6th of february is the national day of the Sámi, and on this occasion I’m looking at Sámi words that have been loaned into Norwegian.
There has been contact between Sámi and Norwegians for thousands of years. Being the minority language, there are many loanwords in Sámi from Norwegian. But what about the other way round? There are a few words that have been taken up in Norwegian. There is also influence from Sámi on the Northern dialects of Norwegian, something I don’t go into here.
Sámi loanwords
Språkrådet (the Norwegian Language Council) has an article listing loanwords from Sámi. Here are known words loaned from Sámi into Norwegian:
- joik – a traditional form of song in Sámi culture. In Northern Sámi the song is actually called luohti, and the act of singing is juoigat
- kommag – shoes made from reindeer leather, from gáma, plural gápmagat
- lavvo – the tent used by nomadic Sámi, from lávvu
- tundra – also used in English, a type of arctic landscape, it comes to us through Russian from a Sami language on the Kola peninsula in Russia, from tūndar in Kildin Sámi
- pulk – in Norwegian this means «an enclosed sled pulled by a skier», while originally in Sámi this meant a sled pulled by reindeer
- pesk – a fur coat, from Sámi beaska
- noaide – a shaman who could come in contact with the spirits
- stallo – an evil spirit, in Sámi stállu
Sámi cuisine
In addition to these loanwords that are mentioned in many Norwegian articles, there is one more that is in regular use in Norwegian:
- Bidos – a dish with reindeer meat, vegetables and potatoes.
Something foxy
This article mentions that the word for fox in Norwegian, «rev», could have come from Sámi. The argument is that Norwegians would buy fox pelt from the Sámi. In that case it must have been loaned already into Old Norse. In Old Norse it was refr. In Finnish (a related language) it’s repo, and in Sámi rieban.
It seems likely as the word doesn’t appear in other Germanic languages: the English fox, German Fuchs, and Dutch Vos, all similar to each other, is clearly another word. This article discusses the etymologi of refr and fox at length. It mentions that there was also the word fóa in Old Norse, and that the Gothic for fox was fauho – both similar to fox.
So I put the word «rev» on the list:
- rev – rieban in Northern Sámi
Sámi names on the map
In addition, there are a lot of Sámi toponyms, place names, in Northern Norway. Some examples:
- The town Karasjok, after Sámi Kárášjohka, where johka means river.
- The village Skáidi, which is a Sámi word for «land between two rivers that are merging»
- The place Hjemmeluft, a Norwegian variant of the original Sámi Jiemmaluovta (Northern Sámi Jiepmaluokta) where luokta means bay). This one is funny as luft means «air» in Norwegian.
- Many place names ending with –várri (mountain) and –jávri (lake)
