Samisk språk i Svahken Sijte: Sørsamisk vitalisering gjennom barnehage og skule
Abstract
The South Saami language is one of several Saami languages. In Norway the
traditional district for South Saami stretches from the town of Mo in Rana
in the Province of Nordland southward to as far as Engerdal in the Province
of Hedmark. South Saami is also spoken in a comparable geographical area
on the Swedish side of the border. The South Saami language is a threatened
language.
Svahken sijte (Elgå Reindeer Herding Area) is the most southerly Saami reindeer
herding area in Norway. Families engaged in reindeer herding in Svahken
sijte identify strongly with the South Saami language. Nevertheless in 2000,
the parent generation possessed a mostly passive knowledge of the language,
and South Saami was mostly not being spoken as an everyday language in the
home.
The parents in Svahken sijte wanted their children to become active users of
South Saami, and they wanted help from the local pre-school and school to
accomplish this. It was generally recognized in both Norway and Sweden that
the children would not gain active bilingual proficiency as a result of learning
South Saami as a school subject a few hours a week.
This situation was the background for the parental initiative in Svahken sijte
to start a South Saami language project. The project was given the name
Language Initiative Project at Elgå Center for Developing Youth, and it was
funded by the Saami Parliament of Norway.
The report describes the Language Initiative Project project in Svahken sijte
that lasted five years (2001–2005). The focus of the report is on the local
teaching framework, the language teaching models and the activities of the
pre-school and school during the project period. The report also describes
linguistic outcomes of the project.