Northern Sami language

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Northern Sami
Region Norway, Sweden, Finland
Native speakers
21,000  (1992)[1]
Latin (Northern Sami alphabet)
Northern Sami Braille
Official status
Recognised minority language in
Finland; Norway; Sweden[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-1 se
ISO 639-2 sme
ISO 639-3 sme
Glottolog nort2671[3]
Northern Sami is 5 on this map.

Northern or North Sami (davvisámegiella; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2000 of these live in Finland[4] and between 5000 and 6000 in Sweden.[5]




The roots of the current orthography for Northern Sami were laid by Rasmus Rask who, after discussions with Nils Vibe Stockfleth, published Ræsonneret lappisk sproglære efter den sprogart, som bruges af fjældlapperne i Porsangerfjorden i Finmarken. En omarbejdelse af Prof. Knud Leems Lappiske grammatica in 1832. Rask felt that the orthography should be based on the principle of one sound–one letter. All of the orthographies that have been used for Northern Sami trace their roots back to Rask's system, unlike the orthographies used for Lule and Southern Sami, which are mainly based on the orthographical conventions of Swedish and Norwegian. Following in the tradition of Rask meant that diacritics were used with some consonants (č, đ, ŋ, š, ŧ and ž), which caused data-processing problems before Unicode was introduced. Both Stockfleth and J.A. Friis went on to publish grammar books and dictionaries for Sami. It can be said that Northern Sami was better described than Norwegian was before Ivar Aasen published his grammar on Norwegian.



In Sweden, classes were taught in Sami in the Sami schools, as the policy of Lapp ska vara lapp (Sami should be a Sami) was applied to those reindeer herders with the intention of keeping them separated from larger society. In 1979, an official orthography for Northern Sami was adopted for use in Norway, Sweden and Finland.





Zero stress can be said to be a feature of conjunctions, postpositions, particles, and monosyllabic pronouns.


Northern Sami is an SVO language.


Northern Sami has a long orthographic history, which has witnessed no less than 9 Latin alphabets. The most recent alphabet was approved in 1979 and last modified in 1985:

Sami Letter's Name IPA English Approximation
A a a /ɑ/ spa
Á á á /a/ chai
B b be /b/ bat
C c ce /ts/ lets
Č č če /tʃ/ chew
D d de /d/ do
Đ đ đe /ð/ this
E e e /e/ sleigh
F f áf /f/ fun
G g ge /ɡ/ go
H h ho /h/ help
I i i /i/ me
J j je /j/ yes
K k ko /k/ cat
L l ál /l/ lip
M m ám /m/ myth
N n án /n/ no
Ŋ ŋ áŋ /ŋ/ sing
O o o /o/ go
P p pe /p/ park
R r ár /r/ (trilled) rat
S s ás /s/ sip
Š š áš /ʃ/ shed
T t te /t/ told
Ŧ ŧ ŧe /θ/ thick
U u u /u/ do
V v ve /v/ vex
Z z ez /dz/ rods
Ž ž /dʒ/ joke

An acute accent was placed over the corresponding Latin letter to represent the letters particular to Northern Sami (Áá Čč Đđ Ŋŋ Šš Ŧŧ Žž) when typing when there was no way of entering these letters correctly otherwise.[6] These substitutions are still found in books printed after the common orthography was adopted due to system limitations when typing.


  1. Maanat leät poahtan skuvllai.
  2. Mánát leat boahtán skuvlii.

(The children have come to school.)



Northern Sami can be divided into four major dialect groups: Torne, East Finnmark, West Finnmark (written standard) and Sea Sami.




Northern Sami has 7 cases in the singular, although the genitive and accusative are identical, so some people might state that it only has 6 cases:

The form taken by the essive (marker: -n) is the same in the singular and in the plural, i.e., mánnán (as a child/as children).


The personal pronouns have three numbers - singular, dual, and plural. The next two tables contain the personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases, respectively.

Nominative singular dual plural English
1st person nom mun moai mii I
2nd person nom don doai dii you (thou)
3rd person nom son soai sii he, she
Genitive/Accusative singular dual plural English
1st person gen mu munno min my
2nd person gen du dudno din your, yours
3rd person gen su sudno sin his, her

The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun he/she (no gender distinction) in various cases:

  Singular Dual Plural
Nominative son soai sii
Genitive-Accusative su sudno sin
Locative sus sudnos sis
Illative sutnje sudnuide sidjiide
Comitative suinna sudnuin singuin
Essive sunin sudnon sinin



Northern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

  • first person
  • second person
  • third person


Northern Sami has 4 grammatical moods:

Grammatical number[edit]

Northern Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:


Northern Sami has 2 simple tenses:

and 2 compound tenses:

Verbal nouns[edit]

Negative verb[edit]

Northern Sami, like other Uralic languages, has a negative verb that conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural).

  Ind. pres. Imperative Optative Supinum?
  sg. du. pl.     sg. du. pl.     sg. du. pl.     sg. du. pl.
1 in ean eat 1 - - - 1 allom allu allot 1 aman amame amamet
2 it eahppi ehpet 2 ale alli allet 2 ale alli allet 2 amat amade amadet
3 ii eaba eai 3 - - - 3 allos alloska alloset 3 amas amaska amaset

The negative verb in Northern Sami does not conjugate according to tense.


  1. ^ Northern Sami at Ethnologue (17th ed., 2013)
  3. ^ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Northern Sami". Glottolog 2.2. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 
  4. ^ "Samediggi - Saamelaiskäräjät - Sámi language". Retrieved 2008-09-21. 
  5. ^ "The Sami dialects". Retrieved 2008-09-21. 

External links[edit]