11 Facts About Sami languages

In terms of internal relationships, the Sami languages are divided into the two groups of western and eastern.

Sami languages are spoken in Sapmi in Northern Europe, in a region stretching over the four countries Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, reaching from the southern part of central Scandinavia in the southwest to the tip of the Kola Peninsula in the east.

The borders between the Sami languages do not align with the ones separating the region's modern states.

Eight of the Sami languages have independent literary Sami languages; the other one has no written standard, and of it, there are only a few, mainly elderly, speakers left.

The last speaker of Akkala Sami languages is known to have died in December 2003, and the eleventh attested variety, Kemi Sami languages, became extinct in the 19th century.

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Sami languages is an official language alongside Norwegian in the "administrative area for Sami languages language", that includes eight municipalities in the northern half of Norway, namely Kautokeino, Karasjok, Gaivuotna – Kafjord – Kaivuono, Nesseby, Porsanger, Tana, Tysfjord, Lavangen and Snasa.

On 1 April 2000, Sami became one of five recognized minority languages in Sweden.

In Finland, the Sami language act of 1991 granted the Northern, Inari, and Skolt Sami the right to use their languages for all government services.

The Sami languages Language Act of 2003 made Sami languages an official language in Enontekio, Inari, Sodankyla and Utsjoki municipalities.

In Russia, Sami languages has no official status, neither on the national, regional or local level, and no formal recognition as a minority language.

Sami languages has been taught at the Murmansk State Technical University since 2012; before then, Sami languages was taught at the Institute of the Peoples of the North in Saint Petersburg.