Keywords

11.1 Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the recent development of Aanaar Saami by combining a structural perspective to language change and an analysis of language ideologies that can be perceived in the writings of the major figures behind probably one of the most successful language revitalisation projects in Europe.

Aanaar (Inari) Saami (< Saami < Uralic) is an indigenous minority language spoken by an estimated 400 people mainly around Lake Aanaar in Northern Finland. The region of Aanaar/Inari has long been on the border of several language areas. As Aanaar Saami is the only Saami language spoken solely in Finland, the Aanaar Saami community has been bilingual in Aanaar Saami and Finnish for generations. As a result, Aanaar Saami sentence structures have been gradually restructured to become more and more like those of Finnish.

While the grammatical structure of Aanaar Saami has been little described, the language has recently become one of the best-known modern examples of language revitalisation: Within the past three decades, the once critically endangered language with next to no young speakers has acquired dozens of new speakers via language nests for children as well as effective language learning programmes for adults (Olthuis et al., 2013; Pasanen, 2010, 2015), and these new speakers now rear new generations in the revived language. However, it has been suggested that one of the major factors of the unusually successful revival has been the extraordinarily tolerant attitudes of the speech community: New speakers—Saami and non-Saami alike—have been welcomed with the proclamation that it is better to speak ‘bad’ Saami than no Saami at all (M. Morottaja, 2007a, p. 10; Pasanen, 2018). This contrasts somewhat with the attitudes of L1 Finnish speakers towards even advanced L2 speakers: In the majority society of Finland, language may be used as a means of social, ideological, and political differentiation, that is, to demarcate ‘us’ from ‘them’ (Lehtonen, 2015; Ruuska, 2020). As a consequence, modern Aanaar Saami is now lexically and grammatically more Finnicised than ever, but the use of the language flourishes after decades of decline.

In this chapter, the documentation and description of the Aanaar Saami revival are extended to the structural properties of the language. As Aanaar Saami and Finnish are related to each other both genetically and typologically, the ongoing restructuring of the Aanaar Saami syntax (i.e., the clause and sentence structures) can be considered a textbook example of the phenomenon labelled as metatypy by Ross (1996): Aanaar Saami is becoming increasingly isomorphic (i.e., similar in structure) with Finnish. We will synthesise an analysis of two different aspects of the Aanaar Saami revival as manifested in the existing literature directed to different kinds of audiences: After a brief introduction to the sociological aspects of the revitalisation and revival of Aanaar Saami in Sect. 11.2, we present our data and methods in Sect. 11.3. The main focus of this chapter—in Sect. 11.4—is on contact-induced variation as manifested in texts written in Aanaar Saami. More precisely, as regards the purposes and the subject matter of the present study, our focus is especially on the observations and attitudes concerning the Finnish influence on Aanaar Saami as experienced and expressed by the scholars and revitalisers of the language. (While many of these people are native speakers of Aanaar Saami, a number of scholars and language planners have acquired the language at a later age.)

After a number of examples of some of the most remarkable features of contact-induced variation in Aanaar Saami in Sect. 11.4, Sect. 11.5 examines the themes surrounding this contact-induced influence in Aanaar Saami in texts written by native speakers. They recognise the emerging variation as an unwanted influence of Finnish and evaluate it to be detrimental to the ‘original’ Aanaar Saami system, but at the same time tolerance towards all kinds of language is advocated.

Finally, Sect. 11.6 provides a general discussion and further remarks on the topic. Even though Aanaar Saami is becoming increasingly isomorphic with Finnish, this has in no way resulted in a loss of linguistic identity and ideology among the Aanaar Saami people. Instead, the contemporary language appears to be a fruit of extraordinary collective optimism and tolerance towards the future of the Aanaar Saami language and culture, which also clearly differentiates the Aanaar Saami community from other, even significantly larger, Saami-speaking communities.

11.2 Background

11.2.1 The Aanaar Saami Language

Aanaar Saami is one of about ten living Saami languages, the westernmost branch of the Uralic language family. It is spoken in a relatively compact area around Lake Aanaar, the largest lake in Lapland or Sápmi, the traditional Saami homeland covering about 400,000 km2 of northernmost Fennoscandia. While Aanaar Saami has traditionally been regarded as belonging to the eastern group of Saami languages, the taxonomic position of the language is somewhat unclear. Aanaar Saami has many phonological, morphological, and syntactic features typical of the easternmost Saami languages, but the language is lexically closer to North Saami in the west than to Skolt Saami in the east (Rydving, 2013; Valtonen et al., 2022); Rydving (op. cit., p. 184) even suggests that Aanaar Saami could be considered a third, independent unit between the western and eastern dialect continua.

In any case, in today’s world Aanaar Saami has the unquestionable status of being one of the three officially acknowledged Saami languages in Finland. Moreover, it is commonly characterised as the only Saami language traditionally spoken solely in Finland, whereas most speakers of North Saami (undeniably western Saami) reside in Norway and Sweden, and Skolt Saami (eastern Saami) is also spoken in the Kola Peninsula of the Russian Federation. Consequently, the Aanaar Saami speech community has been heavily influenced by Finnish ever since the increasing Finnicisation of Aanaar since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Virtually all speakers of Aanaar Saami have been bilingual in Finnish for generations, while the North Saami community has been competitively influenced by as many as three nation-state languages—Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish—and Skolt Saami by Finnish and Russian. The number of speakers of Aanaar Saami has always been in the hundreds, and by the 1990s the language was commonly considered a moribund language, at one period being passed on to new generations in only two families (Olthuis et al., 2013, p. 30). To be sure, all Saami languages still have a low status outside the Saami homeland and must indeed be considered more or less endangered.

However, the past three decades have witnessed a successful revitalisation of Aanaar Saami, and the language has become one of the best-known modern examples of language revitalisation. The language has acquired dozens of new speakers and it is used in various domains of education and media, for example. The driving force has been the Aanaar Saami Association, Anarâškielâ servi, founded in 1986; the activities organised and initiated by the association include three language nests (kielâpiervâleh, early childhood immersion programmes since 1997), two Aanaar Saami magazines, an online newspaper, specific language education programmes for adults, and the development of advanced language technology tools. Luckily enough, not only has the language been revitalised and revived in both quantitative (number of speakers) and qualitative (new domains) terms, many of the most important revitalisers of the language are also leading academic specialists of the language, and a significant part of the new speakers have studied the language also at the university level. In the early 2020s, it can be claimed that the Aanaar Saami are one of the most language-conscious and highly educated minority groups within the Uralic family and in the whole of Europe (Valtonen et al., 2022, p. 179).

11.2.2 Revitalisation and Its Effects

The sociological aspects of the Aanaar Saami revitalisation process have also been amply documented and distributed to the scientific community. For the purposes of the present chapter, we refer to the above-mentioned literature for more details, but some general comments are in order. The entire process of the beginnings of Aanaar Saami revitalisation in the period 1997–2014 has been carefully described and analysed by Pasanen (2015, 2018). Olthuis et al. (2013) provide a concise account of the early phases including the establishment of language nests and development of Aanaar Saami elementary education, but focus especially on the creation, implementation, and results of the Complementary Aanaar Saami Language Education (CASLE) project carried out in 2009–2010.

In a nutshell, the Aanaar Saami community has revitalised their language by all possible methods, starting with preschool children and following and supporting their life through primary and secondary education all the way up to the university level. The CASLE project and many other enterprises have focused on the so-called lost generation—adults who had not got a chance to acquire the language in their childhood. As a result, there are currently more than one hundred speakers of Aanaar Saami who have not learnt the language in the most prototypical way at home in early childhood. As always, it is impossible to present exact numbers, but the proportion of new speakers of Aanaar Saami is remarkable in the community of around 400 active speakers.

Contrary to the sociological side of the successful Aanaar Saami revitalisation, its structural effects on the language have not been discussed in much detail. A doctoral thesis and its accompanying articles (e.g., Mettovaara, forthcoming) is in the works, and a master’s thesis on the Finnish syntactic interference in Saami-speaking pupils’ texts (Seipiharju, 2022) has recently been published. However, the effects of similar processes are well known for other languages such as Hawaiian (NeSmith, 2003; Wong, 1999), Breton (Kennard, 2019), and Manx (Lewin, 2021). In the most extreme cases, scholars sometimes distinguish between varieties labelled as Hawaiian and Neo Hawaiian or Breton and Neo Breton. The best known and most successful case is the emergence of Modern Hebrew (Israeli Hebrew, Israeli, Ivrit), a language unanimously regarded as fully independent from Ancient Hebrew, whose last native speakers died almost two millennia before the first native speakers of Modern Hebrew in the late nineteenth century. The emergence and development of Modern Hebrew has been documented and analysed by generations of scholars; for the most recent studies, see Doron (2015) and Doron et al. (2019).

11.3 Data and Methods

We have collected most of our data from two authors’ texts: Matti Morottaja (also known by his Saami name Kuobžâ-Saammâl Matti, b. 1942), one of the leading figures of Aanaar Saami revitalisation who has also worked as a teacher and a journalist, and Marja-Liisa Olthuis (Kaabi Eljis Márjá-Liisá, b. 1967), Ph.D., who currently works as the university lecturer of Aanaar Saami at the University of Oulu and who has led several revitalisation projects and been involved in revitalisation activities for well over twenty years. In addition, we have included some material from Petter Morottaja (Kuobžâ-Saammâl Maati Petter), an Aanaar Saami university teacher and author, and Sáárá Seipiharju (Vesko-Ráávná Aaimo Sáárá), an Aanaar Saami journalist who has written her master’s thesis (2022) on the Finnish interference in Aanaar Saami.

All in all, we have sought texts written by Aanaar Saami native speakers that deal with Finnish structural influence to any extent. The texts can be divided into four categories: (1) scholarly papers and monographs, (2) master’s theses, (3) conference presentations, and (4) popular texts meant for a more general audience. A detailed list can be found at the end of this chapter. However, few of the texts in our data focus exclusively on the issue of Finnish influence; in fact, most observations concerning the recent contact-induced development of Aanaar Saami are scattered in publications directed to the general public and language activists rather than linguists. This does not diminish their significance, however, as the publications in question provide valuable perspectives to the underlying beliefs and aims of those who spend their lives revitalising and using the language in all possible ways.

We examine the same texts from two different perspectives. The first one, structural, is the focus in Sect. 11.4, where we present examples of the grammatical and lexical effects of Finnish on Aanaar Saami that the native Saami authors have highlighted. In Sect. 11.5, we employ inductive content analysis and thematic analysis on the same texts. These methods are suitable for the type of unstructured text-heavy data we have collected (Kyngäs, 2020). We study the authors’ propositions and choices of words concerning the Finnish influence and what they tell us about the attitudes towards the phenomenon. We pay attention mainly to the lexical and semantic level of the texts, and as a result, we identify four main themes emerging from them.

11.4 Structural Effects of Aanaar Saami Revival

This section provides an overview of some of the non-sociological linguistic issues that have gained attention in Aanaar Saami revitalisation. By this we mean various grammatical and lexical features of the language whose speakers and domains have experienced extraordinary changes with respect to the traditional use of the language. We will mainly focus on the views presented by native-speaking grass-root language planners and other language activists who often also have various roles also in academia, as it appears that most non-native scholars of the language are—understandably enough—more reticent about their evaluative views on the language in change. However, the focus of this section is on the language system per se, while the evaluative thematic analysis is discussed in more detail in Sect. 11.5.

There are few systematic descriptions of the Finnish interference in or other effects of language revitalisation on Aanaar Saami. Some of them are written by non-native speakers of Aanaar Saami, so we have not included them in our data, but they should be mentioned as background information. An article by Mettovaara (forthcoming) examines the emerging variation in the grammatical subject and object both in spoken and written Aanaar Saami. He argues that the variation can be traced back to Finnish syntactic models. Other notable works are master’s theses: Pasanen (2003) surveys the Aanaar Saami language nest and offers brief observations on and examples of the children’s spoken language. She summarises that Finnish and Aanaar Saami intersect on all levels of the children’s language, so much so that it could be called a mixed lect. Seipiharju (2022), a native speaker, investigates the Finnish interference in written Aanaar Saami syntactic structures of primary school pupils. Her results show that Finnish is clearly influencing the syntax of Aanaar Saami but that there is also wide individual variation between pupils in the intensity of interference.

There are not many general descriptions of the language structure of Aanaar Saami either. The publication by P. Morottaja and Olthuis (2022) is the most extensive to date, albeit geared more towards pedagogical purposes and focusing on morphology, whereas the ones preceding are mainly preliminary sketches (Olthuis, 2000; Valtonen et al., 2022). The lexicon has been more thoroughly documented by generations of linguists (see Itkonen et al., 1986–1991 for a scholarly account of the traditional spoken language and Olthuis & Valtonen, 2016 regarding the contemporary use of the language).

As a language system can be conventionally divided into grammar and lexicon, we begin with the former first and will take a look at the lexical aspects further below. As for the grammar, we are mainly interested in the rapid restructuring of the Aanaar Saami syntax. Although the phonology and the highly complex morphophonology of the language also seem to be under change, language activists and scholars have paid relatively little attention to this aspect of the language change (Valtonen et al., 2022, pp. 180, 182; Mettovaara, forthcoming). In the same vein, while it is well known that the age-old contacts with neighbouring Finnic languages have affected Saami morphology to the extent that even inflectional and derivational bound morphemes have been borrowed, there seems to be little recent influence from Finnish on Aanaar Saami in particular. One of the most recent yet already fully integrated Finnish features is the converb marker -máin, originally a comitative case form (-in) of the action nominal (-m(V)-), which has been a part of the Aanaar Saami grammar already in the nineteenth century (Valtonen et al., 2022, p. 194; Ylikoski, 2009, pp. 84–85). This represents an instance of pattern borrowing (Matras & Sakel, 2007), where the Finnish structure has provided a model, according to which native Aanaar Saami morphemes and syntax are then structured. Even in our days, this verb form (1a) is especially common in direct translations from Finnish with the etymologically analogous converb in -malla (1b) (cf. the comitative and adessive cases in the expressions 5,94573:in and 5,94573:lla):

(1)

a.

Määrkih

nubásmittojeh

euron

  

markka.pl

convert.pass.3pl

euro.ess

  

jyehimáin

taid

5,94,573:in.

  

divide.cvb

it.pl.acc

5.94573.com

 

b.

Markat

muunnetaan

euroiksi

  

markka.pl

convert.pass

euro.pl.tra

  

jakamalla

ne

5,94,573:lla

  

divide.cvb

it.pl

5.94573.ade

  

‘Finnish markkas are converted to euros by dividing them by 5.94573.’

  

(http://www.vm.fi 18.1.2002)

The most remarkable effects of the Finnish language on Aanaar Saami grammar are visible in morphosyntax. All speakers of Aanaar Saami are virtually bilingual in both languages, and due to the significant proportion of L1 Finnish speakers in the Aanaar Saami community, it seems impossible to avoid interference from Finnish in Aanaar Saami. The widespread multilingualism—including not only Finnish but also North Saami—among the Aanaar Saami has its roots in at least the 1800s, and on the eastern side of Aanaar there have been close contacts even with the Skolt Saami (Lehtola, 2012, p. 41ff.).

However, most observations on the Finnish influence on Aanaar Saami grammar have centred on syntax. Some phenomena have very central positions within the everyday use of Aanaar Saami sentences: Often-mentioned examples of the emergence of Finnish-like syntax include variation in argument marking and subject–predicate agreement. Interestingly, it is here that the traditional Aanaar Saami represents a typologically unmarked nominative–accusative system where the nominative case is used for grammatical subjects and the accusative is used to mark the grammatical object of the sentence. Distinguishing between the nominative subject that triggers agreement in the verb and the accusative object that does not is a rather straightforward process. On the other hand, the Finnish syntax is notoriously exceptional in this respect, largely due to the existence of the partitive case with a typologically unique set of functions in the language.Footnote 1 Compare the following example pairs: The traditional Aanaar Saami nominative subject (liteh) in (2a) is matched by the partitive subject (astioita) in Finnish (2b), whereas the Aanaar Saami accusative object (kuobbârijd) in (3a) corresponds to the Finnish nominative object (sienet) in (3b):

(2)

a.

Kuáđist

kávnojii

meid

puáris

liteh.

  

tent.loc

be_found.pst.3pl

also

old.attr

dish.nom.pl.

 

b.

Kodasta

löytyi

myös

vanhoja

astioita.

  

tent.ela

be_found.pst.3sg

also

old.ptv.pl

dish.ptv.pl.

  

‘There were also old dishes in the tent.’ (Olthuis, 2018)

(3)

a.

Nubeh

tobdeh

kuobbârijd

ivneest.

 
  

other.nom.pl

know.3pl

mushroom.acc.pl

color.loc.

 
 

b.

Toiset

tuntevat

sienet

väristä.

 
  

other.nom.pl

know.3pl

mushroom.nom.pl

color.ela.

 
  

‘Others recognise mushrooms by colour.’ (Olthuis, 2018)

While Finnish subject and object marking has been described and discussed in hundreds of studies (e.g., Huumo, 2003; Kiparsky, 2001; Vainikka & Brattico, 2011), it has been possible to describe traditional Aanaar Saami very concisely in this respect (e.g., Olthuis, 2000, pp. 218, 222; P. Morottaja & Olthuis, 2022, p. 238; Valtonen et al., 2022, p. 193). However, in reality, modern, revitalised Aanaar Saami exhibits novel clause types that have not gone unnoticed by language planners. As Olthuis (2018) points out, in (2c) the nominative subject of the existential clause has been replaced by the object-like accusative NP puáris liitijd, and there is no longer number agreement between the NP and the predicate verb (singular kavnui pro plural kávnojii in 2a). On the other hand, accusative objects such as kuobbârijd in (3a) may be replaced by the nominative in (3c):

(2)

c.

Kuáđist

kavnui

meid

puáris

liitijd.

  

tent.loc

be_found.pst.3sg

also

old.attr

dish.acc.pl

  

‘There were also old dishes in the tent.’ (Olthuis, 2018)

(3)

c.

Nubeh

tobdeh

kuobbâreh

ivneest.

 
  

other.nom.pl

know.3pl

mushroom.nom.pl

color.loc

 
  

‘Others recognise mushrooms by colour.’ (Olthuis, 2018)

As mentioned by Olthuis (2018) and discussed at length by Seipiharju (2022), contemporary Aanaar Saami abounds with such novel uses of the traditionally unambiguous cases for subjects and objects. While diverse hybrid clause types can also be attested, the main pattern that emerges from various sources of authentic Aanaar Saami is that deviations from the traditional nominative–accusative system can always be explained as Finnish interference (see the similarity between 2b and 2c as well as between 3b and 3c, respectively). For example, Seipiharju (2022, p. 57) emphasises that new speakers of Aanaar Saami never err in subject-marking in contexts where Finnish grammar would require the nominative.

Another kind of example is provided by Seipiharju (2022, p. 44), with yet another typological peculiarity of Finnish syntax stirring the originally simple clause structure in Aanaar Saami. In traditional Aanaar Saami, the modal verb kolgâđ ‘shall; must’ is inflected in all persons and agrees with the nominative subject just like other verbs (4a), whereas in Finnish, the verbs pitää and täytyy (id.) occur in the third-person singular only and are preceded by the subject argument in the genitive case (4b). As a consequence, the latter pattern has also been copied in Aanaar Saami, resulting in a new type of clause exemplified by (4c):

(4)

a.

Mun

kolgim

eelliđ

Avelist.

  

1sg

must.pst.1sg

visit.inf

Avveel.loc

 

b.

Minun

piti

käydä

Ivalossa.

  

1sg.gen

must.pst.3sg

visit.inf

Avveel.ine

 

c.

Muu

koolgâi

eelliđ

Avelist.

  

1sg.gen

must.pst.3sg

visit.inf

Avveel.loc

  

‘I had to visit Avveel/Ivalo’ (Seipiharju, 2022, p. 44)

It must be noted here, however, that the possibility of a subject NP in the genitive case with some modal verbs and constructions is already attested in the traditional language (5–6). This clearly seems to be contact induced since such use of the genitive is not commonly found in North or Lule Saami (but see Valtonen, 2017, pp. 215–216). Nevertheless, it is difficult to ascertain the extent of this type of argument marking, as genitive subjects are not mentioned in any general grammatical descriptions of Aanaar Saami since Bartens’ (1972) study on the functions of cases in Saami:

(5)

Ijhan

tuu

taarbaš

tom

kirje

oastiđ

 

neg.cl

2sg.gen

need.conneg

it.acc

book.acc

buy.inf

 

jieijad

ruuđááin.

    
 

own.2sg

money.com.

    
 

‘You do not have to buy the book with your own money’

(6)

Muu

lii

máhđuttem

puoh

tiettiđ.

 
 

1sg.gen

be.3sg

impossible

all

know.inf

 
 

‘It is impossible for me to know everything’ (Bartens, 1972, p. 55)

There is also contact-induced variation in certain other types of argument marking that has become, if not dominant, at least very common in today’s language. One example is the use of the verb lijkkuđ ‘like’, which traditionally governs the (directional ‘to’) illative case for the ‘likee’ argument (7a), whereas its Finnish counterparts pitää and tykätä (id.) take the (separative ‘from’) elative case (7b). As it turns out, bilingual speakers of Aanaar Saami and Finnish tend to equate the Finnish elative in -sta with its cognate, the Aanaar Saami locative in -st, which in turn has resulted in the use of the locative (7c) also with lijkkuđ ‘like’:

(7)

a.

Mun

lijkkuum

tunjin.

  

1sg

like.1sg

2sg.ill

 

b.

Minä

pidän

sinusta.

  

1sg

like.1sg

2sg.ela

 

c.

Mun

lijkkuum

tust.

  

1sg

like.1sg

2sg.loc

  

‘I like you.’

Interestingly, opinions have differed as regards the grammaticality of sentences like (7c). While Matti Morottaja (2007a, p. 33) describes lijkkuđ ‘like’ as taking the illative only, Olthuis (2009, pp. 86–87) presents both (7a) and (7c) as acceptable, adding that it is often a matter of time before an originally foreign agreement type becomes so common that it must be considered a variant that should be accepted in the official standard. This is reflected in the most recent grammatical description by P. Morottaja and Olthuis (2022, p. 241), where both the illative and locative are given as equal alternatives. On the other hand, M. Morottaja (2007a, p. 33), Olthuis (2009, p. 87), as well as P. Morottaja and Olthuis (2022, p. 241) describe the verb poollâđ ‘fear’ as governing the locative only, despite the fact that the non-standard use of the accusative (obviously provoked by its Finnish cognate, the partitive case) is also widely attested. Other examples of contact-induced variation in argument marking and subject–predicate agreement have also been mentioned (Seipiharju, 2022). Finnish interference has certainly also been detected in other parts of the grammar, such as in novel ways of finite clause combining instead of traditional non-finite clauses (see below).

As regards lexicon, Finnish as the majority language known by virtually all speakers of Aanaar Saami is the undisputed source or model of most of the rapidly growing vocabulary. For example, although Aanaar Saami, with only some hundreds of speakers, is an extraordinarily privileged language in having many modern schoolbooks in the endangered language, most of them are translations from Finnish, and a significant part of new vocabulary is introduced in such material (Olthuis 2003, p. 574). As a consequence, the Aanaar Saami community is accustomed to adopting new words with more or less visible traces of Finnish. Many of these neologisms are morphological calques modelled after their Finnish counterparts, such as enâm-ân+värrej-eijee < Fi maa-han+muutta-ja [country-ill+move-agn] ‘immigrant’, jieš+merid-em+vuoigâd-vuotâ < Fi itse+määrää-mis+oike-us [self+govern-an+right-nz] ‘self-determination’, and näimi+iähtu ~ Fi avio+ehto [marital+condition] ‘premarital agreement’. However, the Finnish way of using words is also evident in the realm of traditional lexicon, and this has not gone unnoticed by language planners and activists. As one of dozens of examples, M. Morottaja (2007a, p. 53) mentions the use of Aanaar Saami puolvâ ‘generation’ for ‘knee’ (Aanaar Saami iidâ) due to the polysemy of Finnish polvi ‘knee; generation’, the obvious cognate of puolvâ.

To be sure, it is impossible to draw a clear-cut line between grammar and lexicon. One of the borderline cases is seen in the following examples: According to M. Morottaja (2007a, p. 35), the most authentic Aanaar Saami way to express negative purpose is the use of amas ‘lest’ followed by the infinitive, as seen in (8a), but a finite clause with the subordinator vâi ‘in order that’ followed by a negative predicate is also possible (8c). However, the general complementiser et is also often used for the same purpose, not unlike its Finnish cognate että (cf. 8b):

(8)

a.

Sun

piejâi

suhháid

juálgán,

amas

jyelgih

kolmuđ.

  

3sg

put.pst.3sg

sock.acc.pl

foot.ill

lest

foot.pl

get_cold.inf

 

b.

Hän

pani

sukat

jalkaan,

että

jalat

 
  

3sg

put.pst.3sg

sock.nom.pl

foot.ill

comp

foot.nom.pl

 
  

eivät

kylmety.

     
  

neg.3pl

get_cold.conneg

   
 

c.

Sun

piejâi

suhháid

juálgán,

vâi

(~ et)

jyelgih

  

3sg

put.pst.3sg

sock.acc.pl

foot.ill

so_that

(~ comp)

foot.pl

  

iä

kolmuu.

     
  

neg.3pl

get_cold.conneg

   
  

‘S/he put the socks on so that the feet do not get cold (= lest the feet get cold).’

According to M. Morottaja (2007a, p. 35), the use of vâi (8c) is actually unnecessary because of the alternative (8a), which clearly differs from the Finnish expression (8b), but on the other hand he also admits that even the Finnish-like use of et has become so common that one probably should accept that as well—but it is still best to use the un-Finnish amas clause (8a).

11.5 Thematic Analysis

In this section, we examine the statements that the native-speaking language planners and activists have expressed regarding the contact-induced effects of Finnish that they have encountered in revitalised Aanaar Saami. As with concrete descriptions of Finnish influence on the language structure, these kinds of remarks are also found here and there in literature. However, despite the apparent fragmentary nature of the sources, the views expressed appear to form a single narrative in Aanaar Saami revitalisation, albeit with different authors focusing on different aspects therein.

In the following, after a concise but non-exhaustive summary of previous research, we present themes emerging from the texts and formulate a synthesis based on them. The texts are originally written in either Finnish or Aanaar Saami, but we will also provide English translations. We have identified four themes: (1) good and poor language, (2) language competence, (3) institutional domain, and (4) tolerance. Each theme will be examined in a separate subsection.

There are sporadic studies that survey the language ideologies and attitudes among Aanaar Saami speakers. Pietikäinen (2012) applies nexus analysis to study the language ideologies and linguistic biography of one Aanaar Saami speaker. She identifies the Aanaar Saami language community as a multilingual minority community and states that in these types of communities, there are two dominant, sometimes opposite language ideologies at play: One emphasises the internal coherence of a language and its distinctness from other languages, and the other recognises the lability of interlingual borders and the situational variation. Both notions of language are useful in multilingual minority communities, but at the same time, idealised models of a clear and distinct language can contradict the everyday experience of many speakers. (See Pietikäinen, 2012, p. 433.)

Pasanen (2015) discusses, among other things, the opinions and attitudes of the elder language mastersFootnote 2 towards the Aanaar Saami skills of the students in the CASLE programme (see Sect. 11.2.2) and the situation of the language in general. She identifies many of the same ideologies as Pietikäinen (2012): On the one hand, many language masters seem to have an idea of what the authentic Aanaar Saami language is like, but on the other hand, they are very tolerant towards the learners’ Saami and its variation. Although most of the interviewed language masters corrected the students’ language to varying degrees, a few chose a more moderate approach and opined that assessing language skills and what constitutes flawless language is not straightforward. (See Pasanen, 2015, 283ff., p. 303.)

11.5.1 Good and Poor Language

The evaluations of what constitutes good Aanaar Saami and what does not is mostly evident in the authors’ choices of words. We have emboldened the pertinent ones in the example:

Ympäröivien kielten (varsinkin suomi, mutta myös muut saamen kielet) paine pyrkii rappeuttamaan inarinsaamea tuomalla kielelle vieraita rakenteita, yksinkertaistamalla semantiikkaa sekä köyhdyttämällä ilmaisuvarastoa. Tilanteen korjaamiseksi tarvitaan tehokasta kielenhuoltoa. (M. Morottaja, 2007b)

‘The pressure of surrounding languages (especially Finnish but also other Saami languages) tries to corrupt Aanaar Saami by bringing in foreign structures, by simplifying the semantics and impoverishing the expressive inventory. In order to fix the situation, effective language planning is needed.’

Suomâkielâ ceelhâráhtus teikâ eres ettâmvyevi ij pyevti aainâs njuolgist luoihâttiđ anarâškielân. Motomijd suomâ maalijd puáhtá kal tuhhiittiđ, veikâ sämikielâst ličij-uv toos pyereeb teikâ puárásub malli, om. älgiđ povvâstiđ (alkaa nauraa) já povvâstškyettiđ teikâ ruáhásiđ. (M. Morottaja, 2007a, p. 24)

‘A Finnish sentence structure or other expression cannot be borrowed, at least directly, into Aanaar Saami. Sure, some Finnish patterns can be accepted even though there was a better or older pattern in Saami, e.g. älgiđ povvâstiđ (to start laughing) and povvâstškyettiđ or ruáhásiđ.’

That is, the contact-induced changes are described with negatively charged words, whereas the authentic form of language is described as better and older. Even though other Saami languages are also mentioned, it is specifically Finnish whose influence is seen as the main catalyst for unwanted changes in Aanaar Saami. Linguistic structures borrowed from Finnish are described as having suomâkielâsmakkâ, ‘a taste of Finnish’ (M. Morottaja, 2008, p. 2), and Saami structures ought to be preferred. To be fair, the notion of wanting to retain the purity of one’s language by rejecting contact-induced changes is nothing new and can be seen in countless other language communities.

The examples above and in the previous section are actually a rather representative example of the attitude and approach of the Aanaar Saami language planning and purism as put forth by Matti Morottaja, the grand old man of Aanaar Saami revitalisation. His hundred-page Anarâškielâ ravvuuh (‘Advice on Aanaar Saami’) provides a diverse collection of instructions on the correct use of language, but one of the recurring themes in this book—as well as in dozens of Morottaja’s minor writings on the language—is the existence of authentic Aanaar Saami phrases, idioms, and other expressions where the Saami words are used ‘the right way’ (2007a, p. 24) in contrast to more or less Finnish-like expressions or downright calques that are unneeded and even a harmful source of potential misunderstandings in Aanaar Saami.

Morottaja’s (2007a) examples extend all the way from a number of single words to expressions such as peli meetter [half metre] (cf. Finnish puoli metriä) instead of the more original meetterpeeli [‘metre-half’] for ‘half a metre’ (p. 44) or continuous warnings against forgetting the richness of Aanaar Saami verbs at the expense of more analytic multi-word expressions typical of Finnish (p. 24), as in the above example: The use of verbs with the inchoative derivational suffix -škyettiđ to express the meaning ‘begin to V’ should be preferred instead of the multi-word älgiđ ‘begin’ + infinitive that is modelled after the Finnish alkaa + infinitive.

However, in light of the endless possibilities of combining thousands of words in both languages, unorganised examples of unwanted Finnicisms are prone to create the impression of a mixed bag of personal preferences instead of analytic language planning. In any case, M. Morottaja must be credited for a constructive criticism of Finnish interference on virtually all levels of Aanaar Saami: He reminds his readers of the grammatical and lexical expressions that he considers more authentic, but even when expressing his reserved attitude towards unneeded Finnish influence, his instructions on the use of Aanaar Saami are seldom black and white. Instead, he differs from most language instructors with his underlying attitude that all aspiring speakers of Aanaar Saami should rather speak ‘bad’ Aanaar Saami than not speak Aanaar Saami at all (M. Morottaja, 2007a, p. 10).

In one instance, Olthuis (2009) makes an interesting remark where the contact-induced influence is claimed to be beneficial at times. However, there are no examples given, so it remains unclear what exactly is meant by positive influence and balance:

Motomin nube kielâ vaiguttâs nuubán puáhtá anneeđ pyerrin, mut motomin vuod nube kielâ rááhtus liijká-uv vaaigut negatiivlávt nube kielâ kevttimân. Talle lii koččâmuš nuuvt kočodum interfereensist. […] Jis nube kielâ vaiguttâs lii pyeri, talle sierâ kielah láá täsitiädust, iäge toh hettii mahten kyeimis. (Olthuis, 2009, p. 84)

ʻSometimes the influence of one language on another can be considered good, but sometimes the structure of one language still negatively affects the use of another. In those instances we are dealing with the so-called interference. […] If the influence of another language is good, the different languages are in balance and do not interfere with each other in any way.’

While it is true that we can find examples of two languages coexisting in the same geographical region in a state of balanced multilingualism (see, e.g., Lüpke, 2016; Morozova & Rusakov, 2021), Aanaar Saami and Finnish are not on an equal footing.

We might include in the first theme the discussion on the language competence of Aanaar Saami speakers. At present, the majority language is seen as an irremovable part of all Saami speakersʼ language competence, one of their native languages:

Eenâblovokielâ vievsâs status keežild jyehi sämikieltáiđusâš olmooš kalga mättiđ enâmis eenâblovokielâ. Nuuvtpa jyehi sämikiel sárnoo lii ucemustáá kyevtkielâg, maŋgii meiddei maaŋgâkielâg. Kielâtáiđu lii págulâš ohtsâškode vátámâšâi tááhust. Algâaalgâst taat ideologia lii toimâm suddâdemideologian, mut šiev peeli lii tot, et tom puáhtá kevttiđ meiddei jorgoppel kielâmolsomân. Sämikielâ kielâiäláskittemuáinust älkkeemus lii valjiđ uáinu, et kielah iälusteh paldâluvâi. Maccâm oovtkielâg sämikielâlii tilán ij innig lah. (Olthuis, 2017, p. 15)

‘Due to the strong status of the majority language, every Saami language speaker must know the majority language of their country. Thus, every Saami speaker is at least bilingual, often even multilingual. Language skills are obligatory in regard to society’s demands. Originally, this ideology worked as an ideology of assimilation, but the advantage is that it can also be used for reverse language shift. From the point of Saami language revitalisation, it is easiest to adopt the view that the languages coexist. There is no going back to the monolingual Saami language state.’

Olthuis concedes that returning to a purported earlier state where every community member only spoke Saami is not possible. She refers to the term reverse language shift coined by Fishman (1991) and how multilingualism can be used to one’s advantage. The same point is made by Pasanen et al. (2022, p. 69), who remind us that the aim of minority language revitalisation cannot realistically be monolingualism in the minority language but ‘sustainable bilingualism or multilingualism’.

A less emphasised fact about language revitalisation is that when a language is severely endangered, language revitalisation or reversing language shift is an extremely demanding task, and it appears that most language revitalisation efforts do not reverse a language shift but usually only slow its progress. The Aanaar Saami have not taken their success for granted either. Instead, it is highly interesting to note that even one of the most central and celebrated figures of Aanaar Saami revitalisation has earlier been openly pessimistic and feared that his children would be the last speakers of the language (M. Morottaja, 1996, p. 15; Toivanen, 2001, p. 88; 2015, p. 100).

11.5.2 Language Competence

The issue of language competence is consistently raised in the texts through the juxtaposition of competences between different age groups: Present and future speakers are contrasted with older speakers by stating that the older speakers’ competence is stronger because they have originally acquired the language in a largely monolingual environment, whereas for many younger speakers, Aanaar Saami is only one of their languages. On the other hand, the younger speakers’ language skills are also described as ‘different’, because they have received their education in Aanaar Saami unlike the generations before them. This echoes the same view that some of the language masters in Pasanen’s (2015) interviews had: Determining proficiency is not always easy.

[K]ielâ puátteevuotâ lii kuuloold sirduumin tagarij suhâpuolvâi ärdei oolâ, kiäi sämikielâ eenikielâ táiđu ij lah siämmáá nanos ko puárrásub ulmuin. Nube tááhust nuorâb suhâpuolvâ kielâtáiđu lii ereslágán ko puárrásub ulmuin: táálááh suhâpuolvah láá jođeškuáttám škoovlâid sämikiellân, já sij haldâšeh anarâškielâ uđđâsub sänirááju, mii lii esken tai aigij puáttám kielân. (Olthuis, 2007, p. 316)

‘The future of the language is gradually passing onto the shoulders of a generation whose native proficiency in Saami is not as strong as older people’s. On the other hand, the younger generation’s language skills are different from the older people’s: current generations have gone to school in Saami, and they have command of the newer Aanaar Saami vocabulary that just entered the language in recent times.’

Vanhemmat kielen käyttäjät saattavat tuntea, että inarinsaame on heille läheisempi, koska se on heidän ainoa oikea äidinkielensä. Nuoremmilla suomi on lähes poikkeuksetta toinen äidinkieli ja vähintäänkin yhtä vahva. (P. Morottaja, 2009, p. 73)

‘Older language users may feel that for them Aanaar Saami is closer, because it is their only true mother tongue. For younger speakers Finnish is almost invariably a second native language and at the very least as strong.’

When addressing the theme of the language competence of present-day Aanaar Saami speakers, the native Saami authors recognise that a lot has changed in a short time span and acknowledge that Finnish influence and rapid changes are inevitable. The older Saami speakers’ competence is regarded more highly because, while they cannot be called monolingual, Aanaar Saami is more clearly the first language for them, and they may not have learnt Finnish until primary school. This was the norm for those who grew up before World War II, after which Finnish began to replace Aanaar Saami as the language spoken at home (Pasanen, 2015, p. 93). However, what consistently comes up in the texts as the most important thing for Aanaar Saami revitalisation is that the language is spoken, no matter the level or domain. There are also calls for both ‘language support’ and ‘identity support’ for families and parents, so that they can raise their children in Saami and cope with the challenges involved (Olthuis, 2018, p. 22).

11.5.3 Institutional Domain

The third theme we have identified in the texts concerns the domains of Aanaar Saami relative to Finnish. This involves the role of Aanaar Saami in official governmental and municipal settings such as bureaucracy, healthcare, and the legal system. It is stated, for example, that after the new Saami language law came into force in 2003, Aanaar Saami has become a language of administration in the municipalities of the Saami homeland in Finland. This has, in turn, created a need for new vocabulary and caused an ‘enormous flood of neologisms’ to make the language suitable for modern settings. Using Finnish as a model for these neologisms is ‘obvious’ because it is the dominant language in the society, has an established status as the language of governance, and has a longer literary tradition.

Neologisms are not only needed for governance but also for writing school textbooks. In this context, however, the influx of new vocabulary is seen in a positive light, as a sign that the language is living and active (Olthuis, 2003, p. 574; 2009, p. 84).

Suurimmaksi osaksi saamenkieliset oppikirjat ovatkin käännöksiä suomesta, mutta osin niitä on sovitettu inarinsaamelaislasten ympäristöön sopivammiksi. Juuri oppikirjatyössä on korostunut yksi kielen elvytyksen aktiivinen muoto: tietoinen sanaston kasvattaminen eli aktiivinen uudissanojen luominen, joka onkin yksi elpyvän kielen tuntomerkeistä. (Olthuis, 2003, p. 574)

‘For the most part, Saami textbooks are indeed translations from Finnish, but they have been partly adapted to be more suitable for the environment of Aanaar Saami children. Especially when editing textbooks, one form of language revitalisation is emphasised: the conscious building of vocabulary—that is, the active coining of neologisms, which is one of the hallmarks of a reviving language.’

It is not easy to say whether translating is always the best choice for producing materials for schools, but it is inarguably a fast and cost-effective way. However, it has been argued that for cultural and linguistic reasons, they should not be translated verbatim but instead adapted (Mäenpää, 2016, p. 21). For example, the passive verb forms are much more frequent in Finnish than they are in Aanaar Saami, so in a word-for-word (or in this case form-to-form) translation from Finnish, the passive forms would likely be over-represented (Mäenpää, 2016, pp. 34–36, 54).

11.5.4 Tolerance

The fourth theme we have identified is the advocation of tolerance towards the non-standard or incorrect use of language. The question of non-standard language pertains to ‘dialectal forms’ and variant ‘orthographic solutions’, as many of the texts have been written in the early 2000s, when the contemporary Aanaar Saami orthography (revised in 1996) was still less than ten years old, and the standardisation of literary language was in its infancy (Olthuis, 2003, p. 576).

Both Olthuis and M. Morottaja have consistently emphasised the importance of encouraging people to speak and write Aanaar Saami regardless of whether their language is grammatically or orthographically faultless:

Inarinsaamelaisia on tuettava äidinkielensä kirjoittamisessa, ja heitä on rohkaistava kirjoittamaan omalla äidinkielellään, virheitä pelkäämättä. (Olthuis, 2003, p. 577)

‘Aanaar Saami people must be supported and encouraged to write in their mother tongue, without fear of mistakes.’

Pyereeb lii sárnuđ ruokkâdávt váhá hyeneeb-uv sämikielâ, ko tipteđ kielâ lappuđ kevttimettumvuođâ keežild. […] Mii aavhijd lii jaamâ putes kielâst? (M. Morottaja, 1991, p. 2)

‘It is better to boldly speak Saami even a little poorly than to let the language disappear due to disuse. […] What good is a dead, pure language?’

In fact, language ideological tolerance has been seen as one of the linchpins in the success of Aanaar Saami revitalisation (Toivanen, 2015, pp. 100–101; Pasanen, 2018, pp. 369–370). This is reflected in the texts: Corpus planning should be ‘careful’, because too much purism in the form of strong statements on the ‘superiority of one language form over another’ and ‘correcting other people’s speech’ can ‘suffocate the language’ and ‘scare’ people away from using it (Olthuis, 2003, p. 576). In language revitalisation in general, tolerance can be beneficial, while excessive purism and disputes over which language variety or varieties are worthy of standardisation may hinder revitalisation efforts (Huss, 1999).

The theme of tolerance is also echoed in Olthuis’s acknowledgement that standardisation is still an ongoing process:

Motomin kielâtipšoo jurduuh láá čappâduboh, ko teevstâst kávnoo interferens nube kielâst. Kielâtipšoo tivo feeilâid ääigis, mut motomin kuittâg sáttá leđe aggâ noormâi täärhistmân. (Olthuis, 2009, pp. 84–85)

‘Sometimes the proofreader’s thoughts are gloomier when s/he finds interference from another language in the text. The proofreader keeps correcting the mistakes for a while, but at some point there may be a reason to revise the [language] norms.’

In other words, if actual language use strays away from the established standards, the solution may be to change the standards. In fact, the negotiations appear to have more to do with which norms can or should be loosened. Although native linguists and language planners of Aanaar Saami can be considered relatively liberal as regards language change, this ideology does not extend to everything. For instance, the changes in argument marking (see Sect. 11.4) are still unanimously considered unwanted (Olthuis, 2018; Seipiharju, 2022, pp. 21–23; see also M. Morottaja, 2007a, pp. 34, 54); similar phenomena have also been documented and likewise rejected in North Saami, the closest relative of Aanaar Saami (Vuolab-Lohi, 2007, p. 426; Länsman, 2008; Magga and Pulska, 2019). However, certain other types of contact-induced variation in Aanaar Saami argument marking have found favour among native scholars. An example of this was presented in the previous section: The official language guidance group at the time discussed whether the Finnish-type agreement for certain verbs should be allowed as a variant alongside the more original agreement. The decision was that lijkkuđ ‘like’ may from then on have its argument in both the illative and locative, the latter having become so common that it could no longer be ignored.

11.6 Discussion and Conclusion

In this chapter, we have examined some previously overlooked aspects of Aanaar Saami revitalisation, their effects on the structure of the language, and how native speakers have addressed the issue. Almost all the native speakers’ remarks in literature pertain to syntactic structures, phraseology, and lexicology that are in some way influenced by Finnish:

  • The interference of Finnish argument marking and case government with the original Aanaar Saami system,

  • The modelling of phraseological multi-word expressions after Finnish expressions, and

  • Difficulty in choosing the correct word from a set of close synonyms when there is a many-to-one correspondence between Aanaar Saami and Finnish.

Interestingly, Finnish influence on Aanaar Saami phonology and pronunciation is barely mentioned in the texts. Nevertheless, such influence is reported especially in terms of quantity distinctions in the spoken language, one possible reason being that some of these distinctions are unmarked in the orthography (Valtonen et al., 2022, p. 182). It is possible that pronunciation is either less discernible than syntactic and lexical interference or it has not been seen as nearly as pressing an issue.

As for the themes pertaining to Finnish influence on Aanaar Saami, we have identified four recurring themes in the literature: (1) good vs. poor language, (2) language competence, (3) institutional domain, and (4) tolerance. Regarding the first theme, the view repeatedly expressed especially by Matti Morottaja, one of the central figures in Aanaar Saami revitalisation, is that contact-induced changes in Aanaar Saami are most often detrimental to the language, and that prescriptive measures are required to correct the situation. Another revitalisation activist, Marja-Liisa Olthuis, is less critical but recognises the Finnish interference in the language. However, she holds that in some instances, the contact-induced changes are inevitable and instead may demand a re-evaluation of prevailing language norms, lest the prescriptive standard stray away too far from actual language use. This ties into the theme of tolerance which has consistently been the guiding principle in Aanaar Saami revitalisation: The most important thing is that anyone capable should use the language in all possible arenas, without fear of mistakes or being reprimanded for their language skills. The third theme, language competence, refers to individuals’ linguistic repertoire: The younger generations of Aanaar Saami speakers in particular are practically bilingual in Finnish and Aanaar Saami, and Finnish is actually the stronger language for many. Older speakers are contrasted to this group in that their proficiency in Aanaar Saami is better in general, but younger generations are more familiar with modern-day vocabulary. The final theme of institutional domains pertains to the language’s role as one of the official languages in Finland and the novel uses it has in administration as a consequence. The influence of Finnish is readily observable as the model for neologisms in modern written Aanaar Saami for example. On one hand, this increases the amount of perceived foreign influence, but on the other, the active creation of new words also means that the language is being used.

As discussed in Sect. 11.4, some of the guidelines for ‘correct’ language (especially by M. Morottaja) seem to stem from personally preferring certain constructions over others. This raises a question: How much of the emphasis on grammatical and structural differences between Finnish and Aanaar Saami is based on modern-day efforts to differentiate Aanaar Saami from Finnish? This would not be surprising, since it is one of the more common ideologies in (minority) language standardisation to wish to keep one’s language internally coherent and clearly define it relative to others (Puura, 2019, p. 37; see also Pietikäinen, 2012). The research on the oldest Aanaar Saami language materials is still lacking, but at times it appears that there was already considerable Finnish influence in the older language when there were no official standards or normative guidelines. However, this topic must be left for a more thorough investigation.

Of course, it must be granted that there are considerable challenges in the corpus planning of a language that has rather sparse recorded attestations up to the 1990s. For most of its history, Aanaar Saami has been transmitted mainly orally, and in a very short time it has been forced to transition into a full-fledged literary language to be used not only at home and in traditional livelihoods but also in education, government, and mass media. This means there was and still is an urgent need for standardisation and guidelines to be crafted by the language authorities, who often need to rely mostly on their personal competence of the language and gut feeling.

In the course of its history, we can say that Aanaar Saami has experienced a bottleneck. The transmission of the language to children has been disrupted but, thanks to revitalisation efforts, it survived the ordeal, and its transmission has continued. However, the break in transmission has resulted in some abrupt changes: The structural influence of Finnish has increased due to new types of speakers and intense multilingualism, and the new domains created by societal modernisation require vocabulary that needs to be consciously coined. So, to put it dramatically, the traditional Aanaar Saami as a mostly spoken language confined to the home and traditional livelihoods has had to make way for a new Aanaar Saami, a language of administration, education, and media with a rapidly developing written tradition.

Of course, after a ‘neo-language’ has emerged from the revitalisation bottleneck, this does not automatically mean that it is structurally very different from the older language (see Kennard, 2019, for Breton and NeSmith, 2003, for Hawaiian). When Pasanen (2015, pp. 279–287) interviewed the Aanaar Saami language masters about their experiences working with the L2 learners in the CASLE project, some of them mention that the students used and taught them new, previously unknown words. Thus, it may be that the most notable difference between the traditional Aanaar Saami and neo-Aanaar Saami is in fact lexical; the rapid influx of new words into the language may feel somewhat alienating to the older speakers who are not accustomed to their native language being used in modern settings. Therefore, paradoxically, as the language has spread to domains that improve its status and increase its use in society, some speakers may feel it has become unfamiliar to them.

All in all, a synthesis of structural and ideological perspectives on language change yields interesting results. It reveals that language norms, language ideologies, and language ‘in the wild’ form a network of influences where one reacts to the other. The attitudes of eminent language revitalisers are reflected in the language norms, in the shaping of which they often partake, and for a successful revitalisation, official language norms must be based on the way people actually speak. In the case of an endangered minority language, this necessarily involves taking a stance towards majority language interference. However, as the revitalisation of Aanaar Saami has shown, even large-scale contact-induced changes need not result in a loss of linguistic or cultural identity among minority language speakers.