Northern Lights Log | Norwegian & Northern Sámi

[Cloudberry]

Davvin 1, ch. 2: Mii du namma lea?

Lots of content is introduced in this chapter that will clearly be covered in more detail later. We begin learning about verb forms, and we see some of the ways in which Sámi word order differs from Norwegian.

Introducing Yourself, Again

Again as in English, instead of saying, "I am [name]," you can also introduce yourself by saying "My name is . . . "

Ex: Mu namma lea Cloudberry.

You can ask who someone else is either by asking "What is your name?" or "Who (then) are you?":

Mii du namma lea?

Gii don gis leat?

The dialogues give an unusual (to my mind) possible response to someone telling you their name: you can affirm, "Já [Name] don leat," -- "So you are [name]."

How's It Going?

We learn two different ways to ask someone how things are going: Mo manná? and Mii gullo? To say things are going well, you reply: Bures dat manná. ("It goes well.")

Am/Are/Is

Sámi conjugates verbs by person. We learn the first, second, and third person single forms of to be:

(Mun) lean = I am
(Don) leat = You are
(Dat) lea = He/she/it is

This chapter uses dat (that) as the third person singular pronoun, apparently to refer to people as well as things. My understanding is that properly, s/he is son. I was startled then that the pronoun son isn't in this chapter.

Questions with Interrogative

Some question words are introduced: mii (what/hva), gii (who/hvem), and mo or mot (how/hvordan).

Word order in questions with these words is different than in English and Norwegian. The order is: Interrogative + subject + verb.

Ex: Mii dat lea? ("What that is?" = "What's that?")

[Cloudberry]

Davvin 1, ch. 3: Guossi
I only just realized that the headings at the beginning of each chapter are just section headings, not actually the title of the chapter. But, uh, since I've been treating them as chapter titles so far, I'm just going to . . . continue . . . .

Infinitives

The infinitive of the verb ends in -t. The verbs we have learned so far are all -at or -it verbs: exx. mannat ("to go"), boahtit ("to come"). Removing the -t from the infinitive yields the verb stem.

Some Basic Verb Conjugation

There are two aspects of verb conjugation: verb endings and consonant gradation. The verb endings will be familiar to speakers of many Indo-European languages that have similar systems, e.g. Spanish.

-At verbs take these singular endings:
1. -an
2. -at
3. -á

-It verbs take these:
1. -án
2. -át
3. -á

(Note that these are for first, second, and third person singular only -- we haven't learned dual and plural conjugations yet.)

Consonant gradation, on the other hand, is a concept I had never heard of before I became interested in studying Sámi. However, it's hugely important. All of the verbs we've learned so far (except for leat) are two syllables long and have a consonant or cluster of consonants in the middle. Consonant gradation occurs when the consonant cluster changes in some forms of the verb. One consonant may simply lengthen or shorten, but it's also possible for it to change to a different consonant entirely.

The cluster of consonants in the infinitive is called the strong form. Its changed state is the weak form. In verb conjugation, we see this pattern:
Infinitive: strong
1. singular: weak
2. singular: weak
3. singular: strong

So, bringing both aspects of conjugation together, we can conjugate the verb vuodjit ("to drive"):

Vuoján - I drive
Vuoját - You drive
Vuodjá - S/he drives

Dj changes to j in its weak form, and because the infinitive ends in -it, all of the conjugated forms have a long a in the final syllable.

While it's certainly unfamiliar, I actually quite like the consonant gradation: it's attractive, and it avoids confusion by, for instance, preventing 2nd person -at verbs from looking the same as the infinitive.

Emphasis with Dat

You can put the particle dat after the subject to emphasize it -- "Mun vuoján," is simply, "I'm driving," but "Mun dat vuoján," would be rendered something like, "I'm the one who's driving," in English.

Numbers 11-20

The numbers 11-19 are pretty easy, if long:
11. Oktanuppelohkái
12. Guoktenuppelohkái
. . . And so forth.

20 is simply guoktelogi. Over all, the numbers seem a lot more logical than those in either English or Norwegian -- no weird exceptions to the rules along the lines of, say, eleven or tolv.

More on Saying Goodbye

We get a preview of what some dual and plural verb forms (and imperative forms!) look like with the different forms of goodbye that are used depending on whether we are saying goodbye to one, two, or multiple people:

Singular: Báze dearvan
Dual: Báhcci dearvan
Plural: Báhcet dearvan

[attercop]

Supposedly, the English phrase "A living fish swims underwater" when translated into any Uralic language (e.g., Finnish: "Elävä kala ui veden alla.") is intelligible among all of them -- according to Wikipedia anyway. So what is this phrase in Northern Saami? And would it be comprehensible to someone who speaks Finnish?

[tungemål]

Supposedly, the English phrase "A living fish swims underwater" when translated into any Uralic language (e.g., Finnish: "Elävä kala ui veden alla.") is intelligible among all of them -- according to Wikipedia anyway. So what is this phrase in Northern Saami? And would it be comprehensible to someone who speaks Finnish?

I heard that too. Even in Hungarian, right?

I don't know Saami, but...
I found this online Saami dictionary: https://sanit.oahpa.no/

to live: eallit
fish: guolli
swim: vuodjat
water: čáhci
under: vuollel

I think the only word that is not connected to the Finnish word, is the word for water. For the other words, they are somehow similar to the Finnish. I should study some Saami some day!

How is it going with your Saami studies, multe?

[Cloudberry]

Supposedly, the English phrase "A living fish swims underwater" when translated into any Uralic language (e.g., Finnish: "Elävä kala ui veden alla.") is intelligible among all of them -- according to Wikipedia anyway. So what is this phrase in Northern Saami? And would it be comprehensible to someone who speaks Finnish?

I heard that too. Even in Hungarian, right?

I don't know Saami, but...
I found this online Saami dictionary: https://sanit.oahpa.no/

to live: eallit
fish: guolli
swim: vuodjat
water: čáhci
under: vuollel

I think the only word that is not connected to the Finnish word, is the word for water. For the other words, they are somehow similar to the Finnish. I should study some Saami some day!

How is it going with your Saami studies, multe?

I definitely don't know enough yet to be able to give a translation! But for what it's worth, I had also heard that about mutual intelligibility in Uralic languages.

I've been being lazy lately, but I have been watching NRK's Ođđasat to get more listening input. I wish it gave me the option of Sámi subtitles instead of Norwegian or none, because I don't have the knowledge yet to match the Sámi speech with the Norwegian text, but it would have been nice to be able to match up Sámi speech and text. (Although then I'd have no idea what was going on! )

[Chung]

Supposedly, the English phrase "A living fish swims underwater" when translated into any Uralic language (e.g., Finnish: "Elävä kala ui veden alla.") is intelligible among all of them -- according to Wikipedia anyway. So what is this phrase in Northern Saami? And would it be comprehensible to someone who speaks Finnish?

I heard that too. Even in Hungarian, right?

I don't know Saami, but...
I found this online Saami dictionary: https://sanit.oahpa.no/

to live: eallit
fish: guolli
swim: vuodjat
water: čáhci
under: vuollel

I think the only word that is not connected to the Finnish word, is the word for water. For the other words, they are somehow similar to the Finnish. I should study some Saami some day!

This claim of mutual intelligibility of this contrived sentence across Uralic has been contradicted in this discussion on sci.lang. According to Jukka K. Korpela, a Finn who posted in this discussion:

The sentence that is mutually comprehensible (translated as "The living fish swims in water" in the article) is at the bottom of the article.
Estonian: Elav kala ujub vee all.
Finnish: Elävä kala ui veden alla.
Hungarian: Eleven hal úszkál a víz alatt.

It's far from being mutually comprehensible. This example has often (at least from the 60s I think) been mentioned as illustrating similarities between Finnish and Hungarian, but never before have I seen it presented as an example of mutual comprehensibility. We can see the similarities if we look at the sentences (in spoken language, the similarities are more difficult to observe), but hardly any Finn would understand the Hungarian sentence without previous knowledge about Hungarian.

Between Estonian and Finnish, there is some mutual comprehensibility, since the languages are much more closely related to each other than to Hungarian. But it's hardly _intuitive_ comprehensibility. Rather, Estonians and Finns can learn each others' language more easily than foreign languages in general (though there are pitfalls too - common words with quite different meanings).

Shouldn't this be "the living fish swims _underwater_ (veden _alla_)?

I don't quite understand the question. What's the difference between "underwater" and "underwater"?

And is the last one* really comprehensible at first sight to the untutored Estonian or Finnish eye?

Certainly not.

Hungarian: Eleven hal úszkál a víz alatt
Finnish: Elävä kala uiskelee veden alla

Are the verb forms equivalent?

I don't think they are. They are derivations of from a verb of common origin, but the similarity of anything past the first sound is probably coincidental.

*By "last one", Marc Adler is referring to the Hungarian sentence and wondering if it's truly understandable to an untutored Estonian or Finn.

In a similar vein, the Estonian and Finnish sentences would be unintelligible to an untutored Hungarian. Hungarian Wikipedia states that a study by the University of Pennsylvania found that Hungarians couldn't understand the Finnish sentence and vice-versa. The Finnish verb ui "he/she swims" sounds like the Hungarian új "new"** while kala probably wouldn't remind the Hungarian so readily that it's the Finnic cognate of hal, both of which mean "fish". The link between the cognates meaning "water" would be obscured to a Hungarian because the Finnish form is in genitive singular (i.e. veden) per the case governance of the postposition alla "under". In Hungarian, the postposition alatt doesn't cause a change to the modified nominal's case (i.e. the nominative singular víz is used, which incidentally resembles more the Finnish nominative singular vesi than the genitive singular veden).

**Incidentally, új is the Hungarian cognate of Estonian uus, Finnish uusi and Northern Saami ođas ~ ođđa which has lead linguists to reconstruct the ancestral form *wuδ̕e

For what it's worth, this sentence in Northern Saami would be Ealli guolli vuodjá čázi vuolde per this comparison on Finnish Wikipedia.

For "water", Saamic languages stand out in that they use forms (exemplified here by Northern Saami čáži, namely the genitive singular of čáhci) which may be cognates of words in Khanty meaning "summertime flood" or "to rise [of the water level]". To add to the wonder of etymology, the standard terms for "water" in Khanty are йиӈк (jiŋk) and similar which show a semantic shift since they're deemed cognates of Finnic jää, Northern Saami jiekŋa, and Hungarian jég, all of which mean "ice" instead. Lastly, Finnic vesi and Hungarian víz are reflexes of the reconstructed *wete in Proto-Uralic which might be linked somehow to Proto-Indo-European *u̯ód-r̥ as seen in the reflexes "water", Wasser, вода, unda etc.

Cloudberry, you've probably figured out by now that it's hard to find any videos with subtitles in Northern Saami while stuff in Northern Saami with subtitles in some other language (usually Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish) does exist. I doubt that the few movies (I know only two such movies) with substantial dialogue in Northern Saami have subtitles in that language. The only videos that I've found with Northern Saami subtitles (click on CC at the bottom of the viewer to turn them on) are this performance of the song "Ándagassii", and this short interview with a Saami student in Sweden (same video with Swedish subtitles if you want to understand what she's saying). On a related note and for your interest, there are similar subtitled interviews in Saamic languages with students at the same school speaking Lule Saami (with Swedish subtitles) and Southern Saami (with Swedish subtitles). Lule Saami resembles Northern Saami more than Southern Saami does but you might find both videos interesting to watch anyway.

[Cloudberry]

Davvin 1, ch. 4: Boađat Go?
Incidentally, I'm not dead, just lazy.

Negative Verb Forms
In Norwegian, saying that someone doesn't do something is pretty straightforward: you use the ordinary form of the verb + ikke ("not"). In Sámi, on the other hand, not is a verb itself. I think the best way to render this verb in English is "don't":
In = I don't
It = You don't
Ii = S/he doesn't

When using in, you don't conjugate the main verb you're negating normally. Instead, you put the verb stem in its weak form, and shorten the final vowel. (In practice, in the verbs we've learned so far, this means that -it verbs take a final e instead of a final i).

So,
Boađán ihttin = I'm coming tomorrow
In boađe ihttin = I'm not coming tomorrow

Asking Yes-No Questions
Sámi uses a question particle, go. Word order is: verb + go + subject (+ predicate).

Vuodjá go Ánne? = Is Anne driving?

As in English, you can also ask a negative yes-no question as a way of cajoling someone to do something:
It go don boađe mielde? = Aren't you coming with?
(Note word order: it is before go, and the main verb follows the subject.)

Answering Yes-No Questions
Unlike in English, you don't typically answer questions with "yes," or "no." Instead, you use a short sentence.
Yes answers are de + regular verb form: De boađán = Yes, I'm coming
No answers are in/it/ii + negative verb form: In boađe = No, I'm not coming.


So far, I'm surprised by how normal some of Sámi's odd (from an IE perspecitve) features like consonant gradation seem. I wonder though how I'll feel about it as I begin to learn more complex grammar.

[Cloudberry]

The only videos that I've found with Northern Saami subtitles (click on CC at the bottom of the viewer to turn them on) are this performance of the song "Ándagassii", and this short interview with a Saami student in Sweden (same video with Swedish subtitles if you want to understand what she's saying). On a related note and for your interest, there are similar subtitled interviews in Saamic languages with students at the same school speaking Lule Saami (with Swedish subtitles) and Southern Saami (with Swedish subtitles). Lule Saami resembles Northern Saami more than Southern Saami does but you might find both videos interesting to watch anyway.

I'll take it! Thank you! The fact that there are so few videos with subtitles is definitely frustrating.

[tungemål]

I'll take it! Thank you! The fact that there are so few videos with subtitles is definitely frustrating.

Here is a thought.
What if you and other Saami-learners write an e-mail to NRK explaining why you'd want subtitles in Saami as well as Norwegian? Having the option to select subtitles is something that is new with internet-TV. I think NRK always makes subtitles in Norwegian for programs in Saami. That means a Saami speaker needs to sit and listen through the program and write down a translation for everything that is said. It doesn't seem like much more work to also write down the Saami text.

[Mista]

Here is a thought.
What if you and other Saami-learners write an e-mail to NRK explaining why you'd want subtitles in Saami as well as Norwegian? Having the option to select subtitles is something that is new with internet-TV. I think NRK always makes subtitles in Norwegian for programs in Saami. That means a Saami speaker needs to sit and listen through the program and write down a translation for everything that is said. It doesn't seem like much more work to also write down the Saami text.

Great idea! I just sent them an e-mail. I'll report back here once I get a response