Saami

From UniLang Wiki

Saami is a collective name for a group of closely related languages (actually, a dialect continuum) and for their speakers, a culture in Northern Europe, originally populating a wide area from south central Norway and Sweden, up across northern Finland and eastward into the Russian Kola peninsula.

The Saami languages belong to the Uralic language family, within which they are more closely related to Finnish. In older terminology the Saami language and culture were referred to as "Lappish", which is nowadays considered derogatory.

Through the last centuries the Saami language and culture have become minorities in their respective national states. Nowadays Saami is only spoken as a community language in some areas of Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland.

This Wiki is supposed to present an overview of Saami grammar, a bit of language history and socio-linguistic information. It will certainly grow slowly, but hopefully steadily ;) (Please note: Additions to this Wiki might happen in a rather random way, not systematically.)

Intended contents (first brainstorming):

• Classification (external and internal relationships)
• Historical development
• Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Loan-words
• Language situation today / language politics
• Saami literature