View source for The Saami shaman, noadi

{{Artikkeli
|sivun nimi=The Saami shaman, noadi
|kieli=englanti
|id=1085
|artikkeliteksti=<P align="justify"> The most important person in the ancient Saami religion was the shaman, {{Artikkelilinkki|10119|<i>noaidi</i>}}. The word has corresponding forms in all the Saami languages (e.g. South Saami <i>nåejtie</i>, Lule Saami <i>noajdde</i>, Skolt <i>nåiˊdd</i>. In old formal Swedish Saami and rarely in modern Lule Saami there exists another word alongside it: <i>guopas</i>). Together with the Finnish <i>noita</i> witch , which has cognates in other Baltic-Finnic languages, it can be traced back to a common Early Proto-Finnic form <i>*nojta</i>. Particularly in older writings on the subject, the Saami and Baltic-Finnic words are considered to have a related word in Mansi with the meaning shaman, witch . If this view is correct, the word would go back to Proto-Finno-Ugric. However, phonetically the Mansi word (Proto-Mansi <i>*ŋä*jt </i>) presents some problems, and it not possible to reconstruct a common source for it and the Saami word.</p><P align="justify"> If in fact the Saami <i>noaidi</i> and the Finnish <i>noita</i> are related to the Mansi word, it could point to the fact that it was perhaps a north-east Eurasian word of wide dispersion over different language families.</p>
|kirjoittaja=- Eino Koponen KOTUS
|luokat=Saami Pre-Christian world view, mythology and folklore, etymology
}}