Akkala Sami is a Sami language

Sami languages

Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...

 that was spoken in the Sami villages

Siida

The siida is a Sami local community that has existed from time immemorial. A siida , or a "reindeer pastoralistic district," is a Sami reindeer foraging area, a group for reindeer herding and a corporation working for the economic benefit of its members...

 of A´kkel and Ču´kksuâl, in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula

Kola Peninsula

The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far northwest of Russia. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely to the north of the Arctic Circle and is washed by the Barents Sea in the north and the White Sea in the east and southeast...

 in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Formerly erroneously regarded as a dialect of Kildin Sami, it has recently become recognized as an independent Sami language that is most closely related to its western neighbor Skolt Sami

Skolt Sami

Skolt Sami is a Uralic, Sami language spoken by approximately 400 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi, and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõˊttjäuˊrr dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. Skolt Sami used to also be spoken on the Neiden area of Norway,...

.

Akkala Sami is the most endangered eastern Sami language. On December 29, 2003, Marja Sergina – one of the last fluent native speakers of Akkala Sami – died. However, there are at least two people, both aged 70, with some knowledge of Akkala Sami.

Although there exist a description of Akkala Sami phonology and morphology, a few published texts and archived audio recordings the Akkala Sami language remains among the most poorly documented Sami languages.

Morphology

The following overview is based on P.M. Zajkov’s monograph. Zajkov’s Uralic phonetic

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages...

 transcription is retained here. The middle dot ˑ denotes palatalization of the preceding consonant, analyzed by Zajkov as semisoft

Semisoft sign

Semisoft sign is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.Semisoft sign is used in the alphabet of the Kildin Sami language, where it indicates palatalization of a preceding stop, .-Computing codes:...

 pronunciation.

Noun

Akkala Sami has 8 cases

Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...

, singular and plural

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

: nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

, genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

-accusative

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...

, partitive

Partitive case

The partitive case is a grammatical case which denotes "partialness", "without result", or "without specific identity". It is also used in contexts where a subgroup is selected from a larger group, or with numbers....

, dative

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....

-illative

Illative case

Illative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into ". An example from Hungarian is "a házba"...

, locative

Locative case

Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...

, essive

Essive case

The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary location or state of being, often equivalent to the English "as a ".In the Finnish language, this case is marked by adding "-na/-nä" to the stem of the noun....

, comitative

Comitative case

The comitative case , also known as the associative case , is a grammatical case that denotes companionship, and is used where English would use "in company with" or "together with"...

 and abessive

Abessive case

In linguistics, abessive , caritive and privative are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun...

. Case and number are expressed by a combination of endings and consonant gradation

Consonant gradation

Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades". It is found in some Uralic languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Northern Sámi, and the Samoyed language Nganasan. In addition, it has been reconstructed for Proto-Germanic, the parent...

:

• Nominative: no marker in the singular, weak grade in the plural.
• Genitive-accusative: weak grade in the singular, weak grade + -i in the plural.
• Partitive: this case exists only in the singular, and has the ending -tti͔.
• Dative-illative: strong grade + -a, -a͕ or -ɛ in the singular, weak grade + -i in the plural.
• Locative: weak grade + -st, -śtˑ in the singular, weak grade + -nˑ in the plural.
• Essive: this case exists only in the singular: strong grade + -nˑ.
• Comitative: weak grade + -nˑ in the singular, strong grade + -guim, -vuim or -vi̮i̭m in the plural.
• Abessive: weak grade + -ta in the singular.

Pronoun

The table below gives the declension of the personal pronoun

Personal pronoun

Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...

s monn ‘I’ and mij ‘we’. The pronouns tonn ‘you (sg.)’ and sonn ‘(s)he’ are declined like monn, the pronouns tij ‘you (pl.)’ and sij ‘they’ are declined like mij.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	monn	mij
Genitive-Accusative	mū	mii̭ji
Essive	munˑ	---
Dative-illative	munˑnˑa͔	mii̭ji
Locative	muśtˑ	miśtˑ
Comitative	muinˑ	mii̭jivuim
Abessive	muta	mii̭ta

The interrogative pronoun

Interrogative word

In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...

s mī ‘what?’ and tˑī, kī ‘who?’ are declined as follows:

	mī ‘what?’	tˑī, kī ‘who?’
Nominative	mī	tˑī, kī
Genitive-Accusative	mi̮n	t́an, ḱan
Dative-illative	mi̮z	koz
Locative	mi̮st	kośtˑ
Comitative	mi̮i̭nˑ	ḱainˑ
Abessive	mi̮nta	ḱanta

The proximal demonstrative

Demonstrative

In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...

 tˑa͕t ‘this’ and the medial demonstrative ti̮t ‘that’ are declined as follows:

	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	tˑa͕t	tˑa͕k	ti̮t	ti̮k
Genitive-Accusative	tˑa͕nˑ	tˑa͕i	ti̮n	ti̮i̭
Essive	tˑa͕inˑ	---	ti̮i̭nˑ	---
Dative-illative	tˑa͕z	tˑai(t)	ti̮k, ti̮z	ti̮i̭(t)
Locative	tˑa͕śtˑ	tˑa͕in	ti̮śtˑ	ti̮i̼(n)
Comitative	tˑa͕inˑ	tˑa͕ivuim	ti̮i̭nˑ	ti̮i̭vuim
Abessive	tˑa͕ta	tˑa͕ita	ti̮ta	ti̮i̭ta

Verb

Akkala Sami verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

s have three persons

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...

 and two numbers, singular and plural. There are three moods

Grammatical mood

In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...

: indicative, imperative

Imperative mood

The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...

 and conditional

Conditional mood

In linguistics, the conditional mood is the inflectional form of the verb used in the independent clause of a conditional sentence to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances...

; the potential mood has disappeared. Below, the paradigm of the verbs va͕n̄ˑće ‘to walk’ and korrɛ ‘to knit’ is given in the present and imperfect tense:

	Present	Imperfect	Present	Imperfect
1sg.	vā͕nʒam	va͕n̄ˑcim	kōram	korri͔m
2sg.	va͕nʒak	vā͕nˑcik	kōrak	korri͔k
3sg.	va͕n̄ˑc	vānˑʒi	korr	kōri͔
1pl.	va͕n̄ˑćepˑ	vānˑʒim	korrɛpˑ	kōri͔m
2pl.	va͕nˑćepˑpˑe	vānˑʒitˑ	korrɛpˑpˑe	kōri͔tˑ
3pl.	vā͕nˑʒatˑ	van̄ˑciš	kōratˑ	korri͔š

The verb ĺiije ‘to be’ conjugates as follows:

	Present	Imperfect
1sg.	ĺam	ĺii̭jim
2sg.	ĺak	ĺiijik
3sg.	ĺie	ĺai
1pl.	ĺepˑ	ĺījim
2pl.	ĺepˑpˑe	ĺījitˑ
3pl.	ĺetˑ	ĺii̭jiš

Compound tenses such as perfect and pluperfect are formed with the verb ĺii̭je in the present or imperfect as auxiliary

Auxiliary verb

In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...

, and the participle

Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...

 of the main verb. Examples are ĺam tĭĕhtmi̮nč ‘I have known’ from tĭĕhttɛ ‘to know’, and ĺai tui̭jāma ‘(s)he had made’ from tui̭je ‘to make’.

The conditional mood has the marker -č, which is added to the weak grade of the stem: kuarčim ‘I would sew’, vizzčik ‘you (sg.) would become tired’.

As in other Sami languages, Akkala Sami makes use of a negative verb

Negative verb

A negative verb is a type of auxiliary that is used to form the negative of a main verb. The main verb itself has no personal endings, while the negative verb takes the inflection...

that conjugates according to person and number, while the main verb remains unchanged. The conjugation of the negative verb is shown here together with the verb aĺ̄ḱe ‘to begin’:

1sg.	jim aĺg
2sg.	jik aĺg
3sg.	ij aĺg
1pl.	jepˑ aĺg
2pl.	jepˑpˑe aĺg
3pl.	jetˑ aĺg

The 3rd person singular and plural of the verb ĺii̭je ‘to be’ have special contracted forms ɛĺĺa and jāĺa.