Kildin Sami language
Encyclopedia
Kildin Sami is a Sami language
spoken by approximately 600 people on the Kola Peninsula
in northwestern Russia
. Kildin Sami is written using an official Cyrillic script
.
has the highest concentration of speakers. It is the largest of the Eastern Sami languages by virtue of the number of its speakers. Its future, however, appears to not be as bright as that of Skolt Sami or Inari Sami because the language is used actively by only very few people today. The Sami languages closest to Kildin are Ter Sami and Akkala Sami. The latter is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Kildin Sami.
since the 1980s. The alphabet has three variants with some minor differences in certain letters, mostly in vs. and ’ (apostrophe) vs. . Whereas the dictionary of Sammallahti/Xvorostuxina (1991) uses and ’ (apostrophe), Kuruč at al. 1985 uses and . The third orthographic variant, used, e.g., by Kert (1986), has neither of these letters.
Note that the letters , , (apostrophe), , , , , , Ъ, Ь, and do not occur word initially, either because the letters mark features of preceding consonants or the sounds they represent do not occur word initially. So these letters don't normally occur in uppercase, except for all caps
text.
The letter Щ occurs only in Russian loanword
s.
The orthographic principles are more or less similar to Russian, but note the following special features.
(¯) over the vowel letter (and above the diaeresis in the cases of Ё).
. The actual pronunciation, however, varies between true preaspiration [ʰ] or the fricative sounds [h], [ç], or [x].
has been borrowed to English, via Russian. In Kildin Sami, tūndâr means "treeless plain", but its genitive case
is tūndra.
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...
spoken by approximately 600 people on 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 northwestern 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...
. Kildin Sami is written using an official Cyrillic script
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
.
Geographic distribution
Although about 600 people throughout the whole Kola Peninsula claim Kildin Sami as their native language, the area around LovozeroLovozero
Lovozero may refer to:*Lovozero Massif, a mountain range in the center of Kola Peninsula, Russia*Lake Lovozero, a lake in Murmansk Oblast, Russia*Lovozero , a rural locality in Murmansk Oblast, Russia...
has the highest concentration of speakers. It is the largest of the Eastern Sami languages by virtue of the number of its speakers. Its future, however, appears to not be as bright as that of Skolt Sami or Inari Sami because the language is used actively by only very few people today. The Sami languages closest to Kildin are Ter Sami and Akkala Sami. The latter is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Kildin Sami.
Writing system
Kildin Sami is written in an extended version of the Cyrillic alphabetCyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
since the 1980s. The alphabet has three variants with some minor differences in certain letters, mostly in vs. and ’ (apostrophe) vs. . Whereas the dictionary of Sammallahti/Xvorostuxina (1991) uses and ’ (apostrophe), Kuruč at al. 1985 uses and . The third orthographic variant, used, e.g., by Kert (1986), has neither of these letters.
Note that the letters , , (apostrophe), , , , , , Ъ, Ь, and do not occur word initially, either because the letters mark features of preceding consonants or the sounds they represent do not occur word initially. So these letters don't normally occur in uppercase, except for all caps
All caps
In typography, all caps refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters. All caps is usually used for emphasis. It is commonly seen in the titles on book covers, in advertisements and in newspaper headlines...
text.
The letter Щ occurs only in Russian loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s.
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж | З з | ' | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /ʲa/ | /b/ | /v/ | /ɡ/ | /d/ | /je/ or /ʲe/ | /jo/ or /ʲo/ | /ʒ/ | /z/ | /ʰ/ | |
| И и | Й й | Ј ј | К к | Л л | М м | Н н | |||||
| /i/ or /ji/ or /ʲi/ | /j/ | /k/ | /l/ | /m/ | /m̥/ | /n/ | /n̥/ | ||||
| О о | П п | Р р | С с | Т т | У у | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | |||
| /ŋ/ | /о/ | /p/ | /r/ | /r̥/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /f/ | /x/ | /ts/ | |
| Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ыы | Ь ь | Э э | Ю ю | Я я | |||
| /ʧ/ | /ʃ/ | /ç/ | /ɨ/ | /ʲ/ | /ʲ/ | /e/ | /ʲe/ | /ju/ or /ʲu/ | /ja/ or /ʲa/ | ||
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 Sami is marked by the letter or one of the vowel letters , , , , and following the consonant. Palatalized Д, Т, Н, however, are marked by or one of the vowel letters and . Note also that the consonant letter Н before or one of the vowel letters , , , , and does not represent palatalization but the palatal nasal /ɲ/.Long vowels
Long vowels are marked with a macronMacron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
(¯) over the vowel letter (and above the diaeresis in the cases of Ё).
Preaspiration
The letter occurs before the letters П, Т, К, Ц and Ч, and marks (historical) preaspirationPreaspiration
In phonetics, preaspiration is a period of voicelessness or aspiration preceding the closure of a voiceless obstruent, basically equivalent to an -like sound preceding the obstruent. In other words, when an obstruent is preaspirated, the glottis is opened for some time before the obstruent closure...
. The actual pronunciation, however, varies between true preaspiration [ʰ] or the fricative sounds [h], [ç], or [x].
Voiceless sonorants
Voiceless sonorants are represented by the letters , , , , and .Phonology
Rimma Kuruch's dictionary presents the following vowels for Kildin Sami:| front | central | back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| long | short | long | short | long | short | |
| close | ӣ | и | ы̄ | ы | ӯ | у |
| mid | э̄ | э | о̄ | о | ||
| open | а̄ | а | ||||
Loanwords to English
The word tundraTundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
has been borrowed to English, via Russian. In Kildin Sami, tūndâr means "treeless plain", but its genitive case
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
is tūndra.
External links
- Kildin Saami Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Ethnologue report for language code:sjd Алфавит саамского языка (кильдинский диалект) Sami–Russian dictionary, Kuruch R. D., Grammar of Kildin Sami language (DJVU, PDF)
- Kildin Saami language by Jelena Porsanger
- Kildin Saami language by Michael Rießler