Phonology
This appendix on phonology begins with a brief overview of the orthography (writing system) of South Saami, before relating this to the sounds of the language. The approximate pronunciation of these is summarised, with comparisons to English sounds where possible. It is worth noting that these comparisons are highly dependent on both the dialects of South Saami and English considered and also the eccentricities of phonetic transcription systems generally. International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions are given, for which the primary source is Ylikoski (2022).
It should be noted that an accurate description of South Saami vowels is difficult, as many sources appear to give contradictory descriptions. I’ll do my best to update this if it can be made more accurate.
Orthography
The South Saami alphabet consists of 25 letters:
a b d e f g h i ï j k l m n o p r s t u v y æ ö å
The following letters appear only in names and loanwords:
c, q, w, x and z
This alphabet is mostly a combination of the Norwegian and Swedish alphabets, in consideration of the fact that South Saami is spoken on both sides of the Swedish-Norwegian border. The letters æ and ö will however often be written as ä and ö in Sweden and æ and ø in Norway to suit the countries’ typical alphabets.
The letter ï is not a letter in either Swedish or Norwegian and, while ï represents a different sound to i, many texts write both with i. For clarity, these are differentiated throughout this text.
Vowels
South Saami has a large vowel inventory, composed of 10 short vowels, 5 long monophthongs and 8 diphthongs. Short vowels are written with a single letter, while the long monophthongs and diphthongs are written with two letters. There are a few exceptions. A short e is not written before a word-final -h if preceded by an unvoiced consonant. Additionally, the long vowel aa is written as a when unstressed: maana ("child") contains two long vowels aa.
The following letters represent short vowels:
a e i ï o u y æ å
The letter a is used to write two different short vowels. The approximate pronunciations of these can be seen in the left-hand table below.
The following letter combinations represent long monophthongic vowels:
aa ae ee öö åå
The grapheme ee represents two different long monophthongs. The approximate pronunciations of the long monophthongs can be seen in the right-hand table below. Most of these actually end more open than they begin, but not so much as the diphthongs:
ea ie ïe oe ua ue yö åe åa
These can be approximately described as combinations of the short vowels. That is, they move from the vowel corresponding to the first letter in the grapheme to the vowel corresponding to the second letter in the grapheme.
| Grapheme | IPA | Description of vowel quality |
|---|---|---|
| a |
/ɑ/, |
Either similar to the long a in English bath (back vowel), but short, or a similar vowel with rounded lips. |
| e |
/e/, |
Somewhat similar to the start of the diphthong ay in English may. Somewhat reduced when unstressed. |
| i | /i/ | Similar to ee in English free. |
| ï | /ɨ/ | Pronounced with tongue further back in the mouth than i. |
| o | /u/ | Similar to oo in English boot, but pronounced with tongue further back. |
| u | /ʉ/ | Similar to oo in English goose for some speakers. Pronounced with tongue further forward than o. |
| y | /y/ | This sound is essentially absent from English. An i with rounded lips. |
| æ | /æ/ | Pronounced with tongue lower in the mouth than e. Similar to the a in General American “cat”. |
| å | /ɔ/ | Similar to o in English “not”. |
| Grapheme | IPA | Description of vowel quality |
|---|---|---|
| aa | /ɑː/ | Long back a. |
| ae | /aː/ | Long front a, like the a in Southern British English “cat”. Tongue lower in mouth than either ee. |
| ee | /eː/, /æː/ |
Either front and mid long e or open-mid long æ. |
| öö | /øː/ | Long front vowel absent from English. Rounded e. Somewhat diphthong-like, ending further forward than it begins. |
| åå | /oː/ | Fairly static long å, in comparison with diphthongs åe, åa. |
Consonants
South Saami’s consonant inventory consists of 20 consonant phonemes, most of which are written with a single letter. These are:
p t k b d g m n r f v s h j l
Additionally, 5 consonant phonemes are written with two letters. These are:
ts tj sj nj ng
The approximate pronunciation of these 20 consonants is summarised in the following table.
| Graphemes | IPA | Description |
|---|---|---|
| p, t, k | /pʰ/, /tʰ/, /kʰ/, /p/, /t/, /k/ | Pronounced like English p, t, k. Only aspirated at start of words, typically loanwords. |
| b, d, g | /b~p/, /d~t/, /g~k/ | Pronounced somewhere between English b, d, g and p, t, k. Unaspirated. |
| m, n | /m/, /n/ | Like English m and n. Before k and hk, n is pronounced like ng. |
| nj | /ɲ/ | An n with the tongue resting on the soft palate, between n and ng. Similar to n in English newt, but one sound. |
| ng | /ŋ/ | Like English ng in sing. |
| r | /r/ | Trilled r. |
| f | /f/ | Similar to English f. |
| v | /v/ | Similar to English v. |
| ts | /t͡s/ | Glides quickly from t to s. Like ts in English hotspot. |
| tj | /tɕ/ | Similar to ch in English chest, but with tongue further back. |
| s | /s/ | Like English s. |
| sj | /ɕ/ | Similar sh in English shear, but with tongue further back. |
| h | /h/ | Like English h. |
| j | /j/ | Like y in English yes. |
| l | /l/ | Clear l (like in English let) and dark l (like in English full) both represented. |
Most of these consonants may be doubled, with the sound pronounced at the end of one syllable and at the start of the next. Generally this is done by repeating the letter which represents the sound, however double p, t and k are represented with bp, dt and gk. The clusters dts and dtj represent a t-sound at the end of one syllable and a ts- or tj-sound at the start of the next. There are many possible combinations of consonant sounds, many of which will look quite strange to English speakers e.g. jht, lhv, kng. We may find the fact that the sound h may occur in consonant clusters and at the end of syllables particularly perplexing, as English phonotactic rules do not allow this.