Pite Sami

Pite Sami
Spoken in	Norway Sweden
Total speakers	~20
Language family	Uralic Finno-Ugric Finno-Permic Finno-Volgaic Finno-Lappic Sami Western Pite Sami
Writing system	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	smi
ISO 639-3	sje
Pite Sami is 3 on this map.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Pite Sami, also known as Arjeplog Sami, is a Sami language traditionally spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a dying language that has only about twenty native speakers left and is now only spoken on the Swedish side of the border along the Pite River in the north of Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur and in the mountainous areas of the Arjeplog municipality.

Grammar

Cases

Pite Sámi has 9 cases:

• Nominative
• Genitive
• Accusative
• Inessive
• Illative
• Elative
• Comitative
• Essive
• Abessive

Verbs

Person

Pite Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

• first person
• second person
• third person

Mood

Pite Sami has five grammatical moods:

• indicative
• imperative
• conditional
• potential
• optative

Grammatical number

Pite Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

• singular
• dual
• plural

Tense

Pite Sami verbs conjugate for two simple tenses:

• past
• non-past

and two compound tenses:

• perfect
• pluperfect

Negative verb

Pite Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Pite Sámi, the negative verb conjugates according to mood (indicative, imperative and optative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural). This differs from some other the other Sami languages, e.g., from Northern Sami, which do not conjugate according to tense and other Sami languages, that do not use the optative.

   Non-past indicative        Past indicative                           
   sg.  du.     pl.           sg.     du.        pl.      
1  iv   ien     iehp        1 ittjiv  iejmien    iejmieh    
                iep                   ittjijmen  ittjijmeh           
2  ih   iehpien iehpit      2 ittjih  iejtien    iejtieh    
        ehpien  ihpit                 ittjijtien ittjijteh                               
        ihpien
3  ij   iepaa   ieh         3 ittjij  iejkaan    ittjin     
        iepaan                        ittjijka                  

For non-past indicative versions that have more than one form, the second one is from the dialect spoken around Björkfjället and the third is from the Svaipa dialect. The plurality in the other forms is due to parallel forms that are not bound by dialect.

   Imperative                  Optative
   sg.    du.     pl.          sg.    du.      pl.                        
1  -      -       -         1  alluv  iellun   iellup
                                      allun    allup
2  ielieh iellien iellit    2  alluh  ielluten ielluteh
                                      alluten  alluteh
3  -      -       -         3  allus  ielluska ielluseh
                                      alluska  alluseh

Phonology

Writing system

Pite Sámi is one of the four Sámi languages that does not have an official written language.

References

• Lagercrantz, Eliel: Sprachlehre des Westlappischen nach der Mundart von Arjeplog. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen seura, 1926, ISSN 0355-0230.
• Lehtiranta, Juhani: Arjeploginsaamen äänne- ja taivutusopin pääpiirteet. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen seura, 1992, ISBN 951-9403-55-8.
• Pite Saami Documentation Project. www2.hu-berlin.de/psdp. 2009.05.03.

External links

• Sámi lottit Names of birds found in Sápmi in a number of languages, including Skolt Sámi and English. Search function only works with Finnish input though.
• Pite Saami Documentation Project