Kildin Saami

I. Sociolinguistic Data

1. Existing alternative names

The main name of the language is Kildin Saami. The name used by native speakers: samlinč, sampelaš . The name used in official records and the Constitution: Saami. The name used previously: Lopar.

Kildin speakers call their own language kiillt saaʹmkiiʹll [Kildin Saami language]. The first General Population Census of the Russian Empire of 1897 featured the ethnonym of Lopar and the glossonym of Lopar language, while the following ones, Saami and Saami language respectively. The Soviet research tradition and even the more recent Russian studies considered the Saami idioms to be a single Saami language with numerous very distant dialects. Some Russian researchers still use the old terminology. In the European tradition, there are several Saami languages and some of them have dialects as well. Recently, Russian linguists began to share this opinion (see, for instance, Agranat 2015). This point of view seems justified, since not all Saami languages are mutually intelligible. The mutual understanding is particularly difficult between the speakers of the dialects located far from each other, and even the speakers of neighboring Kildin and Yokang languages have to resort to Russian as lingua franca to communicate with each other (Ruotsala 2005: 162). In addition, all Saami languages have considerable differences in grammar.

2. General characteristics

2.1. T otal number of speakers and their ethnic group

Number of speakers: 249 people. Source: respondents of the 2020 Census who indicated their proficiency. Number of respondents who indicated it to be their native language – 276 people. Population (2020 Census): 1550 people.

2.2. Age structure of native speakers

Limited to older generation

2.3. Sociolinguistic characteristics

2.2.2. Extinction threat

Seriously endangered — there are more speakers (from two hundred up to a thousand), but they are mainly from the older generation. The middle generation can understand it, but cannot use it communicate with each other. There are virtually no children with any command of the language. Such situation can continue for a long time. Yet, children would still be unable to speak the language. Its spheres of use: hunting/fishing, domestic sphere for older generation, communications with linguists. The total number of speakers can vary from several dozens to several hundreds.

Speakers are mainly concentrated in Lovozero, there is a certain number in Murmansk. Only older generation still actively uses the language, it is virtually not transmitted to children any longer.

2.2.3. Use in various spheres

In the 1930s, the 1 ^st and 2 ^nd grades were taught in Kildin, while in other grades the language became just one of the subjects. Teachers were trained at the Murmansk Pedagogical College, at the Institute of Peoples of the North in Leningrad. In 1937, all that stopped (see Kryuchkov 2002). In the 1970s, 50%  of Saami children spoke their ethnic language. The Ministry of Education of the RF decided to make Kildin an obligatory course at school (see Ivanischeva 2014: 102). At the same time, researchers once again began to work on the Kildin orthography. Nowadays, Kildin is taught at the Lovozero Vocational School and the Institute of Peoples of the North, Herzen State Pedagogical University in St Petersburg. Unlike the old days, students usually have no practical command of the language, since the transmission of Saami languages within families has virtually ceased.

2.4. Information about written language and its existence

Kola Saami have but one system of writing that is in Kildin. During the language policy in 1926–1927, the development of orthography for Kola Saami began. It was based on Kildin, since, firstly, it is located in the heart of the Peninsula, and secondly, it was spoken by a greater number of Saami. Nonetheless, it also took into account some features of Yokang and Notozero languages. In 1933, a Latin-based alphabet was approved. It originally comprised 38 letters, five more letters were added later. This alphabet was used by Z. Chernyakov to create an ABC taking into account the peculiarities of three languages, thus rendering it unusable for the speakers of all of them. Then they started publishing literature only in Kildin. However, the academic literature had never mentioned – and still doesn’t – that it was written in Kildin, the reason being that  officially there was only one Saami language with a multitude of dialects and the literary language was based on the Kildin dialect. In 1934-1935, they published Учебник арифметики для начальных школ [Arithmetic Textbook for Primary School] (1 ^st and 2 ^nd part) by N. Popova (translated by A. Endyukovsky), Книга для чтения [Reading Book] by P. Zhuleva, translations of several books for children.

In 1936, Kildin was switched to Cyrillic. The only difference between the Russian alphabet and the one elaborated by A. Endyukovsky was the digraph нг . A year later, its author published an ABC based on this script (Endyukovsky 1937). In the mid 1970s, a new attempt at creating a Kildin system of writing was made. A team of authors comprising three specialists – R. Kuruch, A. Antonova, and B. Glukhov – elaborated a Cyrillic-based alphabet that was approved by the decision of the Executive Committee of the Murmansk Regional Council of People’s Deputies № 518 of December 19, 1979.

            In 1982, by the new decision of the very same Executive Committee of the Murmansk Regional Council of People’s Deputies № 300 of June 16, 1982, the 1979 alphabet project got canceled and replaced by its redefined version created by the same team of authors. Despite the legal abolition of the first version and the legalization of its next edition, A. Antonova, one of the members of the team, published a new ABC in 1982 (Antonova 1982) that was based on the 1979 alphabet. This former version was also used for other schoolbooks and reading books, all stamped by the Ministry of National Education of the RSFSR.

            In 1985, Саамско-русский словарь [Saami-Russian Dictionary] was edited by R. Kuruch. Its authors included N. Afanasyeva, E. Mechkina, etc. (Afanasyeva etc. 1985). It used a new alphabet. In 1986, a famous Saami linguist G. Kert published Саамско-русский и русско-саамский школьный словарь [Saami-Russi and Russian-Saami School Dictionary] (Kert 1986) that suggested yet another alphabet. The absence of the letter j was its only difference from the previous one.

            In 1987, new modifications were made to the 1982 alphabet by the new decision of the Executive Committee of the Murmansk Regional Council of People’s Deputies № 198 of May 13, 1987: the Latin letters h and j were excluded and replaced by an apostrophe and a letter ҋ ’ respectively.

            But the story didn’t end there either. In 1991, there was launched a new alphabet by A. Antonova.

            In 1995, based on the alphabet approved in 1987, employees of the Murmansk Section of Linguistic Problems of Finno-Ugric Peoples of the Far North under the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Science published Правила орфографии и пунктуации саамского языка [Rules of Saami Spelling and Punctuation] (Kuruch etc., 1995).

Schoolbooks, teaching aids, methodological literature were printed in every alphabet. They were all used at the same time. Thus, there were cases when the school books for the 1 ^st grade were published based on one alphabet, and for the 2 ^nd grade, on another.

3. Geographic Characteristics

3.1. Subjects of the Russian Federation with compact residence of native speakers

Murmansk Oblast

The Saami languages are common on the Kola Peninsula (Russia), in the Finnish part of Lapland, Sweden, and Norway.

3.2. Total number of localities traditionally inhabited by native speakers.

3.3. Total number of localities (based in the 2010 Census)

Table by entities and districts. Population, number of people in corresponding ethnic group, number of native speakers, language preservation in a particular locality, dialects.

4. Historical Dynamics

The number of native speakers and corresponding ethnic group based on various censuses (starting from 1897) and other sources.

Position in the genealogical classification of world languages

Uralic language family > Finno-Ugric strand > Saami group

Dialects

Traditionally, Russian researchers saw Saami as a single language with numerous dialects. Nowadays, they acknowledge the existence of several Saami languages. In Russia, in addition to Kildin, there exist other languages on the brink of extinction: Yokang and Skolt (Koltta), represented only by Notozero dialect (others speakers of Skolt Saami were resettled to Finland in 1944), as well as Babinski with its last few semi-speakers left.

There still exist four dialects: the eponymous Kildin, Varzin, Lovozero, and Voronyno. Due to certain historical events, Kildin has great variability.