Sámi languages are used by around 36,000 people across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. As part of the Uralic language family, it is written using the Latin alphabet and follows an SOV word order with an extensive case system. With an agglutinative structure, Sámi expresses complex meanings through suffixes and modifications. Traditionally an oral language, it has a strong presence in folklore, music, and indigenous activism. Despite historical marginalization, revitalization efforts, including bilingual education and digital resources, aim to preserve Sámi linguistic and cultural heritage. (We used Northern Sámi as a grammatical reference).
Stats
Language Family: Uralic
Writing System: Latin
Writing System Type: Alphabet
Writing Direction: L to R
Tones / Pitch Accent: None
Morphology: Agglutinative
Cases: 7
Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: None
Number of Verb Tenses: 2
Word Order: SOV
Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 10
Number of Consonants: 35
Areas Where Spoken
Finland (0.05%) (2,700)
Norway (0.45%) (25 k)
Russia (0.0003%) (500)
Sweden (0.08%) (8 k)