<
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240228-climate-change-is-altering-this-arctic-language>
'Pentti Pieski, a translator and tourism entrepreneur from Utsjoki in the far
north of Finland, loves going out in his boat to fish for wild Atlantic salmon.
For the past three years, however, he hasn't been able to go, as Finland and
Norway have banned salmon fishing on River Teno to protect depleted stocks. For
Pieski, there is a double loss. He misses the fishing trips, and he also misses
the conversations he has on those trips, held in an ancient language uniquely
suited to salmon fishing in the Arctic: North Sami.
The Sami languages are intricately tied to the way of life of the Sami
indigenous people in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The Sami have coped
with the extreme Arctic environment for thousands of years and today number
around 50,000 to 100,000. Their languages range from the relatively widely
spoken North Sami, estimated to have more than 20,000 speakers, to the
exceedingly rare Ume Sami, spoken by only 25 people, and the near-extinct Ter
Sami in Russia. But those overall figures don't capture just how important
these highly specialised languages are to traditional Sami activities such as
fishing and reindeer herding, as well as observing and describing Arctic
weather patterns. In the Sami languages, for example, there are more than 300
words for snow, eight words for different seasons, and six different words to
describe reindeer wandering by themselves. There are also several words for
"frightened reindeer", depending on their sex and age.
As climate change is threatening the Sami people's traditional way of life,
Pieski and others fear that their language is also changing.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
