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Learning for reading knowledge only | ||
Tags: Scandinavian Languages | Reading | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 9 of 12 28 December 2009 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Fasulye, although I'm still trying to figure out how to learn it. It seems that I'll need to use something which uses something other than English or French as the intermediary language. It comes down to whether the intermediary language will be Finnish (assuming that I will have learned Finnish to a sufficiently high level) or one of Norwegian or Swedish (assuming that I will have learned one of those languages to a sufficiently high level with the help of my background in English and German).
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 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5846 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 12 28 December 2009 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I have understood quite well that to get access to good Sámi resources you need fluent reading ability in at least one of the Scandinavian languages.
Strategically it would be an advantage to learn SWEDISH or NORVEGIAN, because with good passive Svedish knowledge you can also read Norvegian texts or with good passive Norvegian knowledge you can also read Swedish texts. With Finnish you would not have this advantage. I know (from the lecture) that there is a Sámi University, if I remember it well, it is situated in Finnland (or Norway?). Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 28 December 2009 at 10:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5837 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 11 of 12 28 December 2009 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Fasulye is right, all the countries have "folkhögskolor" ("Peoples' institute of higher learning") for Sami culture, art and language, plus no doubt some kind of university course. But the area where the Lapps live is VERY sparsely populated and the locations are complicated and expensive to travel to. The area suffers from out-migration. In total, the number of speakers is below 100,000 and they can not all speak to each other due to the accent differences.
I think it's very rare that any Sami person has better skills in the sami language than in another Scandinavian language. I once visited an area where it is supposedly an official language but I never heard anyone speak it. On the other hand lots of people were speaking Finnish. Tricoteuse who used to visit this forum comes from this area, I THINK. A pity she "emigrated" to the alternative forum because she might have more information. But to sum up; It is very hard to try and salvage these languages. The damage is already done. Missionaries and state officials did a very good job at integrating the Sami people into mainstream culture 150 years ago, or so. They had a very hard life, so it's not an entirely negative thing that they were integrated. Now they have good conditions. I think you have to be REALLY passionate about it to have any chance of succeding in this. It's an "isolated" language family I believe, with little in common with any other languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 12 of 12 29 December 2009 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
Yeah that's true for most people, but the point about the advantage of Norwegian or Swedish over Finnish isn't that relevant to me. As I stated earlier, if I were to learn Norwegian or Swedish, I'd be doing it primarily to gain reading knowledge so that I could use Lappish course materials that use one of those languages as intermediaries. Moreover I'm also interested in Uralic languages from a philological point of view. Moving from Hungarian to Estonian, and now to Finnish, and possibly later into one of the Lappish languages is just a way of satiating my curiosity. I don't feel the same way about Norwegian or Swedish, notwithstanding factors such as my native "Germanic discount", potential future application because of mutual intelligibility, and relative abundance of materials that would get me started on learning one of those languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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