Nouns

Sámegillii | På norsk | In English

Nouns are words expressing people, animals, things, processes or abstract relations, e.g.: nieida 'girl', Káre 'Káre (a name)', beavdi 'table', ráhkisvuohta 'love', dávda 'illness', Norga 'Norway'.

Nouns are declined in cases, which are inflectional forms marking the function a noun has in a sentence. In North Saami, there are seven cases:

The nominative case is the base or presentational form: 'Gussa' lea olgun. (The cow is outside.)
The accusative case is the form marking the object: Mun oasttán 'gusa'. (I am going to buy the/a cow.)
The genitive indicates the possessor: 'gusa' juolgi (the cow's leg).
The illative is used to indicate motion to or into something: Mun attán biepmu 'gussii'. (I am going to give food to the cow.)
The locative provides the notions on/at/in a place or from a place: 'Gusas' oažžut mielkki. (We get milk from a cow.)
The comitative is the case providing the meaning "with": Mun bohten 'gusain'. (I came with a cow.)
The essive is the state case, which often gives the notion "as, like": 'gussan' 'as a cow'

In Saami, there is variation in inflectional suffixes for nouns. This variation correlates with the number of syllables in the final foot of the nominative plural form. There are

nouns with vowel stems (bisyllabic nouns), e.g. gussa - gusat 'cow - cows', vilbealli - vilbealit '(male) cousin - cousins',
nouns with consonant stems (trisyllabic nouns) rieban - riebanat 'fox - foxes', nisu - nissonat 'woman - women' and
contracted nouns boazu - bohccot 'reindeer (sg., pl.)', bálggis - bálgát 'path - paths'.

It is important that you pay attention to diphthong simplification and gradation when inflecting Saami words.

You can read more about nouns here .

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