Sami Languages - Written Languages and Sociolinguistic Situation

Written Languages and Sociolinguistic Situation

At present there are nine living Sami languages. The largest six of the languages have independent literary languages; the three others have no written standard, and of them, there are only few, mainly elderly speakers left. The ISO 639-2 code for all Sami languages without its proper code is "smi". The six written languages are:

• Northern Sami (Norway, Sweden, Finland): With an estimated 15,000 speakers, this accounts for probably more than 75% of all Sami speakers in 2002. ISO 639-1/ISO 639-2: se/sme
• Lule Sami (Norway, Sweden): The second largest group with an estimated 1,500 speakers. ISO 639-2: smj
• Southern Sami (Norway, Sweden): 500 speakers (estimated). ISO 639-2: sma
• Inari Sami (Enare Sami) (Inari, Finland): 500 speakers (estimated). SIL code: LPI, ISO 639-2: smn
• Skolt Sami (Näätämö and the Nellim-Keväjärvi districts, Inari municipality, Finland, also spoken in Russia, previously in Norway): 400 speakers (estimated). SIL code: LPK, ISO 639-2: sms
• Kildin Sami (Kola Peninsula, Russia): 608 speakers in Murmansk Oblast, 179 in other Russian regions. Although 1991 persons stated their Saami ethnicity (1769 of them live in Murmansk Oblast) SIL code: LPD

The other Sami languages are critically endangered or moribund and have very few speakers left. Pite Sami has about 30–50 speakers, and a dictionary and an official orthography is under way. Ume Sami likely has under 20 speakers left, and ten speakers of Ter Sami were known to be alive in 2004. The last speaker of Akkala Sami is known to have died in December 2003, and the eleventh attested variety, Kemi Sami, became extinct in the 19th century.