Sami language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sami
Native to	Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia
Region	Sápmi (Lapland)
Ethnicity	Sami people
Native speakers	Approximately 20,000–30,000 (date missing)
Language family	Uralic Sami
Official status
Official language in	Sweden and some parts of Norway; recognized as a minority language in several municipalities of Finland.
Historically verified distribution of the Sami languages: 1. Southern Sami, 2. Ume Sami, 3. Pite Sami, 4. Lule Sami, 5. Northern Sami, 6. Skolt Sami, 7. Inari Sami, 8. Kildin Sami, 9. Ter Sami. Darkened area represents municipalities that recognize Sami as an official language.

The Sami language is spoken by the Sami people, who are the native people of northern Europe. You can hear it in countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. It's part of a language family that also includes Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian language.

Images for kids

This map shows the geographic distribution of Sámi languages and offers some additional information, such as number of native Sámi speakers and locations of the Sámi parliaments.
The Sami languages in Fennoscandia
Sami Primer, USSR 1933
A t-shirt for the Norwegian Labour Party. From top to bottom: Northern Saami, Lule Saami, and Southern Saami.
A trilingual road sign for Jokkmokk. From top to bottom: Swedish, Lule Saami, Northern Saami
A quadrilingual street sign in Inari in (from top to bottom) Finnish, Northern Saami, Inari Saami, and Skolt Saami. Inari is the only municipality in Finland with 4 official languages.
Sami speakers in Finland 1980-2010.