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'Kildin Sami' (also spelled 'Sámi' or 'Saami'; formerly 'Lappish') is a Sami language spoken by approximately 500 people on the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. Kildin Sami is written using an official Cyrillic script.

Contents

Geographic distribution

Writing system

Orthographical issues

Phonology

External links

Geographic distribution

Although Kildin Sámi is spoken by about 500 people throughout the Kola Peninsula, the area around Lovozero has the highest concentration of speakers. It is the largest of the Eastern Sami languages by virtue of the number of its speakers. Its future, however, appears to not be as bright as that of Skolt Sámi or Inari Sámi. The Sámi language that is often considered to be closest to Kildin Sámi, Akkala Sámi, is oftentimes considered to be a dialect of Kildin Sámi.

Writing system

Main articles: Kildin Sami orthography

Kildin Sami is written in an extended version of the Cyrillic alphabet that was officially approved in 1937.

А а		Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з
	★
И и	Й й		Ј ј	К к	Л л		М м		Н н
	О о	П п	Р р		С с	Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц
Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ыы	Ь ь		Э э		Ю ю	Я я
						★		★

or letters with
★ follow palatalized д, т, н.
Long vowels are marked with a macron (¯) over the vowel letter (and above the diaeresis in the cases of and ).
The letters , /'ј', , , , , , 'ъ', 'ь', and do not occur word initially, either because the letters mark features of preceding consonants (like, e.g. , 'ъ') or the sounds they represent do not occur word initially (like, e.g. ). So these letters don't normally occur in uppercase, except for all caps text.
The letter 'h' occurs word medially or word finally before the letters 'к', 'п', 'т', 'ц' and 'ч', and marks preaspiration. It is always lowercase, even in all caps text. In another version of the orthography ' (apostrophe) is used to mark preaspiration.
and are alternate ways of writing the same sound, a voiceless palatal approximant.
The letter 'щ' occurs only in Russian loanwords.

Orthographical issues

Several issues have arisen, however, in ensuring that the official written language gains widespread acceptance: the language's numerous dialects, the myriad ways words can be written and its small number of speakers.

Phonology

Rimma Kurutsj's dictionary presents the following vowels for Kildin Sámi:

Monophthongs in Kildin Sámi

	front		central		back
	''lang''	''kort''	''lang''	''kort''	''lang''	''kort''
close	ӣ	и	ы̄	ы	ӯ	у
mid	э̄	э			о̄	о
open					а̄	а̄

External links

★ Ethnologue report for language code:sjd

★ Алфавит саамского языка (кильдинский диалект)

★ Sami-Russian dictionary, Kuruch R. D., Grammar of Kildin Sami language (DJVU, PDF)

★ Kildin Saami language by Jelena Porsanger