There are only about 70 people in the population register who speak Inari and Koltan Sámi as their mother tongue. However, the reality of the number of language speakers is greater, as few people declare their mother tongue in the population register.
Three different Sámi languages \u200b\u200bare mainly spoken in Finland. These languages \u200b\u200binclude Inari, Koltta and Northern Sami.
The Northern Sámi language is the largest and most widely spoken of the three Sámi languages. According to estimates, there are about 2,000 speakers of Northern Sami in Finland, although there are only about 160 people registered in the official population register as having Northern Sami as their mother tongue.
The other two Sámi languages \u200b\u200bspoken in Finland do not fare as well in the light of the population register. The Inari and Koltan Sámi languages \u200b\u200bare clearly in the minority, as there are only about 70 people who speak these two languages \u200b\u200bas their official mother tongue. However, it does not tell the whole truth.
According to the statistics of the Sámi assemblies, there are about 350-450 speakers of Inari Sámi and about 300 speakers of Kolt Sámi. However, there is a big difference between the speakers of the language and those who speak it as their official mother tongue, because only 32 people have been recorded as speakers of Kolt Sámi as their mother tongue in the register of the Population Register Center, and 41 speakers of Inari Sámi.
We hope for more detailed information about speakers of Sámi languages
The low number of native speakers in the population register is largely explained by the fact that ten years ago it was not possible to specify which Sámi language a person speaks as their native language.
Since 2013, it has been possible to mark a specific Sámi language as the mother tongue in the population data: Southern, Inari, Kildin, Koltta, Lulea or Northern Sámi.
Although there are only a few dozen speakers of Kolta and Inari Sami in the official population register accounting, we do not want to talk about languages \u200b\u200bthat are still disappearing in the case of either language.
– For myself, I can say that I haven’t bothered to do that, he states.
In Sanila-Aikio’s opinion, the low number in the register is due to the fact that the people who speak the Inari and Koltan Sámi languages \u200b\u200bof the older generation have not specified their own mother tongue to the Population Register Center after the 2013 register change. More than 1,700 people still read just \”Sámi\” in their registry data.
Sanila-Aikio hopes that the number of language speakers will be counted again. Sanila-Aikio suggests that the Population Register Center conduct a survey for those people whose mother tongue only says \”Sámi\”. This would provide more information on the number of speakers of individual Sámi languages.
Improving your language knowledge would also make it easier to do business in your own mother tongue. For example, if a person wants official papers in one of the three Sámi languages, then the register must contain information about which Sámi language the person speaks.
The transmission of language from one generation to another
The language revival launched in the last decades has produced results, and many want to learn the language spoken by their grandparents again.
Languages \u200b\u200bare currently taught in Inari municipality in language centers, elementary schools, secondary education institutions and the University of Oulu.
However, in language rehabilitation work, it must be taken into account that the environment and the world we live in changes. All the time, new words and expressions come into the spoken language, which have to be thought about on a language-specific basis. In some cases, loanwords from, for example, Finnish are also used.
According to Morottaja, the language may live on even after a thousand years, but it is certain that the language will change.
– The language will not be destroyed in a hundred years, if there is no upheaval, and then there will be bigger problems than the language after that, Morottaja thinks.
Language rehabilitation has helped
The number of speakers of the Inari Sami language began to increase dramatically in the early 2000s, when the revival of the language was awakened.
Language nest activities intended for small children of indigenous peoples and linguistic minorities began to take off in earnest, and kindergartens turned into Sámi language baths. Schools also began to pay more attention to teaching in their mother tongues.
However, it was different in the 80s, when Petter Morottaja sat on the bench in elementary school. Back then, the school only had a few mother tongue classes in the Inari Sámi language.
\\- There were only a few students in the class, and sometimes it happened that I was alone. Back then, it was difficult to do paired work, there was only the teacher as a friend, recalls Morottaja.