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Sami

Eurasian Language Families

The Sami languages are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the indigenous Sami people across Sapmi, the region spanning northern Finland, Norway and Sweden and northwesternmost Russia. Depending on how varieties are classified, ten or more distinct Sami languages exist, with roughly 30,000 native speakers in total. Northern Sami is by far the largest, with about 26,000 speakers making up around three quarters of all Sami speakers, while others such as Lule Sami and Southern Sami have only a few hundred to a couple thousand speakers, and several, including Ter Sami and the now-extinct Akkala Sami, are critically endangered or already gone.

Facts
Region
Sapmi: northern Finland, Norway and Sweden, and northwesternmost Russia 1
Speaker Count
30,000 1
Proto-Language Status
Well established as a branch of the Uralic language family. The traditionally assumed closer relationship to the Finnic languages within a Finno-Sami node has recently been doubted by some scholars. 1
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Sami Languages
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section
    in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and northwesternmost Russia)
  • Classification section
    The Sámi languages form a branch of the Uralic language family.
  • Infobox, speakers field
    (30,000 cited 1992-2013)
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