Fdtxjr

Pite Sámi
bidumsámegiella
Native to	Norway, Sweden
Native speakers	25 to 50 (2010)[1]
Language family	Uralic Sámi Western Pite Sámi
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sje
Glottolog	pite1240[2]
Pite Sámi is 3 on this map.

The approximate area in which Pite Saami was traditionally spoken

Pite Sámi, also known as Arjeplog Sámi, is a Sámi language traditionally spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a critically endangered language^[3] that has only about 25–50^[1] 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.

Classification

Pite Sámi is a part of the Western Sámi group, together with Southern Sámi and Ume Sámi to the south, Lule Sámi and Northern Sámi to the north. Of these, Pite Sámi shows closest affinity to Lule Sámi, but a number of features also show similarity to Ume and Southern Sámi.

Phonology

Consonants

The Pite Sámi consonant inventory is very similar to that found in neighbouring Lule Sámi, but lacks contrastive voicing of stops and affricates entirely.

• Stops before a homorganic nasal (pre-stopped nasals) are realised as unreleased stops.


• 
  /v/ is realised as a labiodental fricative [v] in the syllable onset (before a vowel), and as bilabial [w] in the syllable coda (in a consonant cluster).


• 
  /ð/ is present only in the language of some elderly speakers. It is otherwise replaced by /r/ or /t/, depending on dialect.

Vowels

The Pite Sámi vowel inventory has a relative lack of phonemic diphthongs, compared to other Sámi languages and particularly neighbouring Lule Sámi. Instead, there are more vowel height distinctions.

• The close vowels /i/ and /u/ are realized as laxer [ɪ] and [ʊ] respectively, in unstressed positions.


• Close-mid /e/ and /o/ are diphthongized to [ie̯] and [uo̯] respectively, when stressed.


• 
  /ɔ/ contrasts with /ɔː/ in near-minimal pairs such as båhtet /ˈpɔːhtet/ "to come" vs båhtjet /ˈpɔhtet/ "to milk".


• 
  /ɛ/ does not occur in unstressed syllables.


• 
  /ɔ/ can occur in unstressed syllables, but only when a preceding stressed syllable contains /ɔ/.

Prosody

Dialects

Sammallahti^[5] divides Lule Sami dialects as follows:

• Northern dialects: Luokta-Mávas in Sweden


• Central dialects: Semisjaur-Njarg in Sweden


• Southern dialects: Svaipa in Sweden

Features of the northern dialects are:

• Lack of /aː/ → /eː/ umlaut.


• Voicing in quantity 3 of plain stops (thus strong /bː.b/ ~ weak /p.p/ etc.), like in Lule Sámi.


• 
  /t/ as the outcome of Proto-Samic *đ.

Features of the southern dialects are:

• 
  /r/ as the outcome of Proto-Samic *đ.

Orthography

Pite Sámi is one of the four Sámi languages that does not have an official written language. A working orthography has been developed in 2008–2011 by the Sámi Association of Arjeplog.^[6] It closely resembles the orthography of neighbouring Lule Sámi.

Grammar

Cases

Pite Sámi has 9 cases:

• Nominative


• Genitive


• Accusative


• Inessive


• Illative


• Elative


• Comitative


• Essive


• Abessive

The inflectional paradigm for the noun guolle 'fish' by Israel Ruong, archived at the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore in Uppsala.

Verbs

Person

Pite Sámi verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

• first person


• second person


• third person

Mood

Pite Sámi has five grammatical moods:

• indicative


• imperative


• conditional


• potential


• optative

Grammatical number

Pite Sámi verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

• singular


• dual


• plural

Tense

Pite Sámi verbs conjugate for two simple tenses:

• past


• non-past

and two compound tenses:

• Present perfect


• Pluperfect

Negative verb

Pite Sámi, 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 Sámi languages, e.g. from Northern Sámi, which do not conjugate according to tense and other Sámi languages, that do not use the optative.

 Non-past indicative Past indicative 
 sg. du. pl. sg. du. pl. 
1 iv ien iehp 1 ittjiv iejmen iejmeh 
 iep ittjijmen ittjijmeh 
2 ih iehpen iehpit 2 ittjih iejten iejteh 
 ähpen ihpit ittjijten ittjijteh 
 ihpen
3 ij iepá ieh 3 ittjij iejkán ittjin 
 iepán 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 ieleh iellen iellit 2 alluh ielluten ielluteh
 alluten alluteh
3 - - - 3 allus ielluska ielluseh
 alluska alluseh

Notes

References

• 
  Lagercrantz, Eliel (1926). Sprachlehre des Westlappischen nach der Mundart von Arjeplog. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia. 25. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.
  


• 
  Lehtiranta, Juhani (1992). Arjeploginsaamen äänne- ja taivutusopin pääpiirteet. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia. 212. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. ISBN 951-9403-55-8.
  


• Pite Saami Documentation Project. www2.hu-berlin.de/psdp. 2009.05.03.


• 
  Wilbur, Joshua (2014). A Grammar of Pite Sami. Studies in Diversity Linguistics. 5. Berlin: Language Science Press. ISBN 978-3-944675-47-3. Retrieved 2014-10-10.
  

External links

• Pite Saami Documentation Project