Northern or North Sami (Sámegiella or Davvisámegiella, formerly Davvisámi or Davvisaami; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2000 of these live in Finland and between 5000 and 6000 in Sweden.
Northern Sami was ...
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Northern or North Sami (Sámegiella or Davvisámegiella, formerly Davvisámi or Davvisaami; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sami speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2000 of these live in Finland and between 5000 and 6000 in Sweden.
Northern Sami was first described by Knud Leem (En lappisk Grammatica efter den Dialect, som bruges af Field-Lapperne udi Porsanger-Fiorden) in 1748 and in dictionaries in 1752 and 1768. One of Leem's fellow grammaticians was Anders Porsanger, who studied at the Trondheim Cathedral School and other schools, but who was unable to publish his work on Sami due to racist attitudes at the time. Unfortunately, the majority of his work has disappeared.
The roots of the current orthography for Northern Sami were laid by Rasmus Rask who, after discussions with Nils Vibe...
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