Scandinavian languages
Skandinaaviset kielet
Scandinavian languages: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Islandic and Faroese. Swedish and Norwegian in particular still continue to exert a strong influence on the Saami languages. The stratum of Scandinavian loan words which are common to the Saami languages goes back to Proto-Scandinavian, and it is fairly extensive, amounting to several hundred words. Proto-Scandinavian load words can be distinguished from Proto-Germanic borrowings according to phonetic criteria that describe how the sounds of Proto-Germanic and Proto-Scandinavian were represented in Saami, and to a lesser extent from sound changes within the Germanic languages. Among the most important sound changes that took place with Saami under the influence of Proto-Germanic and Proto-Scandinavian are the earliest vowel shifts in the first syllable in Proto-Saami (e.g. a > ō (> uo)) and the change of the sibilant ? to s. In borrowings from Proto-Scandinavian, a source a usually corresponds to a long ā, as in the words bárdni 'son, boy' (cf. Swedish barn 'child') and láddi 'peasant' (cf. Swedish land 'land'), but for example later consonant changes in western Saami (-rn- > -rdn- and -nd- > -dd-) have taken place in the same way as in the original words. Some further examples of Saami borrowings from Proto-Scandinavian are:
- áibmu 'air, dwelling',
- ákšu 'axe',
- arbi 'legacy',
- biergu 'flesh',
- datni 'tin',
- gáhku 'bread',
- gávdi 'thing',
- láidet 'to lead',
- lávgut 'to bathe',
- mánnu 'moon, month',
- niibi 'knife',
- nuorti 'east',
- ráidu 'caravan',
- sáidi 'coalfish',
- sávza 'sheep' and
- vuosta 'cheese'.
