Sunday 25 July 2010

The Sami People


"The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, (also known as Lapps, although this term is considered derogatory)[7][8] are one of the indigenous people of northern Europe inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia but also in the border area between south and middle Sweden. Their ancestral lands span an area the size of Sweden in the Nordic countries. The Sami people are among the largest indigenous ethnic groups in Europe. Their traditional languages are the Sami languages, which are classified as members of the Finno-Lappic group of the Uralic language family."


I recently read 'A YEAR IN LAPLAND: Guest of the Reindeer Herders', which if you're interested can be read below on Google Books, and have spent the weeks since I read it looking at pictures and reading more about the Sami people. My fiancee's mormor (Ida's mother's mother) comes from a Sami family and we spent a week up in the Arctic Circle last year in the house (the one at the top of the page!) she grew up in and although there was nothing particularly Sami about it, there's something special about living that far north that I just can't describe.

If you want to read more about them, check out this website.







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