Kainuu Sami language

Kainuu Sami is an extinct Sami language that was spoken in Kainuu. It became extinct in the 18th century when the Kainuu Sami probably assimilated and shifted to speak Finnish. Kainuu Sami belonged to the Eastern Sami language group.

The original inhabitants of Kainuu were Sami hunter-fishers. In the 17th century, the Governor General of Finland Per Brahe fostered the population growth of Kainuu by giving a ten-year tax exemption to settlers. It was necessary to populate Kainuu with Finnish farmers because the area was threatened from the east by the Russians. The immigrants to Kainuu were mainly from Savo, because of which the Kainuu dialect of Finnish is very close to the Savo dialect.