Giellariššu: Indigenous language revitalisation in the city

Abstract

About 10% of all pupils in grades 1–10 who learn Sámi in Norwegian schools live in the city of Tromsø in Northern Norway. This group totalled 232 pupils in the school year 2020/2021, and the pupils went to over 20 different schools. All but one were pupils of North Sámi, and a handful also received instruction in South Sámi. In Umeå in Sweden, 42 pupils attended mother tongue classes in Sámi in the winter of 2021, divided among four different varieties of Sámi, reflecting the diverse composition of the Sámi population in the area. In neither city, the Sámi pupils exceed 3 percent of their municipal peer group and they are embedded in local communities fully dominated by the Norwegian and Swed- ish majority language, respectively.We discuss the challenges and opportunities that Sámi children who grow up in two urban environments face when reclaiming, maintaining, and developing their indigenous heritage language, and we report from piloted language (re)vitalisation activities. Giellariššu gathers pupils from different schools regularly for activities in Sámi, led by adult proficient speakers with the goal to strengthen the pupils’ language skills and the social bonds between children who otherwise do not meet on a regular basis.