@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004289,
 author = {庄司, 博史 and Shoji , Hiroshi},
 issue = {3},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {This paper aims to analyze the efforts of the Samis to revive
their language as a modern medium of communication, and, in
connection with this, to throw light upon the role of language
rehabilitation in the Sami ethnopolitical movement.
The Sami people, numbering from 50,000 to 70,000 according
to different sources, are the oldest known indigenous inhabitants
in Northern Scandinavia and the Kola peninsula. But
except in some northernmost administrative communes, they now
constitute only a small portion of the total inhabitants, even in
their own traditional territory, which is partitioned and controlled
by four countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the
Soviet Union. In sections 2-4 of this paper, the unfavourable
conditions of the present Sami language are outlined from various
points of view : as a lower-ranked spoken language in multilingual
communities, as a standard written language, and as an
object and medium of education.
The next section attempts to sum up the problems of the
Sami language under three major factors: its socio-functional state
as a minority language, the linguistic competence of the Samis
in their mother tongue, and its normative crisis. By the last
term I mean (1) the lack of available linguistic norms in the common
written language, (2) the lack of means of protecting the
language from direct exposure to foreign influence, and (3) an
inability to match the language to the demands of presentday
Sami society.
The next two sections, 6 and 7, summarize the development
of the Sami ethnopolitical movement in three phases: the period
of growth from the beginning of this century, the revival of the
movement after World War II, and the period of remarkable progress
from the 1970s onward. Attention is paid here also to the
change of conditions surrounding the Samis, i.e. the attitudes of
the authorities toward them and general notions about the inherent
rights of indigenous minority peoples. In this connection
we discuss the present tendency of the Samis to seek a new
ethnical identity by emphasizing their cultural uniqueness on
the one hand, and on the other by identifying themselves with
indigenous minority peoples. The latter tendency seems to be
particularly significant to the movement, because an increasing
number of countries and political organizations have, during the
last two decades, recognized the preferential rights of indigenous
minorities to territorial claims and other natural resources.
In the light of Sami ethnopolitical development, sections
8 and 9 characterize various attempts to establish the Sami language
as a full-fledged working language for the Samis. Following
the generally accepted schema of language planning,
Sami language rehabilitation activities are described along two
lines: linguistic policy and extralinguistic policy. In the case of
the Sami language or, more precisely, Northern Sami, the most
central issues in linguistic policy were the establishment of norms
for a common orthography for Northern Sami, which has had
several systems, and lexical elaboration, i.e. the standardization
and modernization of the lexical stock.
Extralinguistic policy, the ultimate aim of which is to raise
the status of the language in society, is directed to three major
points. These are: (1) the acquisition of a legal guarantee to
the official status of the Sami language in various situations, including
education; (2) the expansion of the domain of use
of the language, particularly by ensuring its position in mass
media; and (3) the encouragement of the people to revaluate
their own language as an irreplaceable medium of their ethnic
values. It is not difficult to associate the ideology of the last
point with that of the recent tendency in the ethnopolitical
movement mentioned above, i.e. the emphasis of cultural uniqueness.
It is to be noted, however, that their demand for the right
to the mother tongue, especially in education, is not accounted
for only in terms of this "uniqueness." It appears that increasing
stress is being put on a kind of universal axiom concerning
both the importance of the mother tongue in elementary educa
tion and the injurious effects of failure in normal language acquisition.
This theory, which has been repeatedly resorted to
in various connections (e.g. in demands for the improvement
of Sami language education and in parents' meetings) seems extremely
effective, because little is left for either the political authorities
or individuals to argue against when presented with
these scientifically attested human rights.
The achievement of these activities, at least in the normestablishment
and social-legal settings of the Sami language,
has been notable since the early 1970s and, in particular, from
the late 1970s, when a common orthography for Northern Sami
was finally created. In reality, however, concrete achievement
in language rehabilitation e.g. an increase in language use or an
improvement in the language competence of the speakers, has
not been seen yet.
The last two sections, 10 and 11, discuss the role of the Sami
language rehabilitation movement in Sami ethnopolitics. The
aim to revive their mother tongue has been accounted for as
being similar to the recovery of their ethnic right to their native
lands. It is also to be noted that the language movement itself
has played an important role in the entire ethnopolitical movement
as a unifying force for the national assembly of the Samis.
The unique value of the language in relation to the Sami environment
and traditions, coupled with their cooperation to achieve
this collective common goal of revitalizing their language in
present-day Sami society, has without doubt contributed to the
recent ethnopolitical processes of the Sami peoples.},
 pages = {847--910},
 title = {サーミ民族運動における言語復権の試み},
 volume = {15},
 year = {1991},
 yomi = {ショウジ, ヒロシ}
}