#sami languages

İbranice’de özellikle bir vurgu seziliyor, erkeğin gelişi ve kadının gelişi çok farklı anlamlar buluyor kendi içinde. Genizden çıkan ikinci bir a’ya ihtiyaç zuhur buluyor.

בא (ba) - "comes"  באה (ba'a) - "comes" 

Arapça’da ise fiilin çekimi kadın ya da erkeğin söyleyip söylemediğine göre değişiyor. Her cümle kuruşunda kadın olduğunu hatırlamak? Farklı olduğunu ve farklı tutulman gerektiğini benimsemek.. Bütün bunlar diğer başka duygu ve düşünce sellerine çağırıyor ve sebep eyliyor, en başından. 

Many publications - even linguistic ones! - speak of one “Sami language,” either meaning Northern Sami or grouping all of the nine languages together. When speaking of the future of the Sami languages it is really important to acknowledge that because there are nine different living languages in the group of Sami languages, there are also nine different situations we should observe. The languages are spoken in four different states and the speakers have different rights in each state as well. The speakers are most often bilingual.

Some of the information is over two decades old, and thus might be outdated. Different sources give different numbers, which is also a problem. (Main source: Ethnologue)

There are more people, who consider themselves to be Sami than there are speakers of the Sami languages, but the Sami languages form an essential part of the Sami culture. One could say that if the languages are in a crisis, so is the culture. Co-operation over linguistic and governmental borders is required in order to save the languages.

Inari Sami is an endangered Uralic language spoken only in the area of Finland by the lake Inari. It has never had more than a thousand speakers, and currently the amount of speakers is about 300. The amount of speakers has shrunk quickly during the last decades, and the fact that education has mostly been available in Finnish has unfortunately contributed to the language shift. Nowadays about one third of the Inari Sami people speak the language, but the future seems hopeful, as a language nest project has been founded and education in Inari Sami as well as studying it as a second language in schools is now possible. The speakers call their language anarâškielâ.

Inari Sami is 7. on the map. It is the only language in the Wolrd spoken exclusively in Finland. (Commons)

Inari Sami writing ortography was stabilized in the 1980s, and before the 20th century an official writing system of any sort didn’t exist, although literature, mostly translations, had been published before. The first book written in Inari Sami, published in 1859, was Anar sämi kiela aapis kirje ja doctor Martti Lutherus Ucca katkismus by Edvard Wilhelm Borg. Some novels have been written in Inari Sami among other publications, but there is a shortage of learning materials, which is usual for an endangered language.

Inari Sami uses modified Latin script.

A page from  Anar sämi kiela aapis kirje ja doctor Martti Lutherus Ucca katkismus. The images depict animals and next to them is a description of each animal’s actions in Finnish and in Inari Sami. (Commons)

Inari Sami is an aglutinative language and has nine cases, which is typical for a Uralic language. It has a dual number for nouns and a dual case for verbs in addition to singular and plural. It has five moods and a negative verb similar to Finnish.

Here you can listen to a story told by Iisakki Paadar in Inari Sami.