Kildin Sámi

thumb|A Kildin Sámi speaker

Kildin Sámi, also spelt as Kildin Saami is a Sámi language spoken on the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia by the Kildin Sámi, who have historically inhabited the peninsula.

The Sámi languages closest to Kildin are Ter Sámi and Akkala Sámi, in Soviet tradition sometimes considered to be dialects of Kildin Sámi. From a strictly geographical point of view, only Kildin and Ter, spoken on the Peninsula, could be regarded as Kola Sámi. Lovozero is known as the main place where the language is still spoken by 700–800 ethnic Sámi amongst a total village population of approximately 3,000. The language has only about 100 active and perhaps 600 passive speakers. During this time, the community shared in spiritual customs and held similar ideologies on their language and community. After the 1917 Revolution which overthrew the tsarist regime of Nicholas II and led to the rise of the Bolsheviks, party systems, and emphasis towards a village-centered, peasant-centered, society, the Soviet state implemented laws or statutes that encouraged the development and protection of Sámi language and Sámi culture.

Stalinist era

During the 1930s, with an orientation toward Russian nationalism ("Russification") and Russian identity that came about more dramatically with Joseph Stalin's rise to power and his oppressive tactics, Kola Sámi languages and culture came under intense pressure. Russian is prominently spoken in Kildin Sámi communities so much so that the original language is hardly ever heard of or only spoken privately amongst those who still know how to do so within an insular community. The reasons for the loss and decline in speakership is as follows: a lack of education, dispersion of the Sámi, no generational transmission of traditional Sámi trades and ways of life, and not ever needing to speak or not regularly speaking the language have both caused speakership to take a hit over the years. Kildin Sámi is written using an official Cyrillic script.

Phonology

Below is one analysis of the consonants in Kildin Sámi as given by The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

|+ Consonant phonemes in Kildin Saami

! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" | Labial

! colspan="2" | Alveolar

! colspan="2" | (Pre)-palatal

! colspan="2" | Velar

!plain

!pal.

!plain

!pal.

!plain

!pal.

!plain

!pal.

! rowspan="2" | Nasal

! voiceless

! voiced

| colspan="2" |

! rowspan="3" | Stop

! preaspirated

</references>

Geminates occur in all consonants, with the exception of preaspirated consonants, voiced alveolar and prepalatal fricatives and affricates (bold).

! rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" | Front

! rowspan="2" | Central

! colspan="2" | Back

! Close

! Mid

! Open

Rimma Kuruch's dictionary presents a slightly different set of monophthongs:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

|+ Monophthongs in Kildin Sámi

! rowspan="2" |

! colspan="2" | Front

! colspan="2" | Central

! colspan="2" | Back

! Close

! Mid

! Open

| ~

Writing system

Kildin Sámi has been written in an extended version of Cyrillic since the 1980s. The alphabet has three variants with some minor differences among certain letters, mostly in Ҋ vs. Ј and ʼ (apostrophe) vs. Һ. The Sammallahti/Khvorostukhina dictionary (1991) uses Ҋ and ʼ (apostrophe); Antonova et al. (1985) uses Ј and Һ; a third orthographic variant, used by Kert (1986), has neither of these letters.

Note that the letters Ӓ, Ҋ/Ј, Һ/ʼ (apostrophe), Ӆ, Ӎ, Ӊ, Ӈ, Ҏ, Ъ, Ь, Ҍ and Ӭ do not occur in the word-initial position, either because the letters mark features of preceding consonants or the sounds they represent do not occur word initially. Therefore these letters do not normally occur in uppercase, except for all caps text.

The letter Щ occurs only in Russian loanwords.

{| class="wikitable"

|- align="center"

! А а || Ӓ ӓ || Б б || В в || Г г || Д д || Е е || Ё ё || Ж ж || З з || Һ һ || ʼ

|- align="center"

| || || || || || || or || or || || || colspan="2" |

|- align="center"

! И и || Й й || Ҋ ҋ || Ј ј || К к || Л л || Ӆ ӆ || М м || Ӎ ӎ || Н н || colspan="2" | Ӊ ӊ

|- align="center"

| or or || || colspan="2" | /j̊/ || || || /l̥/ || || || || colspan="2" |

|- align="center"

! Ӈ ӈ || О о || П п || Р р || Ҏ ҏ || С с || Т т || У у || Ф ф || Х х || colspan="2" | Ц ц

|- align="center"

| || || || || || || || || || || colspan="2" |

|- align="center"

! Ч ч || Ш ш || Щ щ || Ъ ъ || Ы ы || Ь ь || Ҍ ҍ || Э э || Ӭ ӭ || Ю ю || colspan="2" | Я я

|- align="center"

| || || || || || || || || || or || colspan="2" | or

The orthographic principles are more or less similar to Russian, but note the following special features.

Palatalization

Similar to Russian, palatalization of a consonant in Kildin Sámi is marked by the letter Ь or one of the vowel letters Е, Ё, И, Ю, and Я following the consonant. Palatalized Д, Т, Н, however, are marked by ҍ or one of the vowel letters Ӓ and Ӭ. The consonant letter Н before Ь or one of the vowel letters Е, Ё, И, Ю, and Я does not represent palatalization but the palatal nasal .

Long vowels

Long vowels are marked with a macron over the vowel letter (and above the diaeresis in the cases of Ё).

Preaspiration

The letter Һ occurs before the letters П, Т, К, Ц and Ч, and marks (historical) preaspiration. The actual pronunciation varies between true preaspiration and the fricative sounds and .

Voiceless sonorants

Voiceless sonorants are represented by the letters Ҋ/Ј, Ӆ, Ӎ, Ӊ, and Ҏ.

Velar nasal

The velar nasal is written as Ӈ.

Morphophonology

Kildin Sámi exhibits a few morphophonological processes that are widespread throughout declension and conjugation paradigms. The first is consonant gradation, which is a phenomenon of alternations based on consonant length. This can be illustrated through some of the nonpast forms of the verb рāбпэ 'to dig'. The verb features the geminate consonant бп, which becomes weakened/shortened (quantitative gradation) to б in the first-person singular form рāба '[I] dig', but which is retained in the third-person singular form рāбп '[(S)he/it digs.' A more complete paradigm is below:

{| class="wikitable"

|+рāбпэ 'to dig'

In Kildin Sámi, there is a series of suffixes that serve to encode relationships of possession. The suffixes can simultaneously carry information about the possessor (person and number) and the number of possessees (1 or 2+). The suffixes further decline. Possessive suffixes are no longer productive and are mainly preserved in kinship terms such as я̄нна(м) 'my mother'.

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan="2" |Possessor

! rowspan="2" |Possessed (one or more)

! colspan="8" |Case

!NOM

!ACC

!GEN

!ILL

!LOC

!COM

!ABE

!ESS

! rowspan="2" |1SG

| rowspan="3" | -а(м)

-ан

| colspan="2" | -ан

| -(ъе)сан

| -сан

| -Эсан

| -хэнан

-анха

| -ъян

!2+

| colspan="2" rowspan="3" | -Эдан

| -ъедан

| rowspan="3" | -Эсан

| rowspan="3" | -ангуйм

-Эдангуйм

| rowspan="3" | -ъяхтэнан

-Эданха

| -Эдан

! rowspan="2" |1PL

| -Эдан

| rowspan="2" | -ъедан

!2+

| -Эдан

| -ъедан

! rowspan="2" |2SG

| colspan="3" | -ат

| -(ъе)сант

| -сант

| -Эсант

| -хэнант

-антха

| -ъянт

!2+

| rowspan="2" | -ант

| colspan="2" rowspan="3" | -Эдант

| -ъедант

| rowspan="3" | -Эсант

| rowspan="3" | -анткуйм

-Эданткуйм

| -ъяхтэнант

-Эдантха

| rowspan="3" | -ъедант

! rowspan="2" |2PL

| rowspan="2" | -Эдант

| rowspan="2" | -ъяхтэнант

-ъедантха

!2+

| -Эдант

! rowspan="2" |3SG

| colspan="3" | -Эсь

| -ъесь

| -Эсан

| -Энэсь

| -хэнэсь

-Эсьха

| -ъясь

!2+

| colspan="3" rowspan="3" | -Эдэсь

| -ъедас

| -Эсэсьт

| rowspan="3" | -Эсьуйм

-Энэськуйм

| -ъяхтэнэсь

-Эдэсьха

| rowspan="3" | -ъедэсь

! rowspan="2" |3PL

| rowspan="2" | -Эдэсь

| rowspan="2" | -Эсэсь

| rowspan="2" | -ъяхтэнэсь

-ъедэсьха

!2+

Pronouns

Personal pronouns decline as other nouns do and encode number (singular or plural). Third-person pronouns do not make any grammatical gender distinctions.

{| class="wikitable"

|+Personal Pronouns

!Case

!1SG

!1PL

!2SG

!2PL

!3SG

!3PL

|NOM

|мунн

|мыйй

|то̄нн

|тыйй

|со̄нн

|сыйй

|ACC

|мун

|мӣн

|то̄н

|тӣн

|со̄н

|сӣн

|GEN

|мун

|мӣнэтҍ

|то̄н

|тӣнэтҍ

|со̄н

|сӣнэтҍ

|ILL

|мыннӭ

|мыйе

|тоннӭ

|тыйе

|соннӭ

|сыйе

|LOC

|мунэсьт; муст

|мӣнэнҍ

|то̄нэсьт; тост

|тӣнэнҍ

|со̄нэсьт; сост

|сӣнэнҍ

|COM

|мунэнҍ

|мӣнэгуэйм

|то̄нэнҍ

|тӣнэгуэйм

|со̄нэнҍ

|сӣнэгуэйм

|ABE

|мунха

|мӣнэха

|то̄нха

|тӣнэха

|со̄нха

|сӣнэха

Kildin Sámi has dedicated reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. Like personal pronouns, these too decline for case and number. The reflexive pronoun is ӣджь (NOM.SG) and the reciprocal pronoun is ка̄ннҍц (NOM.SG). The reciprocal pronoun is also used as a common noun meaning 'friend'. Below are example usages of each:

Negation

In Kildin Sámi negation is formed by a syntagma, which consists of a finite negative auxiliary and a finite main verb in a special form called connegative (negative form of the main verb). The negative auxiliary gets inflected by person, number and mood, while the main verb is marked for tense. In the past tense, the past participle is used as the connegative verb form.

This is the inflectional paradigm of the negative auxiliary:

Negative clause in past tense:

With the negation of the verb лӣйе "to be" in the third person it comes to an amalgamation of the main verb and the negative auxiliary:

элля "[3SG] is not" = эйй <nowiki/>NEG.3SG' + ля̄ 'be.CNEG.NPST'
евла/евля "[3PL] are not" = ев 'NEG.3PL' + ля̄ 'be.CNEG.NPST'
эллий = "[3SG] was not" = эйй 'NEG.3SG' + лӣйя 'be.CNEG.PST'

In the third person plural of the past tense there is no amalgamation of the negative auxiliary and the main verb "to be":

ев лӣйя = "[3PL] were not"

Negative indefinite pronouns are formed with the negative prefix ни-. It is the only prefix in Kildin Sámi and is borrowed from the Russian language. The prefix ни- can get used with all interrogative pronouns, such as in нике̄ 'nobody' and нимӣ 'nothing'. See the following example depicting the latter:

Vocabulary

Loanwords to English

The word tundra has been borrowed to English, via Russian. In Kildin Sámi, (') means "treeless plain", but its genitive case is (').

Literature

The printed item in Kildin were chapters 1-22 of the Gospel of Matthew published in 1897. It was translated with the help of native speaker consultants, in Cyrillic orthography by the Finnish linguist Arvid Genetz, and printed at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society. (The rest of the Gospel was in Akkala Sámi language.)

References

External links

Kildin Saami Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
Алфавит саамского языка (кильдинский диалект)
Антонова А. А., Э. Шеллер 2021: Саамско-русский и Русско-саамский словарь (около 16000 слов). Тромсё.
Sámi–Russian dictionary, Kuruch R. D., a grammar of Kildin Sámi language (DJVU, PDF)
Barnefestival med dystert bakteppe - Ingen barn eller unge på Kolahalvøya har kildinsamisk som sitt daglige språk. Festivalen «Eventyrbyen» skal få dem til å bruke samisk mer. [Festival for children, and a grim backdrop - No children or youths on the Kola peninsula, have Kildin Sámi as an everyday language. The festival "Eventyrbyen" is supposed to get them to increase their use of Sámi language.] (27 April 2021) NRK

Stalinist era

Phonology

Writing system

Palatalization

Long vowels

Preaspiration

Voiceless sonorants

Velar nasal

Morphophonology

Pronouns

Negation

Vocabulary

Loanwords to English

Literature

See also

References

Further reading

External links