Universit del Salento

NAME.
MATR. No.
Faculty..
Course of Study.

ENGLISH READING-WRITING WORKSHOP

Prof. Giovanna Gallo
a.a. 2011-2012

Such a treasure of Knowledge for Human Survival

Area of the Sami people and Sami Languages

The Sami People: An Ethnic Minority and an Indigenous People

The Sami people are an ethnic minority who can trace their ancestry at least back to the Stone Age.
When speaking about the Sami people, one also has to bear in mind that they are not a homogenous
group. They live in a large area called Spmiwhich today encompasses parts of northern
Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula, an area in which the environmental and living
conditions are very hard.
The size of the Sami population is between 60,000 and 100,000, and there are many cultural and
linguistic differences between the Sami groups. The Sami people consider themselves an indigenous
people and they have a different way of living than the majority people in the area. For centuries the
Sami have struggled to maintain their language, culture, and social rights. Their traditional languages,
minority languages, are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of the Uralic language
family. The Sami languages are endangered.
Traditionally, the Sami have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping
and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. For
traditional, environmental, cultural and political reasons, reindeer is legally reserved only for Sami
people in certain regions of the Nordic countries.
For long periods of time, the Sami lifestyle thrived because of its adaptation to the Arctic
environment. However, during the 19th century, Norwegian authorities put the Sami culture under
pressure in order to make the Norwegian language and culture universal. A strong economic
development of the north also took place, giving Norwegian culture and language status. On the
Swedish and Finnish side, the authorities were less militant in their efforts, though Sami language
was forbidden in schools; strong economic development in the north led to a weakening of status and
economy for the Sami. In 1913-1920, the Swedish race-segregation politic created a race biological
institute that collected research material from living people, graves, and sterilized Sami women.
Throughout history, settlers were encouraged to move to the northern regions through incentives such
as land and water rights, tax allowances and military exemptions.
The strongest pressure took place from around 1900 to 1940, when Norway invested considerable
money and effort to wipe out Sami culture. Notably, anyone wanting to buy or lease state lands for
agriculture in Finland had to prove knowledge of the Norwegian language and had to register with a
Norwegian name. This and similar actions in Scandinavian countries, e.g., the sterilization of Sami
women by Swedish authorities, are debated to be an act of ethnic cleansing, and perhaps a genocide.
In 1990 the Sami have been recognized as an indigenous people in Norway and hence, according to
international law, the Sami people are entitled special protection and rights.
Today, the indigenous Sami population is mostly urbanized, but a substantial number live in villages
in the high arctic. The Sami still have cultural consequences of language and culture loss related to
the Sami generations taken to missionary and/or state-run boarding schools and the legacy of laws
that were created to deny the Sami right (to their beliefs, language, land and to the practice of
traditional livelihoods). The Sami are experiencing cultural and environmental threats, including oil
exploration, mining, dam building, logging, climate change, military bombing ranges, tourism and
commercial development.

Reindeer husbandry
Reindeer husbandry has been, and is, an important aspect of Sami culture. During the years of forced
assimilation, the areas in which reindeer husbandry was an important livelihood were among the few
where Sami language and culture survived.
Today, in Norway and Sweden, reindeer husbandry is legally protected as an exclusive Sami
livelihood, such that only persons of Sami descent with a linkage to a reindeer herding family can
own, and hence make a living off, reindeer.

Sami languages
There is no single Sami language, but a group of ten distinct Sami languages. Six of these languages
have their own written standards. The Sami languages are relatively closely related, but not mutually
intelligible; for instance, speakers of Southern Sami cannot understand Northern Sami. Especially
earlier, these distinct languages were referred to as "dialects", but today, this is considered misleading
due to the deep differences between the varieties. Most Sami languages are spoken in several
countries, because linguistic borders do not correspond to national borders.
All Sami languages are endangered. This is due in part to historic laws prohibiting the use of Sami
languages in schools and at home in Sweden and Norway. Sami languages, and Sami song-chants,
called yoiks, were illegal in Norway from 1773 until 1958. Then, access to Sami instruction as part of
schooling was not available until 1988. Special residential schools that would assimilate the Sami
into the dominant culture were established. These were originally run by missionaries, but later, the
control of the schools came under the control of the governments. For example, in Russia, Sami
children were taken away when aged 12 and returned when aged 1517 with no knowledge of their
language and traditional communities. Not all Sami viewed the schools negatively, and not all of the
schools were brutal. However, being taken from home and prohibited from speaking Sami has
resulted in cultural alienation, loss of language, and lowered self-esteem.
The Sami languages belong to the Uralic language family, linguistically related to Finnish, Estonian
and Hungarian. Due to prolonged contact and import of items foreign to Sami culture from
neighbouring Scandinavians, there are a number of Germanic loanwords in Sami, particularly for
"urban" objects. The majority of the Sami now speak the majority languages of the countries they live
in, i.e., Swedish, Russian, Finnish and Norwegian. Efforts are being made to further the use of Sami
languages among Sami and persons of Sami origin. Despite these changes, the legacy of cultural
repression still exists. Many older Sami still refuse to speak Sami. In addition, Sami parents still feel

alienated from schools and hence do not participate as much as they could in shaping school curricula
and policy.

Yoiking: The Sami Way of Singing

One could say that yoikingthe original Sami way of singingis the most unique and characteristic
form of Sami art. In the past, Sami poetry was always recited in the form of a song, and this seems to
have been true in all Sami communities. But the yoik is not just a form of singing. It is much more.
The Sami writer Johan Turi has described yoiking as follows: They call Smi singing yoiking. It is a
way of remembering fellow human beings. Some people are remembered with hate, some with love
and some with sorrow. But the subject matter of these songs might also concern a landscape, animals,
feasts, reindeer, caribou . . .
The concept of the verb to yoik is known in the whole Sami area, but there are differences between
the east and north Sami ways of yoiking. Sami yoiks can be divided into profane and religious yoiks
religious here referring to shamanistic beliefs. Owing to the Christianization of the Sami people,
which began in the thirteenth century and continued until the eighteenth century, the shamanistic
forms of the yoik have become obsolete.
During these years, the Christian missionaries, mostly ministers of the church, had a tendency to see
many features of the Sami culture as pagan. This was particularly true with regard to yoiking, which
they considered to be an invocation of the old gods. Yoiks were labelled as something almost Satanic
and, therefore, prohibited.
It was impossible to completely eradicate yoiking: profane forms of yoik singing have survived to the
present day. However, many Sami reject this as a pagan rite today. The latest examples of such
rejection in the twenty-first century come from one Sami parish in Finland, where the parish board
and the minister have forbidden yoik singing in the church and in the parish hall.
Sami yoiking is going through a renaissance not only in Spmi, but also beyond its borders. The yoikbased compositions of Nils-Aslak Valkeap, Mari Boine, or Wimme Saari are examples of the
powerful heritage of Sami culture and its potential to produce spiritual nourishment for modern
people.

Sami Literature: From Oral Expression to Written Forms

In the Western world, written language has been considered the measure of civilization. However, in
many aboriginal cultures, the oral tradition has been and still is the main means of storytelling, as it is
among the Sami people. Yoik chants, fairy tales, sagas, and stories are conveyed more easily by word
of mouth than through the written word and have always been handed down by listening, imitation,
and memory. This tradition of oral narratives and yoiks is still strong, as evidenced by modern Sami
literature. The evolution of Sami literature from the 1970s to the present day reflects the changes
associated with the position of the Sami as a minority and an indigenous people. In many respects,
writing was an ethno-political defence of the rights of the Sami minority. For hundreds of years, there
had been spheres in which it was forbidden to use the Sami language: for example, in the school
(writing, reading, and learning), in singing (yoik), and in church. These restrictions provided
potentially traumatic experiences in the sphere of language, and many authors have described how
these events have followed them into adulthood. As an example, the artist, poet, and storyteller
Kerttu Vuolab (b. 1951) describes what happened when she and other Sami children went to school:
When we began school, our language ability was suddenly zero. Our language no longer had any value. It
was not even good enough to help us out. Our beautiful language was totally ignored. Our singing
yoikingwas forbidden, our phrases and poems were nonsense, our fairy tales were not worth to take any
notice of, and our history did not exist. Most of us behaved well. Most of us forgot our singing, our fairy
tales, our poems and sayings. Many people from my generation even agreed to forget our own language.

This generation . . . struggles to get back the richness of our culture. We make songs and records, stories
and books, pictures, plays . . . and so on. I think this is the only way to make sure that our children get to
experience the richness of the Smi culturethe same richness that our parents and grandparents passed
on to us through their oral storytelling. My grandfather with his stories educated me to become an author.
At the same time, my mother and my grandmother trained me to become an illustrator. (Vuolab 1992)

In her manuscript, Kerttu Vuolab describes how important storytelling and the oral tradition has
beenand still isamong the Sami people. Storytelling and the oral tradition have existed for a long
time and still are significant components in the formation of the collective memory, which is apparent
in modern literature, too. The oral tradition has been a part of the learning history of the Sami, as it
has also been for other First Nations people. Today, literacy is one of the main means of education in
the formal schooling system, and teachers and educators now wonder how to get back the oral forms
of learning.
As the Maori researcher Linda Tuhiwai Smith puts it when describing the same phenomenon,
Numerous accounts across nations now attest to the critical role played by schools in assimilating
colonized peoples, and in the systematic, frequently brutal, forms of denial of indigenous languages,
knowledge and cultures (Tuhiwai Smith 2001, 64). The revitalization of languages, arts, and cultural
practices are the main projects in todays Sami societiesas in many other aboriginal societies.
The oral traditionwhich we find in childrens literature, remembrance literature, poetry, and
storieshas certain functions, one of which is to strengthen the collective memory of the Sami
people, ultimately enabling to come home through stories, as Kerttu Vuolab puts it. Vuolab uses
the words enabling to come home to describe the process of decolonization: you have to claim back
your cultural heritage and turn your mind. Because of the history of hundreds of years of
colonization, the Sami people have to come home in many other areas, too.

Such a Treasure of Knowledge for Human Survival

By Kerttu Vuolab

Mother tongue a treasure of knowledge

a) All children have a mother tongue. We human beings started to learn
our mother tongue before we were born. The mother tongue is a chain
that binds us to our own history. Each one of us is a ring in the chain of
generations, a ring in our mother tongue. If any ring grows weak, the
whole chain will be weak. Every generation has to make sure that their
ring is strong enough to add the next ring onto the chain. Our personal
duty is to transfer the mother tongue to the next generation. By passing
on our language, the mother tongue, to the next generation, we
ourselves guarantee that life itself will continue into the future.
b) We would all like to live forever. By having children we make sure that
our own life continues in them. I have no children, or else all children
in the world are mine. My life does not continue in my own children,
but I write books, which is a very selfish reason for being an author. If I
wished to be a mother to a daughter or a son, that would be as selfish a
way to continue my own life in the future.
c) A language, a mother tongue, is the most valuable inheritance of human
beings. Without it every generation would be forced to experience and
discover how to protect itself against frost, storm, wind, snow, rain,
sunshine and all the other life-threatening things in the world. Our
imagination would not produce such an endless capacity for creating
new ideas if we human beings had no language, no mother tongue.
Without it a human being would not be able to explain or teach any
idea or technique to the next generation. Without a human language no
technical wonders would exist.
d) My mother tongue is the Sami language. I call my mother tongue the
Sami language, because the words Lapp and Lappish do not respect our
language on an equal level with other languages. My mother tongue
Sami is neither a poor nor a primitive language! No language in the
world is poor or primitive. Every language is rich in some way or other.
Sami is a rich language: for instance, it describes nature and the weather
accurately and beautifully. It has almost 200 words for snow. Every
word explains the condition of snow: Is one able to ski on it? What
temperature is it? Can it take the weight of walking on it? Is it going to

change in the immediate future and in what way? All words in every
language are prescriptions for human survival.
A language a prescription for survival
e) If any language in the world dies, with it disappears great human
wisdom, the experience of life over thousands of years. With a language
disappears a treasure of knowledge that could save human life from the
danger of destruction. The conditions for life are becoming progressively
worse. Life on planet Earth cannot afford to lose any human language.
Because knowledge for human survival is needed more than ever in the
history of the Earth and life on it.
f) Human beings all over the world have passed survival knowledge on to
the next generation by telling stories, singing songs (yoiking in our
case), reading poems, playing with words, chatting and telling jokes to
each other. Every mother talks to her child with love and she hopes
that life will continue in her child. All mother tongues are the unwritten
history of human life. This history respects love, peace and life. You
dont have to read much to realize what written history respects: money,
war and killing, death.
g) Numbers have made people blind to understanding the value of things,
especially in administration and government. Nothing seems to have a
value before it has been measured or had a price put on it so as to gauge
its meaning and importance. A language seems to have enough value
when more than five hundred million people speak it. Big numbers have
made the politicians and bureaucrats blind, they see the value of a
language in terms of numbers. That is probably the reason why they do
not respect minority languages. Small languages dont count for them.
That is why most minority languages are in danger of being killed. The
governments that respect only the major languages in their countries call
to mind a herring: everyone is swimming in the same direction and
nobody asks: Where are we going? What is threatening us?
h) When I hear of minority languages, lesser known languages, or small
languages, I am reminded of a fox cub. She is on her own, without a
pack to protect her life. The fox cub must watch out and listen, be fully
aware of any danger that could threaten her life. To stay alive the fox
cub must be ready at all times to hide, run away, and take note of the
other living creatures in the forest. A fox cub is a very alert living
creature, eyes that see, ears that hear, with a sensibility for noticing
what happens all around. With the wisdom of a fox cub the
governments in the world could stop the destruction of nature. People

should appreciate that there is real value in being alive, and their duty is
to make sure that life continues.
Literature the daughter of the mother tongue
i) Very often people think that we Sami had no literature before books
were written and published in Sami. In fact we have a very rich oral
literary tradition. Although I did not have books when I was a child, I
had my stories, poems, jokes, fairy tales, myths, yoiks, legends. They
were my books, and not only books, but also theatre. My libraries were
my family, my home, and nature around the area of my home.
j) When I was a child, storytelling was not a separate ceremony like the
evening stories on TV these days. When I was a child, stories for me
were duty, hobby and fun, explainer, company and comforter. My
family, especially my grandfather and my mother, told us stories from
morning to evening, while they were doing their everyday work.
k) My literary events took place in our cowshed as we were milking cows.
Or on the hill as we were walking to pick cloudberries. Or they
happened in the middle of slaughtering. I remember one day my
grandfather came home with a reindeer that was no longer alive but had
yet to be skinned and have its horns removed. My grandfather was
obliged to go back up the hill, because the reindeer had been penned
into an enclosure. While my mother was skinning the reindeer she told
us children the following story:
l) A long time ago some animals in a forest
decided to have a competition. There was a mouse,
a wolf, a bear and a frog. The mouse,
the wolf and the bear, each of them had a
crossbow. But the frog had nothing, only her
tongue. The first one to kill a reindeer
wins. That was the competition.
The mouse was the first to shoot at a
reindeer. It took its bow and arrow and shot.
But the mouse lives too near the ground, so
the arrow didnt fly higher than the hooves of
a reindeer. The arrow of the mouse did not kill
the reindeer.
My mother was skinning the reindeers legs and showed us that between
the hooves there is a gland. The mouses arrow.

10

The wolf was a good runner, he fired a shot

while a reindeer was running away from him.
The wolfs arrow flew to the rump of
the reindeer. It did not die.
My mother separated out the pieces of the reindeers haunch. The arrow
flew into the muscles and formed them into a knot. The wolfs arrow.
The bear was a big animal. He was not afraid
to face a reindeer and shoot it. The arrow
flew to the middle of a reindeers forehead,
but the reindeer did not die.
My mother was skinning the reindeers head and showed us that there is
a depression in the bone of the forehead. The bears arrow.
The frog was sitting alongside and asked:
Can I try to catch a reindeer?
The others burst out laughing:
You dont even have an arrow or a bow!
The frog just sat there. Suddenly her tongue
flew out of her mouth and the reindeer
was dead.
My mother cut the reindeers heart in two and showed us that in the
middle of a reindeers heart there is a little bone or knot of tendons. The
frogs arrow.
m) Nature and life itself are illustrated in oral literature. We were able to
see what was portrayed, to hear it, to smell it, and to feel it. We
experienced what was illustrated in our own lives. The oral tradition
explained nature and life to us. Through stories we became familiar
with animals, birds, fishes, flowers, trees, insects, sunshine, rain, wind,
snow, rivers, lakes, the ocean. Listening to the oral stories we learned
how we belong to nature as part of it. Oral literature taught us human
beings to respect nature, and then nature gives us security.
n) People often asked me: Why do you bother to write in your own
mother tongue? There are so few people to buy your books such a
little language with under 100,000 people who speak it. My duty is to
cultivate my own mother tongue. I have to play my part so as to ensure

11

that my ring in the chain of the Sami language is strong enough to add
on the next generations ring in the future. I have to work for my
mother tongue, because life on Earth cannot afford to lose my mother
tongue, such a treasure of knowledge for human survival.
o) In my young days people used to command us not to speak or use my
mother tongue, the Sami language: We were told we would not even
get as far as the nearest airport, in Lakselv, if we used our native
language. Now I can inform people who hesitate to use their own
mother tongue: the struggle is really worthwhile. You can get to the
other side of the Earth by being yourself. If it had not been for me
speaking and writing in my own native language, I would not be
travelling round the world speaking of the importance of the mother
tongue.
(Taken from Rights to Language: Equity, Power and Education, edited by Robert Phillipson,
New York, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000, pp. 13-16)

12

Comprehension Questions

According to Kertu Vuolab:

a.

What is a mother tongue?

b.

How does her life continue?

c.

What would happen if human beings had no language?

d.

Can a human language be poor? Which country is the author from? Whats the name of her language?
How many words are there in the Sami vocabulary for snow?

Synonyms - a. b. c. d.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.

Tongue
Beings
Wish
Bind
Duty
Continue
World
Author
Mother
Valuable
Inheritance
Threatening
Capacity
Idea
Equal
Respect
Poor
Accurately
Beautifully

a. Obligation
b. Heritage
c. Earth
d. Parent
e. Ability
f. Gracefully
g. Language
h. Notion
i. Equivalent
j. Want
k. Creatures
l. Destitute
m. Precisely
n. Precious
o. Endangering
p. Carry on
q. Link
r. Writer
s. Appreciate

Antonyms - a. b. c. d.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

New
Threatening
Bind
Accurately
Start
Equal
Respect
Capacity
Poor
Beautifully
Immediate
Weak
Continue
Valuable

a. Unequal
b. Wealthy
c. Strong
d. Disrespect
e. Gracelessly
f. Later
g. Old
h. Stop
i. Free
j. Worthless
k. Conclude
l. Inability
m. Carelessly
n. Protecting

13

Definitions a. b.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

To make it certain that something will happen. =

To acquire knowledge of or skill in by study, instruction or experience. =
Concerned mainly with ones own needs or wishes at the expense of consideration for other people. =
A connected series of metal links for fastening or pulling something. =
Information and skills gained through experience or education. =
A group of people in society who are born and live around the same time. =
Wealth, rich materials, or valuable things. =
Something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation. =

Treasure
Learn

Knowledge
Duty

Chain
Guarantee

Generation
Selfish

Definitions c.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

10.

To impart knowledge or to instruct or train someone. =

A deposit of white ice crystals formed on surfaces when the temperature falls below freezing. =
Water that falls in drops from clouds in the sky. =
Money, property, or a title received on the death of the previous owner. =
The natural movement of the air, especially in the form of a current blowing from a particular direction. =
Ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result. =
A violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and rain, and often thunder, lightning, or
snow.=
Something strange and surprising; a cause of surprise, astonishment, or admiration. =
The shining of the sun; direct light of the sun. =
Frozen water vapour in the atmosphere that falls in light white flakes. =

Inheritance
Snow

Wind
Sunshine

Storm
Teach

Frost
Technique

Rain
Wonder

Definitions d.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

10.

The state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. =
The measurement of how heavy a person or thing is. =
The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a
structured and conventional way. =
A plan that will help someone achieve something, or that will have a particular result. =
To give a detailed account in words of someone or something. =
Characteristic of early ages or of an early state of human development. =
The physical world, including plants, animals, the landscape, and natural phenomena, as opposed to
people or things made by people. =
To slide over snow on skis, as a sport or as a way of travelling. =
The fact or state of continuing to live or exist, especially in difficult conditions. =
The degree or intensity of heat present in a place, substance, or object. =

Language
Temperature

Primitive
Weight

Describe
Prescription

Weather
Survival

Ski
Nature

14

Irregular verbs found in the text (a. b. c. d.)

Present

Past

Past Participle

Translation

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Comprehension Questions
e.

What happens if a language dies?

f.

How have people all over the world passed survival knowledge on to the next generation? What is the
difference between oral history and written history?

g.

Why do bureaucrats and politicians not respect minority languages?

h.

To what are minority languages compared?

Synonyms e. f. g. h.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Disappear
Great
Wisdom
Save
Next
Tell
Understand
Measure
Danger
Kill
Major
Country
Small
Protect
Aware
Alert
Notice
Happen
Stop
Sure

a. Comprehend
b. Threat
c. Primary
d. Conscious
e. Nation
f. Take place
g. Observe
h. Vanish
i. Safeguard
j. Knowledge
k. Attentive
l. Rescue
m. End
n. Say
o. Big
p. Following
q. Little
r. Certain
s. Gauge
t. Murder

Antonyms e. f. g. h.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

Aware
Stop
Disappear
Sure
Destruction
Same
Small
Unwritten
Minority
Knowledge
Next
Lose
Wisdom
Worse

a. Win
b. Ignorance
c. Majority
d. Large
e. Better
f. Stupidity
g. Appear
h. Continue
i. Unaware
j. Different
k. Construction
l. Uncertain
m. Written
n. Previous

15

Definitions e. f. g. h.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Unable to see; lacking the sense of sight. =

A group of wild animals that live and hunt together. =
To stop being alive; to disappear or stop existing. =
To move through water by movements of the arms and legs, fins or tail. =
The quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgement. =
A long thin silver sea fish. =
To have enough money, time or other resources for something. =
A young of certain animals, as the bear, lion, fox, wolf, or other wild animal. =
To determine the exact dimensions, capacity, quantity or force of something. =
To be a menace or source of danger to someone or something. =

Die
Herring

Wisdom
Swim

Afford
Threaten

Gauge
Pack

Blind
Cub

Irregular verbs found in the text (e. f. g. h.)

Present

Past

Past Participle

Translation

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Comprehension Questions

i.

What made up her library when she was a child?

j.

What represented stories to her?

k.

When did her literary events take place?

16

l.

Work on the pictures below:

17

m.

What did children get to know through stories?

n.

How many people speak the Sami tongue? Why does she write in Sami?

o.
Why did people tell her not to speak her mother tongue? Why is she happy to have been speaking and writing in
her own language?

Synonyms i. j. k. l. m. n. o.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

Ceremony
Work
Take place
Pick
Remember
Come
Obliged
Forest
Near
Die
Big
Afraid
Little
Illustrate
Buy
World

Antonyms i. j. k. l. m. n. o.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

a. Gather
b. Arrive
c. Wood
d. Perish
e. Huge
f. Small
g. Frightened
h. Purchase
i. Job
j. Depict
k. Ritual
l. Happen
m. Earth
n. Recall
o. Compelled
p. Close

Young
Oral
Few
Remember
Sitting
Familiar
Separate
Little
Lose
Often
Buy
Nothing
Come
Big
Long
First
Before
Near
Die
High

a. Go
b. Big
c. Seldom
d. Low
e. After
f. Small
g. Sell
h. Live
i. Many
j. Written
k. Far
l. Short
m. United
n. Old
o. Standing
p. Gain
q. Unknown
r. Forget
s. Something
t. Last

18

Definitions i. j. k.
1.
2.

The original Sami way of singing, a unique and characteristic traditional form of Sami art.
A hard bony outgrowth, often curved and pointed, found in pairs on the head of cattle, sheep and other
animals. =
3. The handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to
generation. =
4. A thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter. =
5. Remove a flower or fruit from where it is growing. =
6. The killing or butchering of cattle, sheep, etc., especially for food. =
7. Pleasure, enjoyment, amusement. =
8. A natural elevation of the earths surface, smaller than a mountain. =
9. A building where cows are milked or where cows are milked or kept during winter or bad weather. =
10. An activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation, not as a main occupation. =

Tradition
Cowshed

Joke
Slaughtering

Yoik
Pick

Hobby
Horn

Fun
Hill

Definitions l.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.

A type of deer with large horns, which lives in the northern parts of Europe, Asia and America. =
To make the typical sound of being happy or amused. =
A small animals which has smooth skin, lives in water and on land, and has very long hind legs for
leaping.=
A stick with a sharp pointed head, designed to be shot from a bow. =
A small rodent with a pointed snout and a long thin tail. =
The muscular organ in the chest that pumps the blood around the body. =
A fastening made by looping a piece of string, rope, etc. on itself and tightening it. =
A wild animal of the dog family that lives and hunt in packs.
To move through the air. =
The back end of an animal. =
A large, heavy mammal with thick fur and a very short tail. =
A weapon used especially in the past for shooting arrows with great force.=
The part of the face above the eyebrows.=
To seize and take hold of a moving object, person or animal. =
A hindquarter of an animal. =

Mouse
Fly
Forehead

Wolf
Arrow
Catch

Bear
Rump
Laugh

Reindeer
Haunch
Heart

Frog
Crossbow
Knot

Definitions m. n. o.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Portray
Insect

To contend with an adversary or opposing force.=

A type of very small animal with six legs, a body divided into three parts and usually two pairs of wings.=
To depict in words or describe graphically.=
To perceive a sound with the ear.=
Such as to repay ones time, attention, interest, work, trouble etc.=
The part of a plant from which the seed or fruit develops, usually having brightly coloured petals.=
To perceive something by its odour or scent.=
To go from one place to another, as by car, train, plane or ship.=
To show regard or consideration for.=
To notice, be aware of, or examine by touch; experience an emotion or sensation.=

Hear
Respect

Smell
Worthwhile

Feel
Struggle

Flower
Travel
19

Irregular verbs found in the text (j. k. l. m. n. o.)

Present

Past

Past Participle

Translation

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Final written task:
Synthesize the reasons why the author of this story believes that speaking her mother tongue is
a question of survival and then discuss your own feelings about your mother tongue (dialect).
Use no more than 250 words.

20