages and Dialects (2015)
Author : DoreenMichele
Score : 45 points
Date : 2022-06-09 07:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nordregio.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (nordregio.org)
| antris wrote:
| Sami languages are split into many languages and dialects. Vast
| majority of the speakers are speaking Northern Sami. But some
| have only a couple dozen speakers, and others are already
| extinct:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_languages#Classifica...
|
| The story of the Sami people is very similar to many other native
| people. No independence allowed, decades and/or centuries of
| cultural assimilation and powerlessness. Only now the governments
| are starting to throw a bone to the Sami people by funding
| language nests, but there is a long way to go until the Sami
| people are in control of their own future.
|
| Interestingly, some Sami people have taken on rapping to keep
| their languages alive. One of them being Amoc, who raps in Inari
| Sami, which has around 400 speakers:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdjwXx531Y4
| vintermann wrote:
| I think it is very different to other indigenous people, in
| many important ways.
|
| Sami and Germanic speaking peoples have lived side by side for
| almost 2000 years. That's very different from the classical
| colonial story.
|
| For much of history, Sami were exploited but prized subjects,
| because they were taxed in furs, a very profitable trade
| commodity. At one point, three states (Norway, Sweden and
| Russia) taxed the Sami... although that can't have been fun for
| the Sami, it also gave them considerable legal protection,
| since you didn't mess with someone that profitable.
|
| Assimilation is also a complex story. It was worst in Norway in
| the 20th century - _after_ WW2, which makes it especially
| damning. There they committed basically all the classic
| colonial crimes that e.g. Canada and Australia committed
| against their indigenous populations - separation of families,
| suppression of language, forced sterilization, you name it.
|
| But at other times, especially in Sweden, they went to the
| other extreme of segregation instead, under the "Lapp ska vara
| lapp" policy, where Sami were not allowed to get education, and
| those who failed to live up to the exotisized image (e.g. by
| not being reindeer herders) were denied traditional rights.
|
| On religion, it's also rather far from the classic "they came
| and imposed their religion on us" story. Christianity didn't
| reach the Sami much later than it reached the Norse, if it was
| later at all. The first chapel in Finnmark was apparently built
| by Sami. The presence of the Virgin Mary in some Sami folk
| tales is good evidence that it wasn't after the reformation the
| Sami became Christian. However, since the Sami were at that
| time nomadic, had low literacy rates and lived geographically
| and culturally far from ecclesiastical overview, they did not
| stay orthodox and mixed in a lot of animistic beliefs and
| superstitions with their Christianity. Sapmi today is a
| stronghold of arch-conservative Christianity, in particular
| followers of the 19th century Sami pietist reformer Lars Levi
| Laestadius, and that's another thing that doesn't fit well with
| the Sami as a "typical indigenous people", as well as a source
| of conflict between generations, where younger Sami people may
| be a lot more OK with the idea of themselves as basically pagan
| (and their pietist parent generation as self-hating colonialism
| victims).
|
| So, let's be careful to not squeeze the Sami into a generic
| indigenous people mold. I get that doing so is often a well-
| meaning effort to justify Sami rights, but it should not be
| necessary to cut the foot to make that shoe fit. I think it's
| important to focus on the value of language and culture over
| ancestry.
| antris wrote:
| Nothing about your comment disputes anything I said. I don't
| know why you posted this in such a contentious tone and
| implied that I'm squeezing "Sami into a generic indigenous
| people mold". I wasn't stereotyping Sami people, just talking
| about the challenges they face as a native minority people
| that live under a repressive government. You can find similar
| challenges posed to other native people, that's all I was
| saying.
| vintermann wrote:
| I tried to keep it as non-confrontational as I could. From
| what you wrote, people on HN wouldn't know.
|
| Apart from the ones living in Russia, I don't really agree
| that Sami live under a repressive government. Norway,
| Finland and Sweden all have Sami parliaments to take care
| of their special interests, as well as (of course) legal
| protection for their cultural and linguistic rights in the
| "regular" government.
| antris wrote:
| I was talking about Sami history as a whole. Sami
| parliament in Finland was recognized in 1995, and its
| authority is extremely limited. Basically they have no
| power over the Finnish government. Like I said, they have
| been thrown a bone and some positive developments have
| occurred in recent years, but that doesn't make the
| governments non-repressive as a whole when looking at
| their history and how they are still affected today by
| it. Just because you grant them some rights, doesn't
| erase what has happened before and the resulting societal
| position of the people.
|
| Finland also has a minority of Swedish-speaking Finns.
| Just compare how the Finnish-Swedish population and the
| Sami population were treated throughout history, and
| you'll see the difference. Swedish is an official
| language in Finland, none of the Sami languages are. And
| you couldn't get an education with Sami as your primary
| language until 1994.
|
| These are very recent developments when compared to
| repression lasting centuries. Just like racism towards
| African-Americans didn't stop with the Civil Rights
| Movement, repression of the Sami people didn't end with
| the Sami parliament.
| mongol wrote:
| Today, it seems to me that Sami have more rights than
| other citizens. They have all the same rights that other
| citizens do, but in addition, they have these special
| rights to be the only ones allowed to hunt on certain
| government lands etc.
| vintermann wrote:
| Some complain about that, but personally, I see the
| "exclusive" rights as primarily being about things that
| have no point if you are not Sami anyway.
|
| I remember some years ago, there was a huge debate in the
| forums of Vart Land, Norway's largest Christian
| newspaper, between one advocate for these exclusive
| rights, and one furious opponent. The funny thing was
| that the proponent was a super-samophile southerner who
| had learned the language and moved north, while the
| opponent was a (genetically, at least) full Sami who just
| happened to be an old school Marxist who hated rights
| based on nationality.
| mongol wrote:
| I personally don't hunt or even live close to these lands
| where it has become an issue, but I can certainly
| understand why those living close to there could be upset
| about it.
| bungle wrote:
| > The story of the Sami people is very similar to many other
| native people...
|
| Also hitting them with bible:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_the_S%C3%A...
| sigg3 wrote:
| And booze, to a nation with lower tolerance. It's classic
| divide and conquer.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| My Great Great Grandmother was Sami. I live in the U.S. So I
| guess you can connect the dots.
| thematrixturtle wrote:
| The Sami seem to come up on HN on a lot, but one angle I rarely
| see mentioned is how thoroughly assimilated into the majority
| cultures they are. I know two people of Sami descent, both of
| whom are from intermarried families, are physically
| indistinguishable from non-Sami, speak the majority language as
| their mother tongue and struggle to connect with Sami language,
| customs like reindeer herding, etc. And as the pie charts
| indicate, the vast majority of Sami are in this category.
|
| This is quite different to, say, Aboriginals in Australia, who
| are most definitely not integrated into the rest of Australian
| society.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The oppression of the Sami started several centuries earlier,
| that's probably why.
| m2fkxy wrote:
| Last indigenous people of Europe, spanning across four countries.
| Beyond working hard to keep their languages and cultures alive,
| they are often fighting against industrial projects directly or
| indirectly endangering their main activity and source of income,
| namely reindeer herding. One of these projects, that got nixed
| recently by regional governments, is the Arctic Railway:
| https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2019/09/arctic-rail...
| brennvin wrote:
| > Last indigenous people of Europe
|
| There are still many Swedes, Finns, Germans, French etc around.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Maybe a better term would be "last nomadic people", but then
| that would ignore the Roma, Irish Travellers, and the like.
| vintermann wrote:
| Most Sami are not reindeer herders, and thus are no more
| nomadic than your average Norwegian. Even going back
| hundreds of years, many Sami were primarily fishermen and
| didn't travel much.
| tokai wrote:
| Even as rain deer herders they are not nomadic. They have
| summer and winter residence. They have static villages,
| fences for their rain deers, etc.
| bungle wrote:
| I am not sure what you mean about static fences? Reindeer
| is semi-wild. They gather them for sure (with helicopters
| and stuff these days), but outside that the reindeers
| basically go anywhere they want. Yes, they have "areas"
| where they should be, but they are, as mentioned semi-
| wild animals. I have cottage in Lapland and it is very
| common to see them on my property almost daily. I like
| it, but I understand locals do not like it that much, as
| basically they eat everything you want to grow for
| yourself (and at north, it is already hard to grow
| anything).
| [deleted]
| simongray wrote:
| > Last indigenous people of Europe
|
| Only if you essentially consider the definition of "indigenous"
| to be "noble savage".
|
| Most Europeans are indigenous to Europe.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How do you define it? It's easier with Europeans and
| indigenous people in someplace like Australia. In Europe,
| many migrated in much more distant history, but eventually
| everyone there has ancestors from someplace else.
|
| Perhaps it means someone who was there before another group
| arrives, meaning that the definition is relative, it means
| 'earlier'. There's also an implication that the latter group
| has transformed the place somehow.
|
| A similar word in _aboriginal_. Some meanings include
| "present from the beginning ... inhabiting or existing in a
| land from earliest times"; "Inhabiting or occupying a country
| before the arrival of European colonists"; "the earliest
| known inhabitants of a land"; etc.
| simongray wrote:
| > indigenous | In'dIdZIn@s |
|
| > adjective
|
| > originating or occurring naturally in a particular place;
| native: the indigenous peoples of Siberia | coriander is
| indigenous to southern Europe.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That doesn't address the issues? Obviously from the GP, I
| checked out a dictionary already.
| simongray wrote:
| I think it's a pointless exercise. European ethnicities
| are indigenous to various parts of Europe, Scandinavians
| are indigenous to Scandinavia, Sami indigenous to
| Northern Scandinavia, and so on. They are all indigenous
| in the proper context, it's not some exclusionary label.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I think it's a pointless exercise.
|
| You raised the issue! But that's always an answer, to
| dismiss everything. Clearly there are differences between
| those examples. Oh well. Have a good one!
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| The Sami count as indigenous because they're not a
| majority in their ancestral lands. I don't think anyone
| is trying to dispute that Germmanic peoples are native to
| northern Germany and southern Scandinavia.
| simongray wrote:
| I'm not disputing the fact that Sami are indigenous to
| the place they live (most humans are), I'm disputing this
| weird definition of indigenous which seems to align more
| to the noble savage concept than the actual meaning of
| indigenous.
|
| Secondly, if you want to segment the world into mutually
| exclusive "indigenous" areas (I find this kind of
| offensive to be honest), you should make sure you're
| actually right. Germanic peoples were present in all of
| Scandinavia before the Sami migrated there, not just the
| south. But like I said, I have no problem saying the Sami
| are indigenous to Northern Scandinavia because being
| indigenous to an area is not an exclusionary label.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > if you want to segment the world into mutually
| exclusive "indigenous" areas
|
| I think that's taking the conversation to an extreme, and
| then finding offense in the extreme you created.
|
| > I find this kind of offensive to be honest
|
| How does it offend you?
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| As far as groups that have kept a continuous identity and
| language since time immemorial, there are also the Basques,
| located around the Bay of Biscay. And I believe there are other
| remote pockets of people that have distinctive genetics in
| other parts of Europe, but haven't retained a pre-Indo-European
| language.
| vintermann wrote:
| The Sami haven't kept their language since time immemorial,
| if you base their identity on their supposed genetic
| uniqueness. Sami is a finno-ugric language, and that language
| family is thought to have its origin in the Ural mountains,
| far, far east of Sapmi.
|
| Now, there are some who argue that the Sami are in part
| _genetic_ descendants of Norway 's first post ice age
| Neolithic settlers. There are some arguments from the
| supposed genetic peculiarity of the Sami towards this end.
| But if so, they didn't keep their language and culture, that
| has origins in the east.
|
| I think those genetic arguments are fishy anyway, it's just a
| little too convenient for (Sami) nationalistic narratives.
|
| To be clear, I don't think the possibility that (proto-)samic
| speakers arrived in Scaninavia at more or less the same time
| as indo-european speakers, is in ANY way an argument against
| recognition and protection of Sami language and culture. That
| should not in any way rest on some Neolithic blood quantum
| thing.
|
| In Norway, recognition is based on language, you can register
| in the Sami rolls if you speak Sami at home or your parents
| or grandparents (possibly great-grandparents too now) used
| to. That's the right way in my opinion, not genetics.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I think language should not be a requirement either. It's
| complicated, one can identify with a group despite having
| lost the language some generation(s) ago.
|
| Agree 100% on the other points.
| vintermann wrote:
| The issue is that there are only about 30000 Sami.
|
| That means that if even 0.5% of non-Sami Norwegians
| decided to suddenly identify with them, we'd swamp them.
| With whatever caricatured, romanticized, self-serving
| idea of Samishness we came up with.
|
| So I think the three (or is it two?) generations rule is
| sensible. Yes, you don't have to speak Sami to be Sami,
| but if not even one of your great-grandparents could
| speak Sami, then your connection to the culture is
| tenuous enough that you should make some effort yourself
| (I.e. learn the language yourself) before you start
| getting into internal Sami politics.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Some context on dialects that I read, though I want to emphasize
| that it doesn't invalidate the OP or dialect research in general,
| it (hopefully) informs our understanding of it:
|
| _" There are no such things as dialects. Or rather, 'a dialect'
| does not exist as a discrete entity. Attempts to delimit a
| dialect by topographical, political or administrative boundaries
| ignore the obvious fact that within any such boundaries there
| will be variation for some features, while other variants will
| cross the borders (Laing and Lass 2006: 417). / ... / A dialect
| atlas is, at least in part, a set of maps showing the
| distribution of linguistic features in space. Whether modern or
| historical, it is not made up, however, of static displays of
| dots or boundary markers on regional maps. Rather, it shows a
| continuum of overlapping distributions, where 'dialects' are
| assemblages of regional features that vary from map to map both
| spatially and temporally. This is because language change, like
| biological change, occurs differentially in different spatial
| settings. Change over time involves the vagaries of language use
| and thus introduces a necessary social dimension. Dialectology
| therefore operates on three planes: space, time and speech
| community."_
|
| http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/laeme2/laeme_intro_ch1.html
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