Sami orthography refers to the various orthographies

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 used by the six Sámi languages

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 have their own literary language

Literary language

A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...

: Southern Sami

Southern Sami

Southern Sami is the southwestern-most of the Sami languages. It is a seriously endangered language; the last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa and Hattfjelldal in Norway...

, Lule Sami

Lule Sami

Lule Sami is a Uralic, Sami language spoken in Lule Lappmark, i.e., around Luleå, Sweden and in the northern parts of Nordland county in Norway, especially Tysfjord municipality, where Lule Sami is an official language...

, Northern Sami

Northern Sami

Northern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland...

, Inari Sami

Inari Sami

Inari Sámi is a Uralic, Sami language spoken by the Inari Sami of Finland. It has approximately 300 speakers, the majority of whom are middle-aged or older and live in the municipality of Inari. According to the Sami Parliament of Finland 269 persons used Inari Sami as their first language. It is...

, 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,...

 and Kildin Sami.

Orthographical trends

Three different orthographical trends can be identified for these Sámi languages. The first one uses the principle of having the Sámi orthography be the same as it is for the majority language of that country as its basis. This trend goes back to the traditions where the Sami language was first being used as a written language, i.e., in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. The literary language there that followed this principle was based on the old Ume Sami

Ume Sami

Ume Sami is a Sami language spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a dying language with only about 10 native speakers left and is spoken mainly along the Ume River in the north of Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur.- Consonant gradation :...

 literary language from the 18th century. This same literary language was partially used as the basis for the modern literary languages of Southern Sami

Southern Sami

Southern Sami is the southwestern-most of the Sami languages. It is a seriously endangered language; the last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa and Hattfjelldal in Norway...

 and Lule Sami

Lule Sami

Lule Sami is a Uralic, Sami language spoken in Lule Lappmark, i.e., around Luleå, Sweden and in the northern parts of Nordland county in Norway, especially Tysfjord municipality, where Lule Sami is an official language...

. The oldest orthography for Northern Sámi in Norway, that of Knud Leem

Knud Leem

Knud Leem was a Norwegian priest and linguist. Knud Leem started the linguistic study of Sámi when he published a grammar book of it in 1748...

, upholds this tradition. The second tradition goes back to Rasmus Rask's revision of Leem's orthography, as Rask builds on the phonemic principle. North Sami, Inari Sami, and Skolt Sami follow this tradition. The third tradition is represented by the Kildin Sami language for which a written language has been created three times: first by Russian missionaries using the Cyrillic alphabet as the basis for the language's orthography, then using the Latin alphabet at the end of 1920s into the 1930s as part of Stalin's language policy for minority languages, and finally once again returning to the Cyrillic alphabet at the end of the 1970s.

A unified literary language

The Sámi strongly feel that they are one people. For this reason, proposals for a united Sami literary language have been made. The differences amongst the various languages are, however, too large to make this feasible.

The six literary languages

With the exception of Kildin Sámi, the Sámi languages that have their own literary language are written with the standard Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

 with the addition of some special characters.

Southern Sami

Southern Sami follows the principle of using the majority language of the particular country it is being used in as the basis for its orthography and thus has two separate versions: the Norwegian standard and the Swedish standard. The letters enclosed in parentheses are letters that are only used in foreign words. In addition, ï [ɨ] is a central version of i [i]. Although this difference is clearly indicated in dictionaries, most texts do not distinguish between the two.

In Norway

А а	B b	(C c)	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h
I i	(Ï ï)	J j	K k	L l	M m	N n	O o
P p	(Q q)	R r	S s	T t	U u	V v	(W w)
(X x)	Y y	(Z z)	Æ æ	Ø ø	Å å

Bergsland-Hasselbrink orthography

The Bergsland

Knut Bergsland

Knut Bergsland was a Norwegian linguist. Working as a professor at the University of Oslo from 1947 to 1981, he did groundbreaking research in Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut languages.-Career:...

-Hasselbrink orthography was in use in 1957 and is similar to the orthography used for Northern Sami during the same period:

А а	Â â	Á á	B b	C c	Č č	D d	Đ đ D with stroke Đ , formed from D with the addition of a bar or stroke through the letter. This is the same modification that was used to create eth , but eth is based on an insular variant of d while đ is based on its usual upright shape...
E e	F f	G g	H h	I i	Î î	J j	K k
L l	M m	N n	Ŋ ŋ Eng (letter) Eng or engma is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a velar nasal in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet.-History:...	O o	P p	R r	S s
Š š	T t	U u	V v	Y y	Z z	Ž ž	Ä ä
Æ æ	Ö ö	Å å	'

The current orthography

А а	B b	(C c)	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h
I i	(Ï ï)	J j	K k	L l	M m	N n	O o
P p	(Q q)	R r	S s	T t	U u	V v	(W w)
(X x)	Y y	(Z z)	Ä ä	Ö ö	Å å

Lule Sami

Like Southern Sami, Lule Sami follows the principle of using the majority language of the particular country it's being written in as the basis for its orthography and thus has two separate versions: the Norwegian standard and the Swedish standard. The standard orthography for Lule Sami was approved in 1983.

• In Norway, Áá, Åå, Ńń, and Ææ are known to be used.
• In Sweden, Áá, Åå, Ńń, and Ää are known to be used.
• In Sweden, Áá Åå Ńń Ää

Northern Sami

Northern Sami has a long orthographic history, which has witnessed no less than 9 different versions. The most recent version was approved in 1979 and last modified in 1985:

А а	Á á	B b	C c	Č č	D d	Đ đ D with stroke Đ , formed from D with the addition of a bar or stroke through the letter. This is the same modification that was used to create eth , but eth is based on an insular variant of d while đ is based on its usual upright shape...	E e
F f	G g	H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	M m
N n	Ŋ ŋ	O o	P p	R r	S s	Š š	T t
Ŧ ŧ	U u	V v	Z z	Ž ž

Inari Sami

The following alphabet for Inari Sami was approved in 1996.

А а	Â â	B b	C c	Č č	D d	Đ đ	E e
F f	G g	H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	M m
N n	O o	P p	(Q q)	R r	S s	Š š	T t
U u	V v	(W w)	(X x)	Y y	Z z	Ž ž	Ä ä
Á á	Å å	Ö ö

Skolt Sami

А а	Â â	B b	C c	Č č	Ʒ ʒ Ezh (letter) Ezh is a letter in the International Phonetic Alphabet , representing the voiced postalveolar fricative consonant. It is also called the "tailed z". Example: vision . It is pronounced as the "s" in "treasure" or the "si" in the word "precision"...	Ǯ ǯ	D d
Đ đ	E e	F f	G g	Ǧ ǧ	Ǥ ǥ	H h	I i
J j	K k	Ǩ ǩ K K is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA....	L l	M m	N n	Ŋ ŋ Eng (letter) Eng or engma is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a velar nasal in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet.-History:...	O o
Õ õ	P p	R r	S s	Š š	T t	U u	V v
Z z	Ž ž	Å å	Ä ä	ˊ

Kildin Sami

The latest version of the official orthography for Kildin Sámi uses the Cyrillic alphabet

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...

:

А а	Ӓ ӓ	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ё ё
Ж ж	З з	'	(Һ һ)	И и	Й й	Ҋ ҋ	(Ј ј)
К к	Л л	Ӆ ӆ El with tail El with tail is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter El by adding a tail to the right leg.El with tail is used only in the alphabet of the Kildin Sami language, where it is located between ⟨Л⟩ and ⟨М⟩...	М м	Ӎ ӎ Em with tail Em with tail is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter Em by adding a tail to the right leg.Em with tail is used only in the alphabet of the Kildin Sami language to represent the voiceless bilabial nasal ....	Н н	Ӊ ӊ En with tail En with tail is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter En by adding a tail to the right leg....	Ӈ ӈ En with hook En with hook is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter En by adding a hook to the right leg.En with hook commonly represents the velar nasal , like the pronunciation of ⟨ng⟩ in "sing".-Usage:...
О о	П п	Р р	Ҏ ҏ	С с	Т т	У у	Ф ф
Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь
Ҍ ҍ Yat Yat or Jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. Its name in Old Church Slavonic is jěd’ or iad’ . In the common scientific Latin transliteration for old Slavic languages, the letter is represented by e with caron: .The yat represented a Common Slavic long vowel...	Э э	Ӭ ӭ E with diaeresis (Cyrillic) E with diaeresis is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter E .E with diaeresis is used in the alphabet of the Kildin Sami language, where it represents the close-mid front unrounded vowel , following a palatalized stop, .-Computing codes:-See also:*Е е :...	Ю ю	Я я