Multilingual dynamics in Sámiland: Rhizomatic discourses on changing language

Discourse of Sámi language endangerment

One powerful discourse circulating across Sámi language spaces in Inari is the discourse of Sámi language endangerment. The core rationality of this discourse is that language change – here referring to the declining number of indigenous language speakers and domains of Sámi language use – is a result of a strengthening of the position of the majority, national language of Finnish, which now endangers the Sámi languages. From this perspective, multilingualism has tipped the balance between the languages in a direction unfavourable to indigenous languages, and has led to a language shift. This presents a threat to the vitality of the Sámi languages and to Sámi language practices. Consequently, various revitalisation activities are needed to ‘save’ Sámi languages. This particular discourse can be seen as a localised version of global discourses of endangerment, familiar from many minority language contexts (see e.g. Duchêne & Heller, 2007; McEvan-Fujita, 2011).

The discourse of Sámi language endangerment places heavy emphasis on the ‘pre-language-shift’ era, which in the Sámi context refers to the time before the Second World War. This discourse is frequently employed when the shift of Sámi languages from strong community languages into ‘small’ languages within the national imagination of language relations and hierarchies is described. This discourse of Sámi language endangerment is particularly visible in contexts in which the fixedness of language boundaries is emphasised. In Inari, these contexts include some domains of Sámi politics, education and media, and aim at reversing the endangerment process by placing Sámi languages back at the centre of language practice.

In a similar way to many other minority language contexts (see e.g. Jaffe, 2007), the discourse of endangerment has also shaped the political and social contexts in which Sámi language rights have been articulated and practised. It also structures many Sámi language revitalisation strategies and activities. The Sámi revitalisation movement, which has been particularly strong since the 1970s, aims at strengthening and renewing the position and value of Sámi languages. In an attempt to reverse language hierarchies and to strengthen the use of Sámi languages in public domains, several conscious language-policy decisions have been made. For example, the Sámi media in Inari prioritises Sámi-only language practices (see e.g. Pietikäinen, 2008), the Finnish Sámi parliament uses all three Sámi languages besides Finnish, most official signs in the village are bilingual (in Finnish and Northern Sámi), and some also display other Sámi languages (see Pietikäinen et al., 2011).

A multimodal example of this discourse can be found operating in the exhibition of Siida, the National Museum of the Finnish Sámi, depicting Sámi language change. Figure 1 is taken from the introductory exhibition and it is called the ‘Sámi language tree’. It illustrates the processes of language development and change over a timescale of 2000 years.

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Figure 1.

Sámi language tree, SIIDA museum in Inari. ⁴

In this picture, a representation of Sámi languages and their historical change is constructed. The representation makes use of the widely circulated metaphor for language families, which draws on the tree model of language origination, typical of historical linguistics. Each language is described by one leaf, and their relative positions to each other are constructed through their positions on the tree. Furthermore, the colouring of the leaves indicates the perceived vitality of the languages. The withered brown leaves represent those Sámi languages now categorised as dead, and the shades of green colour index the relative vitality the living languages in terms of their speakers. The accompanying text gives a short description of the relationship of Sámi languages to other Finno-Ugric languages (e.g. Finnish and Estonian), and to Finno-Sámi proto-languages. Sámi languages are portrayed here as being immobile, and the language boundaries as fixed. There are no indexes to language contact or to multilingualism, which are effectively ‘erased’, to use the terminology of Irvine and Gal (2000). The central assumption in this discourse is the assumption that the cultures dies when the languages dies. This is articulated particularly by the enumeration of speakers – a practice that, as Jaffe argues (2007, p. 61) ‘critically depends on the presence of clearly-bounded languages, that can be counted, lost, described and saved’.

Another typical cycle for the discourse of Sámi language endangerment is the instances where the standard language practices are valued. This discourse typically advocates a powerful model of linguistic practices that makes standardisation, full competence and the use of standard variants the centrepiece of Sámi language practices. It legitimates a particular kind of language practice, exemplified here in a multilingual storybook written by a multilingual Sámi pupil.

Figure 2 illustrates a page from this multilingual storybook, whose author is a 10-year-old girl, whom I will call Tiina. She receives Northern Sámi language education in a primary school in Finnish Lapland, and revealed in a background survey that she has Northern Sámi, Finnish, Inari Sámi, Skolt Sámi and English in her linguistic repertoire. She took part in a multimodal and multilingual literacy activity, ⁵ designed and carried out with teachers in two multilingual Sámi classrooms in the school year 2010–2011. The goal of this activity was to make visible the various linguistic resources the children have at their disposal, and to increase awareness of the multilingualism presence in the classroom. The aim was also to develop ways of enhancing Sámi language practices without delegitimising multilingual practices. Methodologically, the activity relates to a growing body of research, using visual and multimodal research strategies in ethnographic and discourse-analytical work on language practices, literacy and multilingualism (see e.g. Hélot and Ó Laoire, 2011; Hodge & Jones, 2000; Mavers, 2007; Nikula & Pitkänen-Huhta, 2008; Pietikäinen, 2013; Pietikäinen et al., 2008).

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Figure 2.

Multilingual Sámi storybook.

In this particular activity, the children were invited to make their own storybooks, and to choose their own topic and also the languages into which their story, originally in Sámi, would then be translated (for more details, see Pietikäinen & Pitkänen-Huhta, 2013). Tiina wrote her story about Sámi nature in the Northern Sámi language. The other three languages are also Sámi languages, so we have in the picture a Northern Sámi text, handwritten first by Tiina, and then a printed version, checked by the teacher, and subsequently translated into Inari Sámi, Skolts Sámi and Kildin Sámi. The result is a beautiful book full of iconic images of Sáminess, such as the Sámi flag, ornaments, reindeers and a very carefully and correctly produced Sámi story, which has been equally carefully translated into the other Sámi languages. These multimodal and multilingual choices in Tiina’s book have at least two types of impact. On the one hand, they value the internal – and often disregarded – multilingualism between various Sámi languages in the community. They may also to some extent upscale the smallest Sámi languages, seldom used in print or in storybooks. On the other hand, these choices and the way they are represented in the book draw on ideas of bounded languages and fixed language boundaries. Tiina did not opt for mixed language practices – like some other children in the classroom – but instead she produced her book within the dominant framework of the school language policy and language practices, thus subscribing to the rationality circulated by the discourse of endangerment.

As Tiina’s choices indicate, the discourse of Sámi endangerment structures language practices and choices. It has also played a crucial role in Sámi language speakers’ experiences of language domination and the conceptualisation of what a legitimate variant of language and speaker is. The unintentional consequences of this discourse are that it may impose hypercorrect standards (Bucholtz, 2001) and a form of linguistic purism, causing potential speakers to withhold their Sámi spoken voices or to turn away. One example of this type of experience is voiced in the following story from an interview with Kalevi, a 60-something multilingual Sámi man. Kalevi was born into a multilingual Sámi family in which two Sámi languages were spoken, together with Finnish. This means that, for the whole of his life, Sámi languages have been part of Kalevi’s multilingual repertoire, but their relative positions have undergone changes. In his childhood in 1950s Lapland, he experienced Finnish-only education, which was the sole option at the time. Sámi languages were devalued, and even stigmatised, in school language practices (Aikio-Puoskari, 2005; Lehtola, 1997). Due to the long distances between home and the school, many children lived in dormitories and did not see their families for months. This was the case for Kalevi. As the use of Sámi languages was discouraged and even forbidden in school, many Sámi children did not use their Sámi resources, and some even lost their skills altogether. The language shift from dominantly Sámi language practices to dominantly Finnish language practices is typically located in this time period.

In Kalevi’s case, the results of the schooling experiences manifested in a relatively typical situation in terms of skills in Sámi. While he is considered to be a native speaker of Sámi – and as such, a very much appreciated ‘language reservoir’ for the community – he does not have literacy skills in Sámi. This sparked his interest later in life in taking part in Sámi revitalisation classes, designed to revitalise and expand Sámi skills among the languages’ speakers. Below is an extract of his interview regarding his language biography. In the extract, ⁶ he gives his account of taking part in this course, and of the event that stopped him going there after two days:

Example 1.

Haastatelija [niij just]. Aiva

(Interview from 2008.)

Here we can see the tensions between different language constructions and norms, especially with regard to the delicate ideological boundary between what is perceived as standard, and what is the vernacular or dialect variant of a particular language, as well as who is a native or non-native speaker of the language (cf. O’Rourke, 2011). The different norms related to standard and vernacular language variants manifest in Kalevi’s account as tension about the ‘correct pronunciation’ of one particular word. Now, years later, Kalevi says that he does not even remember what the word in question was, but he remembers vividly the disagreement about the ‘right way’ to speak. This tension can be seen emerging from the core language-ideological questions as regards to who owns the language and who gets to decide (Coupland, 2003; Heller, 2011). In the language class, Kalevi wanted to hold on to his way of pronouncing the word. This can be interpreted as a discursive constructed stance of his ownership of the Sámi language. Similarly, the teachers at the class wanted to hold on to their view of what is standard pronunciation. Both versions are equally constructed and ideological, and they illustrate the ways in which many Sámi language speakers need to navigate a changing language environment with changing standards and norms.

Kalevi’s decision was to leave the course and to refuse to change his standards or norms. His experience illustrates the unintended effects of imposing one language standard in a situation where language boundaries are in constant flux, which is often the case in indigenous and minority language contexts.

The tendency of the discourse of endangerment to reinforce the norm of using one particular standard variant of the Sámi language, and to erase diversity, contributed to a construction of a superstandard Sámi in a situation where the standard itself is in fact constantly evolving, due the endangerment of various variants of Sámi. Furthermore, superstandard Sámi contributes to a gap between the ideological use of standard Sámi and the multilingual and diverse language practices among the language speakers within the community. This can lead to ideological language tensions, as many Sámi speakers struggle with the ambivalence brought about by the contrast between their own dynamic language practices and the dominant (boundary-oriented) ideologies of language and identity. In the cycle of discourse of endangerment, language choices and boundaries can easily become politicised and policed. Within the regime of this discourse, some language practices come to be seen as more authentic than others, an issue at the heart of the next discourse.

Discourse of Sámi commodification

While the discourse of Sámi language endangerment figures in the domains of Sámi identity politics and language rights and revitalisation, there is another discourse, circulating Sámi resources in the novel domain of new economics, especially to the niche markets of heritage tourism, Sámi handicrafts and elements of popular culture. I call this a discourse of commodification, and it is a discourse that attempts to emphasise the shift away from questions of identity and politics to issues of products and profits (cf. Heller 2003, 2011; Leeman & Martínez, 2007; Thurlow & Jaworksi, 2010). It circulates a shift from a political order to an economic order. The discourse of Sámi revitalisation operates mostly within institutional domains and political frameworks, while the discourse of commodification circulates through relatively unregulated spaces, such as popular culture, marketing and tourism. These less-regimented moments and encounters structure and reconfigure multilingual practices and experiences in different ways. The discourse of commodification licences novel and creative language practices and temporal attachments and appropriations, and by doing so unties the essential link between territory, language and identity that is essential to the discourse of endangerment. In these transitions, new meanings, markets and usages for Sámi languages are opened up.

One such site of tension in Finnish Sámiland has been the use of Sámi symbols and languages in Lapland tourism (see e.g. Länsman, 2004; Saarinen, 1999). Tourism transforms heritage Sámi resources into a commodity that can be displayed, marketed and experienced. It also creates a flux in language practices. The use of Sámi languages in tourist spaces can be perceived and experienced as anything from a chance to increase awareness and appreciation of the indigenous language, to ‘selling out’ the Sámi heritage. One example of these tensions is the case of using a Northern Sámi name for the new, up-scaled hotel and conference centre in a tourist resort near to Inari village. The name of this new hotel (see Figure 3) is Gielas, a northern Sámi word referring (in many explanations) to a narrow ridge, probably referencing here the geographical formation of the area.

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Figure 3.

The Gielas Hotel in Sámiland.

So far, hotel names in the Saariselkä resort area have been in Finnish, and related either to nature (e.g. Tunturihotelli = mountain hotel, Riekonlinna = castle of willow grouse), to one of the key selling points of Lapland, or to names of (often international) hotel chains with an English name combined with the place name (e.g. Hotel Holiday Club Saariselkä).

The use of a Northern Sámi word for the name of the finest and newest hotel in the area is interpreted as both a high point and low point of Sámi language practices. On the one hand, it is seen as an index of a positive shift in the perceived value of Sámi languages: no longer stigmatised resources, but emblems of originality and authenticity. Furthermore, this kind of visibility is seen as an opportunity to raise language awareness. On the other hand, various critical commenters have pointed out that most tourists will not recognise Gielas as a Sámi word, but will take it as word from Finnish or another language (or perhaps a made-up word), and that it is exactly this kind of usage of Sámi that detaches and moves the languages from their original communities and practices, to be deployed elsewhere, often in a mediated form and for economic gain, but not for the benefit of the Sámi people (Pietikäinen, 2010). In the Sámi context, for example, these practices may be seen at the same time as high points or low points of the new Sámi languages practices.

The discourse of Sámi commodification is also articulated in translocal, multimodal practices in various Inari tourism spaces. With translocality, the local, indigenous resources are combined and mixed with global resources, resulting in multivoiced, stylised performances (Coupland, 2007), with a capacity to address multiple, mobile audiences. An example of this aspect of the discourse of Sámi commodification is provided in the following example, which is at the same time one of the first instances of the usage of Inari Sámi in advertising. Figure 4 shows the public sign of a hotel restaurant in the village of Inari.

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Figure 4.

A restaurant sign in Inari.

The multimodal design of this sign makes use of a combination of resources. ⁷ First of all, the overall oval shape of the sign is borrowed from the traditional Sámi shaman’s drum, a valued part of Sámi cultural practices and tradition. Also, the fish figure is a replica of a sign that appears on the Sámi drum. Next, the colour red in the sign is one of the four main Sámi colours, and is used in the Sámi Flag and on Sámi dresses, for example. Finally, the language choices and hierarchy in the sign index reflect the language policy within this particular hotel. The name of the restaurant, Aanaar, is an Inari Sámi word meaning ‘the name of the village’. Placing an Inari Sámi word in the highest and most visible position in the language hierarchy, together with the use of a large typeface, simultaneously marks this particular location as an indigenous Sámi place and lends a sense of authenticity and originality to the restaurant. The Finnish and English words for restaurant make the function of the place clear to national and global visitors. The usage of these languages marks this place as a site of mobility.

The particular multimodal and multilingual choices represented in this sign open up various interpretations. Firstly, they illustrate a strategic mobilisation and recycling of indigenous, local and global resources. As a result, we have a translocal, multivoiced sign that can speak indigenous language on a global scale. Alternatively, the viewer can read the sign simply as referring to a good fish restaurant, taking the oval shape as an index of a plate, and the fish to refer to the rivers and lakes next to the restaurant. Finally, and similar to the case of the Hotel Gielas, the use of Inari Sámi in the sign can be seen as a deliberate political language act, aiming at establishing the greater visibility and use of Sámi languages, or as an empty, emblematic use of authentication resources.

The translocal characteristics of the discourse of Sámi language commodification illustrates, in my view, the rhizomatic work on how the commodification of indigenous resources can easily become politicised. The trajectory of the Sámi resources from political spaces into new economic practices blurs traditional categories and boundaries. The cycle of discourse of commodification moves Sámi languages from identity politics into different spaces and practices, and in doing so blurs the boundaries between Sámi language revitalisation practices and economic development practices, two spaces previously kept apart. This movement also gives rise to tensions with regard to ‘proper’ or ‘respectful’ ways of using Sámi recourses, partly as a result of political struggles and revitalisation practices.

Discourse of carnivalisation

While the discourse of Sámi language endangerment continues to have currency in the fields of language policy and linguistic rights, and as the discourse of commodification captures many of the transitions brought about by novel types of mobility and the new economy, a new kind of multilingual and multimodal discourse is emerging that can be called a discourse of carnivalisation. The term ‘carnival’ is adopted here from Bakhtin (1968, p. 10), who says that ‘carnival can be seen as a temporal liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order’. At the local level of Inari, the discourse of carnivalisation circulates novel ways of contextualising and materialising Sámi languages, beyond the existing and traditional categories, practices, genres and modalities. The carnival discourse may include multimodal designs, humour, irony and language play, as we shall see below.

Bakhtin (1968) further argues that carnival creates situations where regular conventions are broken or reversed, and a different kind of dialogue becomes possible. I would like to argue that the discourse of carnivalisation in the Sámi context provides a way to address multiple norms and diverse realities by creating polyphonic performances, which are important for new identities and creative language practices (cf. Blackledge & Creese, 2010). Such polyphonic performances, as we shall shortly see, test and tease the prevailing norms, employing both fixity and fluidity to create a polyphonicity that plays with previous orders and norms, and whereby former opposites collide and merge with each other and where humour and reflection can be used both as a resource and a commodity. To illustrate this argument, I will turn next to one example of the discourse of carnivalisation in Inari. This polyphonic performance comes from the space of tourism fantasies and paradoxes. Tourism in Finnish Sámiland is one of the main sources of income, with Sámi culture as its major selling point. Tourism is intertwined with the everyday practices and material culture of Inari, a village with a considerable range of tourism services, attractions and facilities (see Pietikäinen, 2013; Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes, 2011).

This particular example of the discourse of carnivalisation comes from a Sámi tourism enterprise focusing on the concept of a reindeer farm. Their main product is a guided tour of a reindeer farm – a paradox to begin with, as reindeers are for the most part untamed animals, but are now farmed and fenced off for the benefit of the tourism business. This attraction is very successful, with over 10,000 visitors annually – a very large number in a village of 750 people. The typical guided tour of a Sámi reindeer farm lasts about 90 minutes and follows an established script of activities, including feeding reindeer, driving a sledge pulled by a reindeer, drinking tea or coffee, hearing traditional Sámi stories and singing (joiking), together with souvenir shopping (for more details, see Pietikäinen, 2013). One of the highlights for many tourists seems to be learning the art of lassoing a reindeer. This particular activity is, I would argue, an example of a polyphonic carnival performance, and I will focus on that aspect next.

The lassoing activity centres around the idea of the tourists learning the ‘key skills of a reindeer herder’, employed to catch a single reindeer from a running herd. In the tourist version, the ‘reindeer’ is a wooden, immobile model, which the tourists try to ‘catch’ by throwing the lasso from a distance of approximately 20 metres. In this interaction, the key participants are the host, the lasso teacher and the tourists. What is especially interesting in terms of the discourse of carnivalisation is the use of Sámi language and other Sámi resources in this interaction. The teacher is an older Sámi man, a skilful lasso thrower wearing Sámi dress. The image of ‘real Sáminess’ is further reinforced by his language use. Regardless of his multilingual repertoire, here he chooses to use mainly Sámi, a language totally incomprehensible to most of the visitors. The following extract is an example of what the teacher says in the teaching interaction when demonstrating lassoing to members of a large group of international tourists. The tourists, who come from various European countries, stand opposite the teacher, follow his instructions, and attempt to throw the lasso.

Example 2.

Jaahaa. Ensinnä pitäs muka näyttää niinku. Na nuuvt … tästä lentää tuonne.

(in Finnish: ‘All right. So first I should show you this). Like this … (in Finnish: it flies from here to there.’)

Na nuuvt.

All right.

Puáđáh-uvks njuárostiđ?

Are you coming to throw the lasso?!

Tain njuárostiđ.

To throw this

Naa. Mun njoomâm tunjin taam suoppânj. Kalga uáiniđ maht tunjin kiävá, fattiih-uv tun poccuu

Well, I’ll coil this lasso for you. We’ll see how you manage, and if you can catch the reindeer.

Lah-uv kuássin njuárostâm?

Have you ever thrown a lasso?

Vääldiba tiegu tiem kiddâ tienávt.

So hold it like this.

– tun piettááh vala táágu. Tääl piejah kieđâ teehi tuáhá, punjistâh já táágu leggistâh. Tot punjist oovdân ko tyenávt.

… keep holding this. Now pull your arm back, bend it, and throw the lasso. It turns forward when you do it like this.

Next

Na nuuvt. Kalga uáiniđ maht tunjin-kas kiävá, fattiih-uvks tun poccuu kiddâ. Lah-k kuássin njuárostâm suoppânjáin? Lah-k fattim kuássin poccuu kiddâ? Toppiiba tiem tienávt –

All right. Let’s see how you manage. Will you catch the reindeer? Have you ever thrown a lasso? Have you ever caught a reindeer? So, hold it like this.

As this extract illustrates, the teacher talks almost entirely in Sámi – in inviting the tourists to take part, in explaining various throwing techniques to them, and in asking them about their previous experience with lassoing. However, he also uses Finnish at the beginning, before turning to Inari Sámi, and there is also one instance of the usage of English, in encouraging the next tourist to step forward by saying ‘Next’. My observations of the host repeatedly carrying out the lasso lesson (almost 20 times during this particular visit) make it apparent that he uses Finnish and English when needed, but does most of his performance in Inari Sámi. After some hesitation, most of the tourists appear to take part in the activity rather enthusiastically, if with some self-consciousness indicated by their facial expressions and laughter. The tourists typically respond to the teacher’s speech in Sámi with a mixture of laughing, cheering and replying to him – either non-verbally (nodding, gestures) or in their own language. Learning a Sámi activity (lassoing) through an endangered indigenous language by a Sámi man wearing Sámi dress is a rich point of authentication on the visit (see Pietikäinen, 2013).

During the lassoing performance, most of the tourists react with laughter to the situation of being taught in an unknown language while gently being forced to perform a probably unfamiliar task. This relates at least partly to the ambivalent role of Sámi in the situation. In this performance, Sámi is treated by the host as an instrumental resource for teaching lassoing, but in the interaction with the tourists, it is transformed into an emblematic resource: part of the experience of being in an authentic Sámi place and interacting with an authentic indigenous Sámi person. These two overlapping functions of Sámi mark a point of carnivalism and laughter. We can laugh along with the participants, and perhaps we can also laugh at them. We can recognise the use of theatre during the tour, while at the same time appreciating this chance to learn more about Sámi culture and witness some of it with our own eyes. My argument is that this performance – like the whole tour – is constructed through a strategic mixture of resources from Sámi culture, local traditions, global cultural tourism genres and the management of time and people into an ambivalent polyphonic performance that deliberately and strategically avoids the previous categories, and offers a temporal point of reflection, as well as crossings between the categories and laughter.

Through this discourse of carnivalisation, Sámi cultural resources are reinvented, relived and renegotiated. In this carnival discourse, the various and often rival languages and practices can come together with all the various social, political, ideological and economic values and functions attached to them. The discourse of carnivalisation manifests itself in the deliberate displacement and subversion of the dominant, established interaction orders, rules and norms, and simultaneously plays with and against these norms. The discourse can be simultaneously reflective, critical and humorous, allowing ambivalent voices to address diverse audiences, and to try to articulate the ongoing, ever-shifting, multidimensional, heterogeneous and ambiguous aspects that constitute the current local Sámi predicament and its diverse realities. For a moment, carnivalisation defines the relationships between participants and categories.