Minorities with a Minority: Language and the School in the Sami Areas of Norway

This paper provides a survey of the Sami languages in present-day Norway. It begins with a brief overview of Sami languages, highlighting their historical and current position in a number of Scandinavian countries. The most prominent among these Sami language varieties is Northern Sami, which is also the language variety most often discussed in the academic literature. However, the paper then moves on to discuss two other, often overlooked, examples of Sami language and culture, Lule Sami and Southern Sami. The paper explores the current position of these latter examples, and the various language and education initiatives currently underway with respect to them. It concludes with a discussion of their current status in the light of Fishman's typology of the status of threatened languages.