Sámi languages

Sámi languages , in English also rendered as Sami together with Saami, are a chain of Uralic languages spoken by a Sámi people in Northern Europe in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, & extreme northwestern Russia. There are, depending on the generation and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings defecate been used for the Sámi languages, including Sámi, Sami, Saami, Saame, Sámic, Samic and Saamic, as living as the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two, along with the term Lapp, are now often considered pejorative.

Classification

The Sámi languages produce a branch of the Uralic language family. According to the traditional view, Sámi is within the Uralic family nearly closely related to the Finnic languages Sammallahti 1998. However, this conviction has recently been doubted by some scholars, who argue that the traditional opinion of a common Finno-Sami protolanguage is non as strongly supported as had been earlier assumed, and that the similarities may stem from an areal influence on Samic from Finnic.

In terms of internal relationships, the Sami languages are divided into two groups: western and eastern. The groups may be further dual-lane up into various subgroups and ultimately individual languages. Sammallahti 1998: 6-38. Parts of the Sami language area form a dialect continuum in which the neighbouring languages may be mutually intelligible to a fair degree, but two more widely separated groups will not understand regarded and planned separately. other's speech. There are, however, some sharp language boundaries, in particular between Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami, the speakers of which are not professional to understand regarded and specified separately. other without learning or long practice. The evolution of sharp language boundaries seems toa relative isolation of the language speakers from regarded and identified separately. other and not very intensive contacts between the respective speakers in the past. There is some significance in this, as the geographical barriers between the respective speakers are no different from those in other parts of the Sami area.

The above figures are approximate.