The Sámi people

[Pallantides]

Isak Mikal Saba (1875–1925) politician and writer. Was the first Sami parliamentarian (Norwegian Labour Party) and wrote the Sami national anthem.


Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931), politician who among other things organized the first international Sami conference.


Ole Henrik Magga(born August 12, 1947) is a Sámi linguist and politician from Kautokeino, Norway.


Sofia Jannok (born 15 September 1982) is a Swedish Sami singer from Gällivare, Sweden.


Ánde Somby, born in Buolbmat, Norway, is a well known traditional Sami joik artist and a Research Scholar in the Faculty of Law at the University of Tromsø, specializing in Indigonious Rights Law.


Samuel Balto, Arctic explorer – one of the first people to cross Greenland on skis (together with Nansen)


Johan Turi (1854–1936), wrote the first novel in Sámi.


Ailo Gaup (1980–present), a motorcross sportsman who invented the "underflip"


Morten Gamst Pedersen (1981–present), Football player (currently playing for Blackburn Rovers).


Saami parliament of Norway


Saami parliament of Sweden


Saami parliament of Finland


Sápmi football team

[Pallantides]

[Pallantides]

Helga Pedersen (1973–present) politician. First Sami member of Government (Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Norwegian Labour Party).


Niko Valkeapää (1968–present) musician and songwriter from Finland, now lives in Kautokeino, Norway .


Mari Boine (1956–present) musician from Norway.


Jonne Järvelä (1974–present) musician and song-writer from Finland.


Nils Gaup (born April 12, 1955) film director from Norway.


Mikkel Gaup (born January 16, 1968) actor from Norway.


Lars Levi Læstadius (1800–1861), religious reformist, bothanist and ethnologist.

[Pallantides]

Oh my god this the most perfect Samekone I have ever seen, I think I'm in love!

[Osweo]

Oh my god this the most perfect Samekone I have ever seen, I think I'm in love!

Claire Short, English politician.



Does 'Samekone' mean 'Lapp-woman'?

[Pallantides]

Samekone is Norwegian for Sami wife.

Lapp is deragotory like Nigger is for Blacks.

[The Ripper]

Samekone is Norwegian for Sami wife.

Lapp is deragotory like Nigger is for Blacks.

Why exactly is "Lapp" derogatory? In Finnish we call Sámi Lappalainen and Finnish Laplanders are called Lappilainen, and for some reason the former is offensive, but I'm not sure why it is so.

Do you have an explanation?

[Pallantides]

Why exactly is "Lapp" derogatory? In Finnish we call Sámi Lappalainen and Finnish Laplanders are called Lappilainen, and for some reason the former is offensive, but I'm not sure why it is so.

Do you have an explanation?

Etymology of Lapp

The Sami are often known in other languages as "Lap", "Lapp", or "Laplanders", but many Sami regard these as pejorative terms.[10] Variants of the name "Lapp" were originally used in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and from there were adopted by all major European languages (English: Lapps, German, Dutch: Lappen, Russian, Ukrainian: Loparie, French: Lapons, Greek: Λάπωνες (Lápōnes), Italian: Lapponi, Polish: Lapończycy, Spanish: Lapones, Portuguese: Lapões).
The exact meaning of this old term, and the reasons it came into common usage, are unknown; however in Scandinavian languages lapp means a patch of cloth for mending, which may be a description of the clothing, called a gakti, that the Sámi wear. Such 'patches' (i.e."lapp") can refer to something old and to be discarded – an epithet that would have been applied to the Sami culture itself. Another possible source is the Finnish word lape, which in this case means 'periphery'. Originally it meant any person living from the wilderness, not only the Sámi people. It is unknown how the word Lapp came into the Norse language, but it seems to have been introduced by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus to distinguish between Fish-Fennians (coastal tribes) and Lap-Fennians (forest tribes), supporting the second etymology. It was popularized and became the standard terminology by the work of Johannes Schefferus, Acta Lapponica (1673), but was also used earlier by Olaus Magnus in his Description of the Northern peoples (1555). There is another suggestion that it originally meant wilds. An alternative interpretation made by Damião de Góis in 1540 derives Lapland from “the dumb and lazy land”, because the land where no vegetables grow is lazy and does not speak. In any event, the term "lapp" is considered derogatory to most Sami.'

[Osweo]

in Scandinavian languages lapp means a patch of cloth for mending, which may be a description of the clothing, called a gakti, that the Sámi wear.

Curiously, I dimly remember an etymology of the other Finnic ethnonym 'Vot' as something to do with tags, patches, small pieces of material... And that's in their own language. Perhaps such a term was current among some Sami, at some distant point in the past, and was translated by some ancient bilingual...?

Such 'patches' (i.e."lapp") can refer to something old and to be discarded – an epithet that would have been applied to the Sami culture itself. Another possible source is the Finnish word lape, which in this case means 'periphery'. Originally it meant any person living from the wilderness, not only the Sámi people. It is unknown how the word Lapp came into the Norse language, but it seems to have been introduced by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus to distinguish between Fish-Fennians (coastal tribes) and Lap-Fennians (forest tribes), supporting the second etymology. It was popularized and became the standard terminology by the work of Johannes Schefferus, Acta Lapponica (1673), but was also used earlier by Olaus Magnus in his Description of the Northern peoples (1555). There is another suggestion that it originally meant wilds. An alternative interpretation made by Damião de Góis in 1540 derives Lapland from “the dumb and lazy land”, because the land where no vegetables grow is lazy and does not speak. In any event, the term "lapp" is considered derogatory to most Sami.'

Lapp is deragotory like Nigger is for Blacks.

As I understand it, however, it is the Norse word for 'Sami'. Just as 'Welsh' is the English for 'Cymry'. I'm imagining if the Welsh suddenly took it into their head to demand that we stopped calling them the name we've used since forever, and tried to force us to get our mouths around their autonym, despite its slightly unwieldy nature in English speech... When I try to speak Welsh, I call myself Saes, not 'Englishman', and in Russian I say 'Anglichanin'. I don't particularly like the sound of those words, but I don't try to tell other people how to call me.

Are the Sami hyper-touchy about all this? Do they regularly moan about it? Doesn't seem a particularly endearing trait if so. Seems like one of those cases where a normal word is supposed to be 'pejorative' because the thing it described has long been scorned, and the word itself remains just a word. The Sami just ought to rehabilitate the word, not engage in a futile struggle to wipe it out altogether. Foreigners WILL carry on saying 'Lapp', and I'm sure Germanic Scandinavians do to, at least in the home or whatever.

[Pallantides]

I think they'd accept it from a foreginer, just don't call any of them " Jævla innavla mongolide Lapp faen!"

Lapp has fallen out of use in Norway, but I still think many say "Lappar" in Sweden when talking about Sami people.