Experiments using the Sami languages in primary schools began in 1967. Sami is now both a medium of instructions and taught as a subject in secondary schools. The first Sami language senior secondary school opened at Karasjok in 1969, and a vocational senior secondary school operates in Kautokeino. The vocational school emphasizes on Sami traditional crafts and “modernization” of traditional occupations, like the breeding and marketing of reindeer. Two universities offer Sami languages as a subject, and the Teachers college at Alta offers courses in Sami language and culture for both Sami and non-Sami. In large towns like Kautokeino and Karasjok, Sami language is used as the everyday language by almost all Samis. As the status and the use of Sami language increased, the use of Norwegian by Samis is decreasing. For some Samis, Norwegian is considered as a second language. Parents in Sami areas now choose to have their children educated in Sami rather than in Norwegian. There is other concrete evidence of cultural resurgence:
-Sami language newspapers
-Sami museums
-School textbooks produced by the Sami Education Council
The Sami Language Act
In 1990, the Norwegian parliament acted to strengthen official use of Sami, and to declare Sami and Norwegian as equal languages with equal status. The purpose of this act was to enable the Sami to safeguard and develop their language, culture and way of life, and to give equal status to Sami and Norwegians.
The New Language act amends the former education act, and is interpreted as providing the following for children living in “Sami areas”:
(a) All children have the right to receive instruction in Sami, or through the medium of Sami, in all subjects.
(b) Until the seventh grade, parents have the choice of whether their children will receive instruction in or through Sami.
(c) From seventh grade, the pupils are able to decide this for themselves.
(d) Children receiving instruction in or through Sami are exempted from instruction in one of the two forms of Norwegian
(e) Local education councils may allow children with Sami as their mother tongue to be taught through the languages for all nine compulsory years.
(f) Local education councils may allow children with Norwegian as their mother tongue to have Saimi as a subject.
In short, Magga observes: “Norway now appears to be a pioneer in indigenous and minority affairs”; but he adds, “other minorities in Europe have much better legal protection for their languages than what the Sami in Norway now have.” This is largely because the educational system “has had too little time and too few resources to equip us to meet the many challenges we are confronted will.”
Anto Hoem noted a paradox in these policies. The creation of the Sami parliament and the Education Council, as well as other institutions aimed at empowering the Sami may instead finish off the assimilation process, and accomplish the rapid induction of Sami into European modernity. These new “Sami” institutions are modeled on Norwegian precedents, and leave little room for distinctively Sami ways and values. Bibliography:
Corson, David. “Norway’s Sami Language Act: Emancipatory Implications for the World’s Aboriginal Peoples." Language in Society 24 (1995): 493-514.
