Minority languages in Sweden: Sami – 17th century to the present day

For a long time, the Sami have been the only people in Sapmi. But now, in the 17th century, the Swedish state thinks it's time to make better use of this land, that farmers should move in. The state also thinks it's time to convert the Sami to Christianity. But this is going slowly. The Sami do not want to.

So the state decides that every Sami will be christianised, by force. The Noaidi drums are collected and burned. The Seidis are torn down. All Sami who resist this, are punished with the whip. In the eighteenth century, national borders are suddenly drawn here.

Right through Sapmi. Sweden and Norway have a new border. The reindeer's summer grazing is in one country and their winter grazing is in another. Sweden and Norway write a contract about this. The Sami get the right to move freely across the border to let their reindeer graze.

This contract is called the Lapp Codicil. But this deal only lasts a short time. Norway changes its mind. And now in the 19th century, the borders are shifting. Sweden loses Finland to Russia...

and then Norway becomes Swedish.. and then Norwegian again... For the Sami, the borders are closed. Now it really gets crowded in the Swedish parts of Sapmi. The state forces many Sami to move south.

In the beginning of the twentieth century it becomes fashionable in Europe to talk about different peoples' biological origins. Many believe that humans can be divided into different races, like breeds of dog. In Sweden a research institute into these ideas is founded: The State Institute for Racial Biology. The scientists here believe that there are different races and that some races are better than others; that these "races" shouldn't be mixed; and that you can learn things about a "race" by measuring someone's head. And this is what they do.

They measure the Sami's heads and claim that they are not suitable for some work so they should stick to herding reindeer. These ideas also have an impact on the Sami's schooling. The residential Sami get to go to ordinary school while nomadic Sami kids attend a special school: Nomad-school or Kåta-school. The state believes that there's no point in letting them learn much about an ordinary life. They will never fit into it anyway.

But even so, they don't get to learn the Sami language in school, only Swedish. But after the Second World War, finally, these racial biology ideas become outdated. In the 1950s the nomad schools become more like ordinary schools. In the 1960s they become voluntary for all Sami kids. And now they also get to learn Sami in school, finally.

What kind of language is Sami actually? Well just look at the area that Sapmi covers. It's a very large area situated in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Kola peninsula in Russia. Since it's so big and the language is so old, Sami has developed differently in different places. The Sami people in The Kola Peninsula and Sami people in Umeå can not understand each other.

But their languages have so many similarities that we call them dialects instead of languages. Sami has three main dialects: Eastern Sami, Central Sami and Southern Sami. In Sweden about 7,000 people speak Sami dialects. Sami belongs to the Uralic language family and the Finno-Ugric language group. Some things that differentiate the Sami grammatical system from Swedish are: The meanings of the words change by adding different suffixes to them.

There are no words for him or her. All verbs have different declensions depending on whether you are talking about one, two, or more than two persons. In 1993 the government decided to establish the Sami parliament - "Sametinget". The Sami Parliament works with asserting Sami rights and saving and developing the Sami culture. Speaking of their rights; how about the right to herd reindeer over the borders?

Well, since 2005, the Lapp Codicil is back in use. Now the Sami may cross the borders again. Often in more modern ways than before.