Skolt Sámi

Skolt Sámi
nuõrttsääʹmǩiõll
Pronunciation	[nuɘrʰtːɕa̟ːmʰc͡çiɘlː]
Native to	Finland, Russia
Ethnicity	Skolts
Native speakers	c. 330 (2002-2023)
Language family	Uralic Sámi Eastern Mainland Skolt Sámi
Dialects	Northern: Neiden Paatsjoki Southern: Njuõʹttjäuʹrr Suõʹnnʼjel
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sms
ISO 639-3	sms
Glottolog	skol1241
ELP	Skolt Saami
Glottopedia	Skolt_Saami
Skolt Sámi language area (red) within Sápmi (grey)
Skolt Sámi is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010)

Skolt Sámi (sääʹmǩiõll, pronounced [ɕa̟ːmʰc͡çiɘlː], lit. 'the Sámi language'; or nuõrttsääʹmǩiõll, pronounced [nuɘrʰtːɕa̟ːmʰc͡çiɘlː], lit. 'the Eastern Sámi language') is a Uralic, Sámi language that is spoken by the Skolts, with approximately 300 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõʹttjäuʹrr (Notozero) dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. In Norway, there are fewer than 15 that can speak Skolt Sámi (as of 2023); furthermore, the language is largely spoken in the Neiden area. It is written using a modified Roman orthography which was made official in 1973.

The term Skolt was coined by representatives of the majority culture and has negative connotation which can be compared to the term Lapp. Nevertheless, it is used in cultural and linguistic studies. In 2024, Venke Törmänen, the leader of an NGO called Norrõs Skoltesamene, wrote in Ságat, a Sámi newspaper, saying that the term "Eastern Sámi" ("Östsame" in Norwegian) should not be used to refer to the Skolt Sámi.

Sámi dialects and settlements in Russia:

  Skolt (Russian Notozersky)

History

Resettlement of the Skolt Sami from Petsamo

Road sign for the Äʹvv Skolt Sámi Museum in Neiden, Norway. Starting at the top, the lines are in Norwegian, Skolt Sámi, and Finnish.

On Finnish territory Skolt Sámi was spoken in four villages before the Second World War. In Petsamo, Skolt Sámi was spoken in Suonikylä and the village of Petsamo. This area was ceded to Russia in the Second World War, and the Skolts were evacuated to the villages of Inari, Sevettijärvi and Nellim in the Inari municipality.

On the Russian (then Soviet) side the dialect was spoken in the now defunct Sámi settlements of Motovsky, Songelsky, Notozero (hence its Russian name – the Notozersky dialect). Some speakers still may live in the villages of Tuloma and Lovozero.

In Norwegian territory, Skolt Sámi was spoken in the Sør-Varanger area with a cultural centre in the village of Neiden. The language is not spoken as mother tongue anymore in Norway.

Status

A quadrilingual street sign in Inari in (from top to bottom) Finnish, Northern Saami, Inari Saami, and Skolt Saami. Inari is the only municipality in Finland with 4 official languages.

The village workshop in Sevettijärvi

Finland

In Finland, Skolt Sámi is spoken by approximately 300 or 400 people. According to Finland's Sámi Language Act (1086/2003), Skolt Sámi is one of the three Sámi languages that the Sámi can use when conducting official business in Lapland. It is an official language in the municipality of Inari, and elementary schools there offer courses in the language, both for native speakers and for students learning it as a foreign language. Only a small number of youths learn the language and continue to use it actively. Skolt Sámi is thus a seriously endangered language, even more seriously than Inari Sámi, which has a nearly equal number of speakers and is even spoken in the same municipality. In addition, there are a lot of Skolts living outside of this area, particularly in the capital region.

Use

Media

From 1978 to 1986, the Skolts had a quarterly called Sääʹmođđâz published in their own language. Since 2013, a new magazine called Tuõddri peeʹrel has been published once a year.

The Finnish news program Yle Ođđasat featured a Skolt Sámi speaking newsreader for the first time on August 26, 2016. Otherwise Yle Ođđasat presents individual news stories in Skolt Sámi every now and then. In addition, there have been various TV programs in Skolt Sámi on YLE such as the children's TV series Binnabánnaš.

Religion

The first book published in Skolt Sámi was an Eastern Orthodox prayer book (Risttoummi moʹlidvaǩeʹrjj, Prayerbook for the Orthodox) in 1983. Translation of the Gospel of John was published (Evvan evaŋǧeʹlium) in 1988 and Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom (Pââʹss Eʹččen Evvan Krysostomoozz Liturgia, Liturgy of our Holy Father John Chrysostom) was published in 2002 Skolt Sámi is used together with Finnish in worship of the Lappi Orthodox Parish (Lappi ortodookslaž sieʹbrrkåʹdd) at churches of Ivalo, Sevettijärvi and Nellim.

Music

Like Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi has recently borne witness to a new phenomenon, namely it is being used in rock songs sung by Tiina Sanila-Aikio, who has published two full-length CDs in Skolt Sámi to date.

Education

In 1993, language nest programs for children younger than 7 were created. For quite some time these programs received intermittent funding, resulting in some children being taught Skolt Sámi, while others were not. In spite of all the issues these programs faced, they were crucial in creating the youngest generations of Skolt Sámi speakers. In recent years, these programs have been reinstated.

In addition, 2005 was the first time that it was possible to use Skolt Sámi in a Finnish matriculation exam, albeit as a foreign language. In 2012, Ville-Riiko Fofonoff (Skolt Sami: Läärvan-Oʹlssi-Peâtt-Rijggu-Vääʹsǩ-Rijggu-Ville-Reeiǥaž) was the first person to use Skolt Sámi for the mother tongue portion of the exam; for this, he won the Skolt of the Year Award the same year.

Writing system

In 1973, an official, standardized orthography for Skolt Sámi was introduced based on the Suõʹnnʼjel dialect. Since then, it has been widely accepted with a few small modifications. The Skolt Sámi orthography uses the ISO basic Latin alphabet with the addition of a few special characters:

Letter	Phoneme(s)	Letter	Phoneme(s)	Letter	Phoneme(s)
A a	/ɑ/	Ǧ ǧ	/ɟ͡ʝ/	Õ õ	/ɘ/
 â	/ɐ/	Ǥ ǥ	/ɣ/	P p	/p/
B b	/b/	H h	/x/	R r	/r/
C c	/t͡s/	I i	/i/, /j/	S s	/s/
Č č	/t͡ʃ/	J j	/ʝ/	Š š	/ʃ/
Ʒ ʒ	/d͡z/	K k	/k/	T t	/t/
Ǯ ǯ	/d͡ʒ/	Ǩ ǩ	/c͡ç/	U u	/u/, /w/
D d	/d/	L l	/l/	V v	/v/
Đ đ	/ð/	M m	/m/	Z z	/z/
E e	/e/, /ɛ/	N n	/n/	Ž ž	/ʒ/
F f	/f/	Ŋ ŋ	/ŋ/	Å å	/ɔ/
G g	/ɡ/	O o	/o/	Ä ä	/a/

Notes:

• The letters Q/q, W/w, X/x, Y/y and Ö/ö are also used, although only in foreign words or loans. As in Finnish and Swedish Ü/ü is alphabetized as y, not u.
• No difference is made in the standard orthography between /e/ and /ɛ/. In dictionaries, grammars and other reference works, the letter ⟨ẹ⟩ is used to indicate /ɛ/.
• The diagraphs ⟨lj⟩ and ⟨nj⟩ indicate the consonants /ʎ/ and /ɲ/ respectively.

Additional marks are used in writing Skolt Sámi words:

• A prime symbol ʹ (U+02B9 MODIFIER LETTER PRIME) is added after the vowel of a syllable to indicate suprasegmental palatalization. Occasionally a standalone acute accent ´ or ˊ (U+00B4 ACUTE ACCENT or U+02CA MODIFIER LETTER ACUTE ACCENT) is used, but this is not correct.
• An apostrophe ʼ (U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE) is used in the combinations ⟨lʼj⟩ and ⟨nʼj⟩ to indicate that these are two separate sounds, not a single sound. It is also placed between identical consonants to indicate that they belong to separate prosodic feet, and should not be combined into a geminate. It distinguishes e.g. lueʹštted "to set free" from its causative lueʹštʼted "to cause to set free".
• A hyphen – is used in compound words when there are two identical consonants at the juncture between the parts of the compound, e.g. ǩiõtt-tel "mobile phone".
• A vertical line ˈ (U+02C8 MODIFIER LETTER VERTICAL LINE), typewriter apostrophe or other similar mark indicates that a geminate consonant is long, and the preceding diphthong is short. It is placed between a pair of identical consonants which are always preceded by a diphthong. This mark is not used in normal Skolt Sámi writing, but it appears in dictionaries, grammars and other reference works.

Phonology

Special features of this Sámi language include a highly complex vowel system and a suprasegmental contrast of palatalized vs. non-palatalized stress groups; palatalized stress groups are indicated by a "softener mark", represented by the modifier letter prime (ʹ).

Vowels

The system of vowel phonemes is as follows:

	front	central	back
close	i		u
close-mid	e	ɘ	o
open-mid	ɛ	ɐ	ɔ
open	a		ɑ

Skolt Sámi has vowel length, but it co-occurs with contrasts in length of the following consonant(s). For example, leʹtt ‘vessel’ vs. leeʹtt ‘vessels’.

The vowels can combine to form twelve opening diphthongs:

	front	front to central	back to front	back to central	back
close to close-mid	ie	iɘ	ue	uɘ
close to open-mid	iɛ	iɐ	uɛ	uɐ	uɔ
close to open			ua
close-mid to open-mid		eɐ
close-mid to open	ea

Like the monophthongs, all diphthongs can be short or long, but this is not indicated in spelling. Short diphthongs are distinguished from long ones by both length and stress placement: short diphthongs have a stressed second component, whereas long diphthongs have stress on the first component.

Diphthongs may also have two variants depending on whether they occur in a plain or palatalized environment. This has a clearer effect with diphthongs whose second element is back or central. Certain inflectional forms, including the addition of the palatalizing suprasegmental, also trigger a change in diphthong quality.

plain	palatalized
iõ	iõʹ
iâ	ieʹ
eâ	eäʹ
eä
uõ	uõʹ
uå	ueʹ
uâ
uä	uäʹ

Consonants

The inventory of consonant phonemes is the following:

		Labial	Dental / Alveolar		Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
			plain	sibilant	sibilant
Nasal		m	n			ɲ	ŋ
Plosive / affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡s	t͡ʃ	c͡ç	k
	voiced	b	d	d͡z	d͡ʒ	ɟ͡ʝ	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f		s	ʃ		x
	voiced	v	ð	z	ʒ	ʝ	ɣ
Trill			r
Approximant	central	w				j
	lateral		l			ʎ

• Unvoiced stops and affricates are pronounced preaspirated after vowels and sonorant consonants.
• Voiced stops and affricates are usually pronounced just weakly voiced.
• Older speakers realize the palatal affricates /c͡ç, ɟ͡ʝ/ as plosives [c, ɟ].
• In younger speakers, /t͡ʃ/ merges into /ʃ/, /ð/ into /z/, and /l/ into /w/.
• In initial position, /x/ is realized as glottal [h].

Consonants may be phonemically short or long (geminate) both word-medially or word-finally; both are exceedingly common. Long and short consonants also contrast in consonant clusters, cf. kuõskkâd 'to touch' : kuõskam 'I touch'. A short period of voicelessness or h, known as preaspiration, before geminate consonants is observed, much as in Icelandic, but this is not marked orthographically, e.g. joʹǩǩe 'to the river' is pronounced [jo̟ʰcc͡çe].

Suprasegmentals

There is one phonemic suprasegmental, the palatalizing suprasegmental that affects the pronunciation of an entire syllable. In written language the palatalizing suprasegmental is indicated with a free-standing acute accent between a stressed vowel and the following consonant, as follows:

vääʹrr 'mountain, hill' (suprasegmental palatalization present)

cf. väärr 'trip' (no suprasegmental palatalization)

The suprasegmental palatalization has three distinct phonetic effects:

• The stressed vowel is pronounced as slightly more fronted in palatalized syllables than in non-palatalized ones.
• When the palatalizing suprasegmental is present, the following consonant or consonant cluster is pronounced as weakly palatalized. Suprasegmental palatalization is independent of segmental palatals: inherently palatal consonants (i.e. consonants with palatal place of articulation) such as the palatal glide /j/, the palatal nasal /ɲ/ (spelled ⟨nj⟩) and the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ (spelled ⟨lj⟩) can occur both in non-palatalized and suprasegmentally palatalized syllables.
• If the word form is monosyllabic and ends in a consonant, a non-phonemic weakly voiced or unvoiced vowel is pronounced after the final consonant. This vowel is e-colored if suprasegmental palatalization is present, but a-colored if not.

Stress

Skolt Sámi has four different types of stress for words:

• Primary stress
• Secondary stress
• Tertiary stress
• Zero stress

The first syllable of any word is always the primary stressed syllable in Skolt Sámi as Skolt is a fixed-stress language. In words with two or more syllables, the final syllable is quite lightly stressed (tertiary stress) and the remaining syllable, if any, are stressed more heavily than the final syllable, but less than the first syllable (secondary stress).

Using the abessive and the comitative singular in a word appears to disrupt this system, however, in words of more than one syllable. The suffix, as can be expected, has tertiary stress, but the penultimate syllable also has tertiary stress, even though it would be expected to have secondary stress.

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

Grammar

Skolt Sámi is a synthetic, highly inflected language that shares many grammatical features with the other Uralic languages. However, Skolt Sámi is not a typical agglutinative language like many of the other Uralic languages are, as it has developed considerably into the direction of a fusional language, much like Estonian. Therefore, cases and other grammatical features are also marked by modifications to the root and not just marked with suffixes. Many of the suffixes in Skolt Sámi are portmanteau morphemes that express several grammatical features at a time.

Umlaut

Umlaut is a pervasive phenomenon in Skolt Sámi, whereby the vowel in the second syllable affects the quality of the vowel in the first. The presence or absence of palatalisation can also be considered an umlaut effect, since it is also conditioned by the second-syllable vowel, although it affects the entire syllable rather than the vowel alone. Umlaut is complicated by the fact that many of the second-syllable vowels have disappeared in Skolt Sámi, leaving the umlaut effects as their only trace.

The following table lists the Skolt Sámi outcomes of the Proto-Samic first-syllable vowel, for each second-syllable vowel.

Proto	*ā, *ō	*ē	*ë, *u	*i
Skolt	a	e	â, u	e
*ë	â	âʹ	õ	õʹ
*o	å	åʹ	o	oʹ
*i	e	eʹ	i	iʹ
*u	o	uʹ	u	uʹ
*ā	ä	äʹ	a	aʹ
*ea	eä	eäʹ, iẹʹ	iâ	ieʹ
*ie	eâ	ieʹ	iõ	iõʹ
*oa	uä	uäʹ, uẹʹ	uå	ueʹ
*uo	uâ	ueʹ	uõ	uõʹ

Some notes:

• iẹʹ and uẹʹ appear before a quantity 2 consonant, eäʹ and uäʹ otherwise.

As can be seen, palatalisation is present before original second-syllable *ē and *i, and absent otherwise. Where they survive in Skolt Sámi, both appear as e, so only the umlaut effect can distinguish them. The original short vowels *ë, *u and *i have a general raising and backing effect on the preceding vowel, while the effect of original *ā and *ō is lowering. Original *ē is fronting (palatalising) without having an effect on height.

Nouns

Cases

Skolt Sámi has 9 cases in the singular (7 of which also have a plural form), although the genitive and accusative are often the same.

The following table shows the inflection of čuäcc ('rotten snag') with the single morphemes marking noun stem, number, and case separated by hyphens for better readability. The last morpheme marks for case, i marks the plural, and a is due to epenthesis and does not have a meaning of its own.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	čuäcc [t͡ʃuatt͡s]	čuäʒʒ [t͡ʃuadd͡z]
Genitive	čuäʒʒ [t͡ʃuadd͡z]	čuäʒʒ-a-i [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑj]
Accusative		čuäʒʒ-a-i-d [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑjd]
Illative	čuåc'c-u [t͡ʃuɔʰtt͡su]
Locative	čuäʒʒ-a-st [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑst]	čuäʒʒ-a-i-n [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑjn]
Comitative	čuäʒʒ-a-in [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑjn]	čuäʒʒ-a-i-vuiʹm [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑjvʲu̟i̟m]
Abessive	čuäʒʒ-tää [t͡ʃuadd͡ztaː]	čuäʒʒ-a-i-tää [t͡ʃuadd͡zɑjtaː]
Essive	čuäcc-a-n [t͡ʃuaʰtt͡sɑn]	–
Partitive	čuäcc-a-d [t͡ʃuaʰtt͡sɑd]	–

Nominative

Like the other Uralic languages, the nominative singular is unmarked and indicates the subject or a predicate. The nominative plural is also unmarked and always looks the same as the genitive singular.

Genitive

The genitive singular is unmarked and looks the same as the nominative plural. The genitive plural is marked by an -i. The genitive is used:

• to indicate possession (Tuʹst lij muu ǩeʹrjj.' 'You have my book.' where muu is gen.)
• to indicate number, if said the number is between 2 and 6. (Sieʹzzest lij kuõʹhtt põõrt. 'My father's sister (my aunt) has two houses.', where põõrt is gen.)
• with prepositions (rääi + [GEN]: 'by something', 'beyond something')
• with most postpositions. (Sij mõʹnne ääkkäd årra. 'They went to your grandmother's (house).', 'They went to visit your grandmother.', where ääkkäd is gen)

The genitive has been replacing the partitive for some time and is nowadays more commonly used in its place.

Accusative

The accusative is the direct object case and it is unmarked in the singular. In the plural, its marker is -d, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural illative. The accusative is also used to mark some adjuncts, e.g. obb tääʹlv ('the entire winter').

Locative

The locative marker in the singular is -st and -n in the plural. This case is used to indicate:

• where something is (Kuäʹđest lij ǩeʹrjj: 'There is a book in the kota.')
• where it is coming from (Niõđ puõʹtte domoi Čeʹvetjääuʹrest: 'The girls came home from Sevettijärvi.')
• who has possession of something (Suʹst lij čâustõk: 'He/she has a lasso.')

In addition, it is used with certain verbs:

• to ask someone s.t. : kõõččâd [+loc]

Illative

The illative marker actually has three different markers in the singular to represent the same case: -a, -e and -u. The plural illative marker is -d, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural accusative. This case is used to indicate:

• where something is going
• who is receiving something
• the indirect object

Comitative

The comitative marker in the singular is -in and -vuiʹm in the plural. The comitative is used to state with whom or what something was done:

• Njääʹlm sekstet leeiʹnin. The mouth is wiped with a piece of cloth.
• Vuõʹlǧǧem paaʹrnivuiʹm ceerkvest. I left church with the children.
• Vuõʹlǧǧem vueʹbbinan ceerkvest. I left church with my sister.

To form the comitative singular, use the genitive singular form of the word as the root and -i'. To form the comitative plural, use the plural genitive root and -vuiʹm.

Abessive

The abessive marker is -tää in both the singular and the plural. It always has a tertiary stress.

• Vuõʹlǧǧem paaʹrnitää ceerkvest. I left church without the children.
• Sij mõʹnne niõđtää põʹrtte. They went in the house without the girl.
• Sij mõʹnne niõđitää põʹrtte. They went in the house without the girls.

Essive

The dual form of the essive is still used with pronouns, but not with nouns and does not appear at all in the plural.

Partitive

The partitive is only used in the singular and can be replaced by the genitive in most cases. The partitive marker is -d.

1. It appears after numbers larger than six:

• kääuʹc čâustõkkâd: 'eight lassos'

This can be replaced with kääʹuc čâustõõǥǥ.

2. It is also used with certain postpositions:

• kuäʹtte'd vuâstta: 'against a kota'

This can be replaced with kuäʹđ vuâstta

3. It can be used with the comparative to express that which is being compared:

• kåʹlled pueʹrab: 'better than gold'

This would nowadays more than likely be replaced by pueʹrab ko kåʹll

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns have three numbers: singular, plural and dual. The following table contains personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases.

	singular	dual	plural
	nominative
1st person	mon	muäna	mij
2nd person	ton	tuäna	tij
3rd person	son	suäna	sij
	genitive
1st person	muu	muännai	mij
2nd person	tuu	tuännai	tij
3rd person	suu	suännai	sij

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

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	son	suäna	sij
Genitive	suu	suännai	sij
Accusative	suu	suännaid	siʹjjid
Illative	suʹnne	suännaid	siʹjjid
Locative	suʹst	suännast	siiʹst
Comitative	suin	suännain	siʹjjivuiʹm
Abessive	suutää	suännaitää	siʹjjitää
Essive	suuʹnen	suännan	–
Partitive	suuʹđed	–	–

Possessive markers

Next to number and case, Skolt Sámi nouns also inflect for possession. However, usage of possessive affixes seems to decrease among speakers. The following table shows possessive inflection of the word muõrr ('tree').

			Possessor
			1st person		2nd person		3rd person
			Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Possessed	Singular	Nominative	muõrram	muõrrâm	muõrrad	muõrrâd	muõrrâs	muõrrâz
		Accusative/ Genitive	muõrran	muõrrân	muõrad	muõrâd	muõrâs	muõrâz
		Illative	muõrˈrsan	muõrˈrseen	muõrˈrsad	muõrˈrseed	muõrˈrses	muõrˈrseez
		Locative	muõrstan	muõrsteen	muõrstad	muõrsteed	muõrstes	muõrsteez
		Comitative	muõrinan	muõrineen	muõrinad	muõrineed	muõrines	muõrineez
		Abessive	muõrrantää	muõrrântää	muõradtää	muõrâdtää	muõrâstää	muõrâztää
		Essive	muõrˈrnan	muõrˈrneen	muõrˈrnad	muõrˈrneed	muõrˈrnes	muõrˈrneez
	Plural	Nominative	muõrran	muõrrân	muõrad	muõrâd	muõrâs	muõrâz
		Accusative/ Genitive/ Illative	muõrrään	muõreen	muõrääd	muõreed	muõrees	muõreez
		Locative	muõrinan	muõrineen	muõrinad	muõrineed	muõrines	muõrineez
		Comitative	muõräänvuiʹm	muõreenvuiʹm	muõräädvuiʹm	muõreedvuiʹm	muõreesvuiʹm	muõreezvuiʹm
		Abessive	muõrääntää	muõreentää	muõräädtää	muõreedtää	muõreestää	muõreeztää

Verbs

Skolt Sámi verbs inflect (inflection of verbs is also referred to as conjugation) for person, mood, number, and tense. A full inflection table of all person-marked forms of the verb kuullâd ('to hear') is given below.

	Non-past	Past	Potential	Conditional	Imperative
1st Person Singular	kuulam	kuʹllem	kuulžem	kuulčem	-
2nd P. Sg.	kuulak	kuʹlliǩ	kuulžiǩ	kuulčiǩ	kuul
3rd P. Sg.	kooll	kuuli	kuulâž	kuulči	koolas
1st Person Plural	kuullâp	kuulim	kuulžep	kuulčim	kuullâp
2nd P. Pl.	kuullveʹted	kuulid	kuulžid	kuulčid	kuullâd
3rd P. Pl.	koʹlle	kuʹlle	kuulže	kuulče	kollaz
4th Person	kuulât	kuʹlleš	kuulžet	kuulčeš	-

It can be seen that inflection involves changes to the verb stem as well as inflectional suffixes. Changes to the stem are based on verbs being categorized into several inflectional classes. The different inflectional suffixes are based on the categories listed below.

Person

Skolt Sámi verbs conjugate for four grammatical persons:

• first person
• second person
• third person
• fourth person, also called the indefinite person

Mood

Skolt Sámi has 5 grammatical moods:

• indicative
• imperative (Pueʹtted sõrgg domoi! 'Come home soon!')
• conditional
• potential
• optative

Number

Skolt Sámi verbs conjugate for two grammatical numbers:

• singular
• plural

Unlike other Sámi varieties, Skolt Sámi verbs do not inflect for dual number. Instead, verbs occurring with the dual personal pronouns appear in the corresponding plural form.

Tense

Skolt Sámi has 2 simple tenses:

• past (Puõʹttem škoouʹle jåhtta. 'I came to school yesterday.')
• non-past (Evvan puätt mu årra täʹbbe. 'John is coming to my house today.')

and 2 compound tenses:

• perfect
• pluperfect

Non-finite verb forms

The verb forms given above are person-marked, also referred to as finite. In addition to the finite forms, Skolt Sámi verbs have twelve participial and converb forms, as well as the infinitive, which are non-finite. These forms are given in the table below for the verb kuullâd ('to hear').

	Verb form
Infinitive	kuullâd
Action Participle	kuullâm
Present Participle	kuulli
Past Participle	kuullâm
Passive Participle	kullum
Progressive Participle	kuullmen
Temporal Participle	kuuleen
Instrumental Participle	kulleeʹl
Abessive Participle	kuulkani
Negative converb	kuul, kullu (indicative and imperative mood, form depending on which person) kuulže (potential mood) kuulče (conditional mood)

Auxiliary verbs

Skolt Sámi has two auxiliary verbs, one of which is leeʹd (glossed as 'to be'), the other one is the negative auxiliary verb (see the following paragraph).

Inflection of leeʹd is given below.

	Non-past	Past	Potential	Conditional	Imperative
1st Person Singular	leäm	leʹjjem	leʹžžem	leʹččem	–
2nd P. Sg.	leäk	leʹjjiǩ	leʹžžiǩ	leʹččiǩ	leäkku
3rd P. Sg.	lij	leäi	leeʹžž	leʹčči	leäǥǥas
1st Person Plural	leäʹp	leeiʹm	leʹžžep	leʹččim	leäkkap
2nd P. Pl.	leäʹped	leeiʹd	leʹžžveʹted	leʹččid	leäkku
3rd P. Pl.	lie, liâ (both forms exist, they underlie idiolectal variation)	leʹjje	leʹžže	leʹčče	leäkkaz
4th Person	leät	leʹjješ	leʹžžet	leʹččeš	–

Lee'd is used, for example, to assign tense to lexical verbs in the conditional or potential mood which are not marked for tense themselves:

• Jiõm âʹte mon ni kõõjjče, jos mon teâđčem, leʹččem veär raajjâm ouddâl.

(negation (1st P. Sg.) – then – 1st P. Sg. – even – ask (negated conditional) – if – 1st P. Sg. – know (1st P. Sg. conditional) – be (1st P. Sg. conditional) – soup – make (past participle, no tense marking) – before)

'I wouldn't even ask if I knew, if I had made soup before!'

Negative verb

Skolt Sámi, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Skolt Sámi, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th) and number (singular and plural).

Person		Indicative	Imperative	Optative
1	Singular	jiõm	–	–
	Plural	jeäʹp	–	jeälˈlap
2	Singular	jiõk	jeäʹl
	Plural	jeäʹped	jieʹlled
3	Singular	ij	–	jeälas
	Plural	jie ~ jiâ	–	jeällas
4		jeäʹt	–

Note that ij + leeʹd is usually written as iʹlla, iʹlleäkku, iʹllää or iʹllä jie + leeʹd is usually written as jeäʹla or jeäʹlä.

Unlike the other Sámi languages, Skolt Sámi no longer has separate forms for the dual and plural of the negative verb and uses the plural forms for both instead.

Word order

Declarative clauses

The most frequent word order in simple, declarative sentences in Skolt Sámi is subject–verb–object (SVO). However, as cases are used to mark relations between different noun phrases, and verb forms mark person and number of the subject, Skolt Sámi word order allows for some variation.

An example of an SOV sentence would be:

• Neezzan suâjjkååutid kuårru. (woman (Pl., Nominative) – protection (Sg., Nominative) + skirt (Pl., Accusative) – sew (3rd P. Pl., Past)) 'The women sewed protective skirts.'

Intransitive sentences follow the order subject-verb (SV):

• Jääuʹr kâʹlmme. (lake (Pl., Nominative) – freeze (3rd P. Pl., Present)) 'The lakes freeze.'

An exception to the SOV word order can be found in sentences with an auxiliary verb. While in other languages, an OV word order has been found to correlate with the auxiliary verb coming after the lexical verb, the Skolt Sámi auxiliary verb leeʹd ('to be') precedes the lexical verb. This has been related to the verb-second (V2) phenomenon which binds the finite verb to at most the second position of the respective clause. However, in Skolt Sámi, this effect seems to be restricted to clauses with an auxiliary verb.

An example of a sentence with the auxiliary in V2 position:

• Kuuskõõzz leʹjje ääld poorrâm. (northern light (Pl., Nominative) – be (3rd P. Pl., Past) – female reindeer (Sg., Accusative) – eat (Past Participle)) 'The northern lights had eaten the female reindeer.'

Interrogative clauses

Polar questions

In Skolt Sámi, polar questions, also referred to as yes–no questions, are marked in two different ways. Morphologically, an interrogative particle, -a, is added as an affix to the first word of the clause. Syntactically, the element which is in the scope of the question is moved to the beginning of the clause. If this element is the verb, subject and verb are inversed in comparison to the declarative SOV word order.

• Vueʹlǧǧveʹted–a tuäna muu ooudâst eččan ääuʹd ool? (leave (2nd P. Pl., Present, Interrogative) – 2nd P. Dual Nominative – 1st P. Sg. Genitive – behalf – father (Sg. Genitive 1st P. Pl.) – grave (Sg. Genitive) – onto) 'Will the two of you go, on my behalf, to our father's grave?'

If an auxiliary verb is used, this is the one which is moved to the initial sentence position and also takes the interrogative affix.

• Leäk–a ääʹvääm tõn uus? (be (2nd P. Sg., Present, Interrogative) – open (Past Participle) – that (Sg. Accusative) – door (Sg. Accusative)) 'Have you opened that door?'
• Leäk–a ton Jefremoff? (be (2nd P. Sg., Interrogative) – 2nd P. Sg. Nominative – Jefremoff) 'Are you Mr. Jefremoff?'

A negated polar question, using the negative auxiliary verb, shows the same structure:

• Ij–a kõskklumâs villjad puättam? (Negation 3rd P. Sg., Interrogative – middle – brother (Sg. Nominative, 2nd P. Sg.) – come (Past Participle)) 'Didn't your middle brother come?'

An example of the interrogative particle being added to something other than the verb, would be the following:

• Võl–a lie mainnâz? (still (Interrogative) – be (3rd P. Sg., Present) – story (Pl., Nominative)) 'Are there still stories to tell?'

Information questions

Information questions in Skolt Sámi are formed with a question word in clause-initial position. There also is a gap in the sentence indicating the missing piece of information. This kind of structure is similar to Wh-movement in languages such as English. There are mainly three question words corresponding to the English 'what', 'who', and 'which' (out of two). They inflect for number and case, except for the latter which only has singular forms. It is noteworthy that the illative form of mii ('what') corresponds to the English 'why'. The full inflectional paradigm of all three question words can be found below.

		What	Who	Which
Singular	Nominative	mii	ǩii	kuäbbaž
	Accusative	mâiʹd	ǩeän	kuäbba
	Genitive	mõõn	ǩeän	kuäbba
	Illative	mõõzz ('why')	ǩeäzz	kuäbbže
	Locative	mâʹst	ǩeäʹst	kuäbbast
	Comitative	mõin	ǩeäin	kuäbbain
	Abessive	mõntää	ǩeäntää	kuäbbatää
	Essive	mââʹden	ǩeäʹđen	kuäbbžen
	Partitive	mââʹđed	ǩeäʹđed	kuäbbžed
Plural	Nominative	mõõk	ǩeäk	-
	Accusative	mâid	ǩeäid	-
	Genitive	mââi	ǩeäi	-
	Illative	mâid	ǩeäid	-
	Locative	mâin	ǩeäin	-
	Comitative	mââivuiʹm	ǩeäivuiʹm	-
	Abessive	mââitää	ǩeäitää	-

Some examples of information questions using one of the three question words:

• Mâiʹd reäǥǥak? (what (Sg., Accusative) – cry (2nd P. Sg., Present)) 'What are you crying about?'
• Mõõzz pueʹttiǩ? (what (Sg., Illative) – come (2nd P. Sg., Past)) 'Why did you come?'
• Ǩii tuʹst leäi risttjeäʹnn? (who (Sg., Nominative) – 2nd P. Sg., Locative – be (3rd P. Sg., Past) – godmother (Sg., Nominative) 'Who was your godmother?'
• Kuäbbaž alttad heibbad? (which (Sg., Nominative) – begin (3rd P. Sg., Present) – wrestle (Infinitive)) 'Which one of you will begin to wrestle?'

In addition to the above-mentioned, there are other question words which are not inflected, such as the following:

• koʹst: 'where', 'from where'
• koozz: 'to where'
• kuäʹss: 'when'
• mäʹhtt: 'how'
• måkam: 'what kind'

An example sentence would be the following:

• Koozz vuõʹlǧǧiǩ? (to where – leave (2nd P. Sg., Past)) 'Where did you go?'

Imperative clauses

The Skolt Sámi imperative generally takes a clause-initial position. Out of the five imperative forms (see above), those of the second person are most commonly used.

• Puäʹđ mij årra kuâssa! (come (2nd P. Sg., Imperative) – 1st P. Pl., Genitive – way – on a visit) 'Come and visit us at our place!'

Imperatives in the first person form, which only exist as plurals, are typically used for hortative constructions, that is for encouraging the listener (not) to do something. These imperatives include both the speaker and the listener.

• Äʹlǧǧep heibbad! (start (1st P. Pl., Imperative) – wrestle (Infinitive)) 'Let's start to wrestle!'

Finally, imperatives in the third person are used in jussive constructions, the mood used for orders and commands.

• Kuärŋŋaz sij tieʹrm ool! (climb (3rd P. Pl., Imperative) – 3rd P. Pl., Nominative – hill (Sg., Genitive) – onto) 'Let them climb to the top of the hill!'v329–330

Bibliography

• Feist, Timothy (2010). A Grammar of Skolt Saami (PhD thesis). Manchester, England: University of Manchester.
• Feist, Timothy (2015). A Grammar of Skolt Saami. Helsinki, Finland: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.
• Korhonen, Mikko; Mosnikoff, Jouni; Sammallahti, Pekka, eds. (1973). Koltansaamen opas. Castrenianumin toimitteita. Vol. 4. Helsinki, Finland: Castrenianum. ISBN 978-951-45-0189-0.
• Mosnikoff, Jouni; Sammallahti, Pekka (1988). Uʹcc sääm-lääʹdd sääʹnnǩeârjaž = Pieni koltansaame-suomi sanakirja. Ohcejohka, Finland: Jorgaleaddji oy. ISBN 978-951-8939-02-6.
• Mosnikoff, Jouni; Sammallahti, Pekka (1991). Suomi-koltansaame sanakirja = Lääʹdd-sääʹm sääʹnnǩeʹrjj. Ohcejohka, Finland: Girjegiisá oy.
• Moshnikoff, Satu (1987). Muu vuõssmõs sääʹmǩeʹrjj. Ruäʹvnjargg, Finland: Painatuskeskus Oy.
• Sámi Language Act [Unofficial translation] (PDF) (1086). Helsinki, Finland: Suomen eduskunta. 2003.
• Sergejeva, Jelena (2002). "The Eastern Sámi Languages and Language Preservation". Samiska i ett nytt årtusende [Sámi in a New Millennium]. Copenhagen, Denmark: Nordiska ministerrådet. p. 103.

External links

• The Children's TV series Binnabánnaš in Skolt Sámi
• Nuõrttsääʹmǩiõl alfabeeʹtt – koltankieliset aakkoset Skolt Saami alphabet by the Finnish Saami Parliament
• Say it in Saami Yle's colloquial Northern Saami-Inari Saami-Skolt Saami-English phrasebook online
• Surrey Morphology Group – Skolt Saami
• Skolt Saami verb paradigm visualisations. Feist,Timothy, Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett & Erich Round. 2019. Surrey Lexical Splits Visualisations (Skolt Saami). University of Surrey. https://lexicalsplits.surrey.ac.uk/skoltsaami.html
• Kimberli Mäkäräinen A very small Skolt Sámi – English vocabulary (< 500 words)
• Skolt Sámi - Finnish/English/Russian dictionary (robust finite-state, open-source)
• Northern Sámi – Inari Sámi – Skolt Sámi – English dictionary (requires a password nowadays)
• Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
• Sääʹmjieʹllem Sámi Museum site on the history of the Skolt Sámi in Finland
• Zita McRobbie-Utasi A number of linguistic articles on Skolt Sámi.
• Erkki Lumisalmi talks in Skolt Sámi (archive) (mp3)
• The Palatalization Mark in Skolt Sámi.

• Ranskalaisen tutkimusmatkailijan arkistot palautumassa kolttasaamelaisille – aineisto sisältää satoja dioja ja valokuvia (The French explorer's archives are being restored to the Koltsa Sámi - the material contains hundreds of slides and photographs). YLE.fi. 2024-07-22
• Maailmankuulu tutkija tarkkaili kolttasaamelaisia 50 vuotta sitten ja jätti nyt ainutlaatuisen perinnön (A world-renowned researcher observed the Koltsa Sámi 50 years ago and now left a unique legacy). YLE.fi. 2024-05-14