Sami

The Sami People (there are other names and spellings including Sámi, Saami, Lapp and Davvin) are an indigenous people of northernmost Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. The Sami are one of the largest groups of indigenous peoples in Europe.

They call their ancestral lands Sápmi. The population of about 85,000 are primarily farmers and reindeer herders. Roughly half the Sami population lives in Norway, although Sweden also has a significant group. Finland and Russia only have smaller groups on the Kola peninsula. Some sources also state that Samis are found in northern Siberia.

The Sami folk have inhabited northern regions of Scandinavia since far back into antiquity. The culture of the "Fenni," a tribe described by the Roman historian Tacitus, among others, as hunter-gatherers who dwelt in the lands north of the Baltic, is identifable with the Sami. During the Middle Ages many groups of Sami were forced to pay tribute to their southern neighbors, the rulers of Norway, Russia and Sweden, a practice which continued in some cases until the 19th century.

Many books and official documents call these people Lapp, Lappisk; Lappish, but they prefer to be called Sámi, the name they use for themselves. They consider Lapp to be a particularly derogatory and offensive term with the tainted meaning "uncivilized", "fool" or "dumb". The oldest Nordic encyclopedia (Nordisk familjebok) instead indicates that the old Norse meaning might be "ÃÂÃÂ¶demark", i.e. "desert" or "wilds".

Reindeer have central importance in Sami culture, though nowadays reindeer herding is of dwindling economic relevance for the Sami people.

Table of contents

1 Sami language
2 Joiking
3 Related articles
4 External links

Sami language

Main article:Sami language.

The Sami language is divided into nine dialects, of which several have their own written languages. Southern Sami cannot understand Northern Sami. Most dialects are spoken in several countries, as linguistic borders do not correspond to national borders. The Sami language is part of the Finno-Ugric family, related to Finnish but not to Norwegian and kin, however due to prolonged contact with the Scandinavians, there is a large number of Germanic words in Sami.

Joiking

One very interesting Sami tradition is the singing of joik (not to be confused with the call yoicks used in fox hunting). Joiks are traditionally sung a capella, usually sung slowly and deep in the throat with apparent emotional content of sorrow or anger. Christian missionaries and priests regarded these as "songs of the Devil". In recent years, yoicks are frequently accompanied by musical instruments.

Sami music
Sami Parliament a Swedish Government Agency
Sami School Board of Sweden
Northern indigenous peoples of Russia
Germania by Tacitus