BETWEEN DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE, RECLAIMINGA SKOLT SAMI DOMAIN

JACK RUETER & MIKA HÄMÄLÄINEN

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

DEPARTMENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES,

DIGITAL HUMANITIES

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Our sponsor:

The Kone Foundation, in Helsinki, has funded much descriptive research in minority languages

through the ”Language Programme” 2012—2017.

Research on the revitalization of Skolt Sami language through use of ICALL (Intelligent Computer-

Assisted Language Learning) and the documentation of these methods for transfer to other

languages is one of the numerous long-term projects receiving funding. (2015—2018)

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INTRODUCTION

• Skolt Sami pluricentricity

• Lexical background

• Morphological description

• Normative body

• Documentation

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Skolt Samik pluricentricity

• Geographic location and political history

• Extensive fieldwork with dialects not included in the literary standard

• Establishment of a normative body tending towards language development with a more Finnish

orientation

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Where have the Skolt Sami lived?

• 3 countriesFinland, Russia and Norway (sources for pluricentric language domains)

• 2 main dialects (Paaččjokk and Suõʹnnʼjel)• Paaččjokk

Njauddâm (extinct), Paaččjokk, Peäccam, and Mue ʹtǩǩ

• SuõʹnnʼjelSuõ ʹnnʼjel, Njuõ ʹttjäu ʹrr, Sââ ʹrvesjäu ʹrr,

• Post World War II

• Resettlement and restructuring of reindeer husbandry• Establishment of a few heterogeneous language centers• Loss of any community with a homogeneous language form.

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Lexical background

• Lexical work from fieldwork

• Skolt Samik pluricentricity

• Geographic location and political history• Extensive fieldwork with dialects not included in the literary standard• Establishment of a normative body tending towards language development with a more Finnish orientation

• Language spoken originally in what is now three countries, Finland, Russia and Norway.

• The two main dialects Paaččjokk (North-West) and Suõʹnnʼjel (South-East)

• Paaččjokk (North-West)• Njauddâm (extinct), Paaččjokk, Peäccam, and Mueʹtǩǩ,

• Suõʹnnʼjel (South-East) • Suõʹnnʼjel, Njuõʹttjäuʹrr, Sââʹrvesjäuʹrr

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Lexical work from fieldwork

• T.I. Itkonen Koltan ja Kuolanniemen Sanakirja

(Skolt Sami description in the dictionary of the Eastern Sami language from 1959)

• Online https://www.sgr.fi/lexica/lexicaxv1.pdf and https://www.sgr.fi/lexica/lexicaxv2.pdf

• Morphological versus syntactic

Paččjokk dialect more prevalent for lexical items and phrases

Suõʹnnʼjel dialect (more prevalent in literary norm)

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SKOLT SAMI LEXICAL DESCRIPTION

• FINNO-UGRIC

• LOANS FROM THE WEST

• LOANS FROM THE EAST

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Morphological description

• Open-source morphological description on Giella Infrastructure in Tromsø

(some problems)

• Suõʹnnʼjel morphophonology sounds fine with its own stems

• What to do when only Paaččjokk stems have been documented?

• Allow for multiple realization

• Generators and analyzers (one concerted effort for multiple end uses)

• Tools for linguist

• Tools for language users and learners

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Morphological development and testing

• Integrating language learning with development

• Testing, inflection practice for learners and computer description

• Actual coding

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Visibility online for prominence

• Dictionaries

• http://saan.oahpa.no/, https://m ikakalevi.com/sanat/ , https://sanat.csc.fi

• ICALL

• http://oahpa.no/nuor ti/

• Language user tools:

• http://divvun.no/ (keyboards, spellcheckers)

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Normative body

Ǩiõlljuâǥǥtõs• Working together with the normative body Ǩiõlljuâǥǥtõs

Online through (Saamelaiskäräjät in Inari, Finland https://www.samediggi.fi/2018/03/22/nuorttsaam-kiolljuaggtos-kiorgti-jonn-askldoksannostuajas/?lang=nuo )

• spelling, inflectional and lexical norms for the language.

• Issues

Majority language orientation shift

Generation gap

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Descriptive language documentation

Translation corpora

• Corpora at Giellatekno provide nearly twenty years of administrational and legal texts.

Online: http://gtweb.uit.no/korp/?mode=sms#?lang=se&cqp=%5B%5D

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TOOLS

• ANALYZERS

• HTTP://GIELLATEKNO.UIT.NO/CGI/INDEX.SMS.ENG.HTML

• DICTIONARIES

• HTTP://SAAN.OAHPA.NO, HTTP://SANAT.CSC.FI

• ICALL• HTTP://OAHPA.NO/NUORTI

• SPELL CHECKERS

• HTTP://DIVVUN.NO/KORREKTUR/OTHERLANGS.HTML

• KEYBOARDS

• HTTP://DIVVUN.NO/KEYBOARDS/INDEX.HTML

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CONCLUSION

• Settlement and resettlement

• Fieldwork documentation

• Morphophonological descriptions

• Normative body work

• Online visibility

• Tools

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Skolt Sami and other Uralic languages

• Skolt Sami (sms) versus 8 other Sami languages (se, sme, sma, sjd, sje) in 4 countries (FI, RU, NO, SE)

Inside Sami humor: ”Themore the Sami languages, the more the professorships”

• Adjacent are: Meänkieli (fit) & Kveeni (fkv) versus Finnish (fi)

• Karelian (krl) versus Olonets-Karelian (olo) (external-political push to identify as single entity: single area)

• Komi-Zyrian versus Komi-Permyak(political area split of continuum)

• Tundra Nenets (yrk) (Only political area split)

• Moksha (mdf) versus Erzya (myv)

• Võro (vro) versus Seto

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SPÄʹSSEB!

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Sources

• Fiest, T. 2015. A Grammar of Skolt Saami. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, 273. Helsinki: Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.

• Itkonen, T. I. 1958. Koltan- ja Kuolanlapin sanakirja – Wörterbuch des Kolta- und Kolalappischen. LexicaSocietatis Fenno-Ugricae XV. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.

• Sammallahti, P. 1998. The Saami Languages: An Introduction., Karasjok, Norway: Davvi Girji.

• Historical map of Pechengsky District from<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pechengsky_District#/media/File:Petsamo.png> [accessed June 19, 2018] and not subject to copyright restrictions.

• Giellatekno & Divvun open-source infrastructure <http://giellatekno.uit.no>

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