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.