Saturday Is Sámi People's Day
Image: YLE Uutisgrafiikka
On Saturday, Sámi people in the Nordic countries and Russia observe Sámi People's Day. Celebrations on this day commemorate the first joint Sámi congress held on February 6, 1917 in Trondheim, Norway. The conference launched cross-border Sámi cooperation that still continues today.
Sámi people have observed their national day since the 1990s, although it wasn’t written into Finnish calendars until 2004.
The Sámi are the only indigenous people of the European Union.
Many of Finland’s 9,000 Sámi have left their traditional homeland in the far north, which spans the municipalities of Enontekiö, Inari, Utsjoki and Sodankylä. Today, some 1,000 Sámi live in the Helsinki region.
Self-Rule and Own Language
The Sámi Parliament (or Sámediggi) was established in 1996 to oversee Sámi cultural autonomy, which is guaranteed by the Finnish constitution. It cooperates with corresponding bodies in neighbouring Norway and Sweden.
According to Statistics Finland, 0.03 percent of the Finnish population speaks Sámi (Lappish) as their mother language. That figure has been steady since at least 1990, but was twice as high in 1950.
Three separate dialects of the language are spoken in Finland: North Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi.
YLE