Native to Finland ISO 639-3 sjk Glottolog kemi1239 | Extinct ca. 1900 Linguist list sjk | |
Language family Uralic
Sami
Eastern Sami
Kemi Sami | ||
Kemi Sami was a Sami language that was originally spoken in the southernmost district of Finnish Lapland as far south as the Sami siidas around Kuusamo.
A complex of local variants which had a distinct identity from other Sami dialects, but existed in a linguistic continuum between Inari Sami and Skolt Sami (some Kemi groups sounded more like Inari, and some more like Skolt, due to geographic proximity).
Extinct now for over 100 years, few written examples of Kemi Sami survive. Johannes Schefferus's Lapponia from 1673 contains two yoik poems by the Kemi Sami Olof (Mattsson) Sirma, "Guldnasas" and "Moarsi favrrot". A short vocabulary was written by the Finnish priest Jacob Fellman in 1829 after he visited the villages of Salla (Kuolajärvi until 1936) and Sompio. Also, the following translation of the Lord's Prayer survives:
Lord's Prayer, village of Sompio (Sodankylä)
Äätj miin, ki lak täivest. Paisse läos tu nammat. Alda pootos tu väldegodde. Läos tu taattot nou täivest, ku ädnamest. Adde miji täb päiv miin juokpäiv laip. Ja adde miji miin suddoit addagas, nou ku miieg addep miin velvolidäme. Ja ale sääte miin kjäusaussi. Mutto tjouta miin pahast. Tälle tu li väldegodde, vuöjme ja kudne ijankaikisest. Amen.This is Sirma's first poem Guldnasas; a Sami love story which he sang to spur on his reindeer so that they will run faster:
This is Sirma's second poem Moarsi favrrot; the one he sang when he was far away from his love to prize her beauty.