Akkala Sámi is a Sámi language that was spoken in the Sámi villages of A´kkel, Ču´kksuâl and Sââ´rvesjäu´rr, in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Formerly erroneously regarded as a dialect of Kildin Sámi, it has recently become recognized as an independent Sámi language that is most closely related to its western neighbor Skolt Sámi. Akkala Sámi is the most endangered Eastern Sámi language. On December 29, 2003, Maria Sergina - the last fluent native speakers of Akkala Sámi - died. However, as of 2011 there were at least two people, both aged 70, with some knowledge of Akkala Sámi. Remaining ethnic Akkala Sámi live in the villageYona. Although there exist a description of Akkala Sámi phonology and morphology, a few published texts, and archived audio recordings, the Akkala Sami language remains among the most poorly documented Sami languages.. One of the few items in the language are chapters 23-28 of the Gospel of Matthew published in 1897. It was translated by A. Genetz, and printed at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Phonology
Morphology
The following overview is based on Pekka M. Zaykov's volume. Zaykov's Uralic phonetic transcription is retained here. The middle dot ˑ denotes palatalization of the preceding consonant, analyzed by Zaykov as semisoft pronunciation.
Noun
Akkala Sámi has eight cases, singular and plural: nominative, genitive-accusative, partitive, dative-illative, locative, essive, comitative and abessive. Case and number are expressed by a combination of endings and consonant gradation:
Nominative: no marker in the singular, weak grade in the plural.
Genitive-accusative: weak grade in the singular, weak grade + -i in the plural.
Partitive: this case exists only in the singular, and has the ending -tti͔.
Dative-illative: strong grade + -a, -a͕ or -ɛ in the singular, weak grade + -i in the plural.
Locative: weak grade + -st, -śtˑ in the singular, weak grade + -nˑ in the plural.
Essive: this case exists only in the singular: strong grade + -nˑ.
Comitative: weak grade + -nˑ in the singular, strong grade + -guim, -vuim or -vi̮i̭m in the plural.
Abessive: weak grade + -ta in the singular.
Pronoun
The table below gives the declension of the personal pronounsmonn ‘I’ and mij ‘we’. The pronouns tonn ‘you ’ and sonn ‘he’ are declined like monn, the pronouns tij ‘you ’ and sij ‘they’ are declined like mij.
Compound tenses such as perfect and pluperfect are formed with the verb ĺii̭je in the present or imperfect as auxiliary, and the participle of the main verb. Examples are ĺam tĭĕhtmi̮nč ‘I have known’ from tĭĕhttɛ ‘to know’, and ĺai tui̭jāma ‘he had made’ from tui̭je ‘to make’. The conditional mood has the marker -č, which is added to the weak grade of the stem: kuarčim ‘I would sew’, vizzčik ‘you would become tired’. As in other Sámi languages, Akkala Sámi makes use of a negative verb that conjugates according to person and number, while the main verb remains unchanged. The conjugation of the negative verb is shown here together with the verb aĺ̄ḱe ‘to begin’:
-
1sg.
jim aĺg
2sg.
jik aĺg
3sg.
ij aĺg
1pl.
jepˑ aĺg
2pl.
jepˑpˑe aĺg
3pl.
jetˑ aĺg
The third person singular and plural of the verb ĺii̭je ‘to be’ have special contracted forms ɛĺĺa and jāĺa.
