Frog, University of Helsinki
Abstract: Any historical study of Sámi religions links religion to the history of the language. Here, Proto-Sámi language spread is reviewed and the fundamental (and often implicit) assumption that religion spread with Proto-Sámi language is challenged. An alternative model that language spread as a medium of communication adopted by different cultures is proposed and tested against the Common Proto-Sámi lexicon.
Research on Sámi religion has increasingly given attention to variation. As Håkan Rydving points out, the 18th-century authors of primary sources already show awareness of variation in Sámi religious vocabulary and practices. Nevertheless, early research tended to view these in isolation against an idea of what might be called ‘pan-Sámi’ religion; only exceptionally did scholars take a more sensitive approach to regional variation (e.g. Holmberg [Harva] 1915: 12; Wiklund 1916: 46). (Rydving 1993: 19–23.) Concentrated attention is now given to differences in specific vocabulary or features
of practice, but also to questions of broader religion formations on a regional or linguistic basis (e.g. Pentikäinen 1973; Rydving 1993; 2010). Nevertheless, approaches have developed against the background of a continuity theory of Sámi presence throughout Fennoscandia since the Bronze Age. Local and regional forms of Sámi religion are considered as variations of a pan-Sámi heritage resulting from internal developments and contact-based change. An idea that Sámi only began to break up during or following the Viking Age has validated a projection of a homogeneous category ‘Sámi’
on references in earlier sources to the Fenni (Latin), Phinnoi (Greek), Finnas (Old English) and Finnar (Old Norse) – except when these are situated geographically in Finland and are pragmatically interpreted as ‘Finns’.1 Contact- based change prior to the Viking Age tends to receive little attention outside of archaeology, yet the Finn-/Fenn- terms and corresponding
Lapp- terms centered further east refer to
culture type rather than language, which makes their unambiguous correlation with ‘Sámi’ problematic (e.g. Frog & Saarikivi 2014/2015: 81–82). Moreover, Ante Aikio (2012) has shown on the basis of loanword evidence that Proto-Sámi had already broken up into distinct dialects already before ca. AD 500, which is inconsistent with suppositions of homogeneity. The present article introduces a new perspective on this discussion that problematizes the hypothesis of a pan-Sámi religion.
Understandings of Sámi language history have been radically revised across recent years, especially through the work of Aikio (e.g. 2006; 2012), showing, on the basis of internal linguistic evidence, that Proto-Sámi spread far more recently and rapidly than has been previously assumed. Earlier models of language history usually correlated features in the archaeological record with culture and culture with language. They would imagine scenarios that would relate the language postulated for the archaeological culture to languages known in the present. These approaches theorized vast language areas that could remain coherent and unchanged, sometimes for thousands of years. However, such models were disconnected from use and variation of language in speech communities and their networks; they have been found incompatible with what we know about how languages spread, vary and change (e.g. Aikio 2006; Saarikivi & Lavento 2012). Current understandings are built with emphasis on empirical evidence within languages themselves and compatibility with knowledge about how language develops and varies over time.
These current understandings are here carried back to the study of Sámi culture. The assumption of a pan-Sámi religion is opened to question by the alternative possibility that Proto-Sámi could also have spread primarily as a medium of communication without a full complex of ‘culture’ and religion.2 This
hypothesis is tested against evidence of the ‘Common Proto-Sámi’ vocabulary surveyed by Juhani Lehtiranta, revealing a lack of positive evidence for the spread of a complex system of religion and mythology with Proto-Sámi language. (N.B. – reconstructed forms presented here represent Proto-Sámi as distinguished by Aikio, which differ slightly from the forms presented by Lehtiranta.3)
It is not currently possible to demonstrate or disprove that Proto-Sámi language spread unaccompanied by religion. The term religion
formation is preferred for discussing local and
regional religions. This term avoids a binary distinction of religions being either ‘the same’ or ‘other’ and allows elements and structures of religion to be shared across groups, although they may be locally organized with additional specific features into distinctive constellations.
The argument here seeks only to show that this hypothetical model of Proto-Sámi spread can equally if not better account for the evidence, in which case the pan-Sámi religion hypothesis must be tested and argued rather than simply presumed. The implications of this alternative hypothesis for comparative research will then be discussed.
Locating Proto-Sámi
The Sámi languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. Following Aikio (2012), Proto-Sámi is here considered to emerge from Pre-Proto-Sámi or Pre-Sámi through the Great Sámi Vowel Shift (below). Internal chronologies of both Sámi and Finnic languages are fairly sophisticated even though the languages were documented relatively late. This is possible because contacts with different branches of Indo-European can be distinguished and their internal chronologies link to an absolute chronology of North Germanic back to roughly the beginning of the present era. The historical geography of these languages can be reconstructed to a certain time depth through toponymic evidence, beyond which this can be roughly triangulated through contact histories with other languages. Although emphasis here is on the spread of Proto-Sámi across Lapland and the Scandinavian Peninsula, it is significant to the present discussion to establish roughly whence it spread. Its position relative to Proto- Finnic must also be considered as relevant to
the discussion of the Common Proto-Sámi vocabulary, and taking a stance on the historical relationship between Sámi and Finnic languages in the Uralic family has a bearing on discussions of etymologies.
It is unclear when the Pre-Sámi language or dialect of Proto-Uralic began to be spoken in rough proximity to the Baltic Sea. Scholarship has long considered that Sámi and Finnic evolved from a common Proto-Finno-Sámic language phase, with their separation as one of the most recent major developments in the Uralic family tree, a view that is still widely current.4 This question is significant for whether certain vocabulary was borrowed into these languages during a shared language phase or should instead be viewed as either independent loans or mediated from one language into the other. Aikio (2012: 67–70, 75–76) stresses that, if there were such a common language phase, it must have been relatively short since the Sámi and Finnic families exhibit few shared innovations, and these could equally be attributable to areal contacts.5 In addition, Mordvin exhibits relations to both Finnic and Sámi, but the connectoins between these three branches of Uralic do not resolve into a clear stemmatic relation of genetic descent (Saarikivi 2011: 106–110). Mikhail Zhivlov (2014: 116–117) has proposed that either Sámi and Mordvin participated in contact-induced changes that Finnic did not or that they evolved from a common West Uralic dialect independent of Finnic. The westward spread of Uralic languages remains obscure, but Petri Kallio (forthcoming) argues that Early Proto-Finnic expanded during the Bronze Age from a different ecological zone through areas where Proto-Baltic dialects were spoken but were gradually subsumed in a language shift. The loanword vocabulary suggests assimilation of practices and technologies especially in the area of animal husbandry (Larsson 2001: 238– 240). Loans from Early Proto-Germanic / Pre- Germanic also begin in the Bronze Age (Kallio 2015b: 29–32). In the Bronze Age, trans-Baltic trade opened from Scandinavia both directly via Gotland to the Gulf of Riga (Vasks 2010: 154–156) and further north via Åland to the coasts of the Gulf of Finland (Siiriäinen 2003: 58–59). Assuming the relevant groups from
Scandinavia spoke Pre-Germanic, the loans into Proto-Finnic would be consistent with Proto-Finnic’s spread through Baltic language areas into regions east of the Baltic Sea and engagement with these trade networks.
Proto-Baltic contacts with Pre-Sámi seem to have been mediated through Proto-Finnic (Aikio 2012: 72–73) and seem not to have extended to the domain of animal husbandry,6
which is a potential indicator that Proto-Sámi arrived in the region independent of Proto- Finnic. Proto-Sámi exhibits contacts with so- called Palaeo-European languages (i.e. neither Indo-European nor Uralic) both in Lapland and in Finland (Aikio 2012: 80–88, 91–92). It is not possible to determine whether other vocabulary of obscure etymology only found in the Sámi language family derives from Pre- Sámi contacts with Palaeo-European languages (cf. Aikio 2004). On the other hand, Kallio (forthcoming) finds that there are so few items in the Proto-Finnic lexicon which lack known etymologies that there is no reason to suspect a Palaeo-European impact, which is an additional indicator that Proto-Finnic was spoken farther south. Pre-Sámi had some contacts with Early Proto-Germanic, although not as extensive as those of Proto-Finnic, suggesting that it was at a greater remove from the presumable trade networks (Aikio 2012: 70–76). Geographically, dialects of Pre-Sámi from which Proto-Sámi emerged seem unlikely to have been established south of the Gulf of Finland or Lake Ladoga, where Proto-Finnic seems to have spread and have been connected with different livelihoods. Proto-Sámi was also likely at a remove from the coastal territories of today’s Finland where forms of animal husbandry and light agriculture were practiced (on which, see Solantie 2005) and which was more directly linked with early trans-Baltic trade (Siiriäinen 2003: 58–59). The best guess is that it was spoken in the southern half of Karelia and/or inland Finland, as illustrated in Map 1 (see also Aikio 2006: esp. 45).
Proto-Sámi emerged through the Great Sámi Vowel Shift, of which Aikio states:
That such a complex and idiosyncratic series of changes in pronunciation was completed with near 100% regularity implies that it took place in a relatively compact and tight-knit speech community. In other words, the
language must have been spoken within a relatively limited geographical area until the Great Saami Vowel shift was completed. (Aikio 2012: 71.)
This suggests that the Proto-Sámi emerged within a particular speech community rather than in an extended network of such communities. In a mobile hunting and fishing culture of the northern ecology, this population was probably in the hundreds rather than the thousands (Saarikivi & Lavento 2012: 212). Loanwords affected by the vowel shift include the loan for ‘iron’: Early Proto-Germanic *rauđan- [‘bog ore’ or ‘iron’7] → Early Proto-Finnic *rauta
[‘iron’] and (or EPF *rauta →)8 Pre-Sámi
*ravta [‘iron’] > Proto-Sámi *ruovdē [‘iron’]),
which is a factor in dating the shift (e.g. Heikkilä 2011: 70). It is also not certain how quickly the vowel shift occurred or how it related to languages or dialects in other speech communities. However, it was only following this sound shift that Proto-Sámi spread through Finland and Karelia, Lapland and most of the Scandinavian Peninsula.
Loanword evidence shows that Proto-Sámi entered into extensive contacts with Proto- Scandinavian of ca. AD 200–500 (many of the loans could not otherwise produce their attested Sámi forms owing to changes in Proto- Scandinavian; others not after about AD 700) (Aikio 2012: 76; on relevant toponyms, see Bergsland 1995 [1991]; Aikio 2012: 77–79). This period of Scandinavian influence correlates with a substrate of loans from a Palaeo-European language or languages that eventually underwent language shifts to Proto- Sámi (Aikio 2012: 80–88). The impression is that, across a few centuries, Proto-Sámi spread in use across a vast geographical area, and presumably also to the east, although this is less well researched (e.g. Saarikivi 2006). Originally Sámi toponymy in Finland exhibits distinct vocabulary that appears derivative of additional Palaeo-European languages paralleling, if not identical to, the languages it encountered in Lapland (Aikio 2012: 90–92). Other Uralic languages were also likely present at least in Finland and Karelia (see e.g. Rahkonen 2013), if only Para-Sámi languages – independent branches of Pre-Sámi – although these cannot be distinguished without living languages for comparison (Sammallahti 2012:
102). Proto-Sámi thus seems to have spread rapidly enough that this vocabulary was only assimilated after the language had spread to other regions rather than first being assimilated and then carried with the language’s spread.
Map 1. General model of the spread of Proto-Sámi from perhaps ca. AD 200 (adapted from Frog & Saarikivi, forthcoming). ‘Palaeo-Laplandic’ and ‘Palaeo- Lakelandic’ are regionally identified groups of Palaeo- European languages distinguished by Aikio (2012). The variety and extent of other West Uralic language presence in these regions is unknown, although at least some Para-Sámi languages are probable. The language situation in some regions is currently even more obscure.
The Scandinavian loanword vocabulary reveals that Proto-Sámi’s rapid spread quickly produced regional dialectal differences (Aikio 2012: 77– 78, 93), presumably in large part owing to contacts with local languages. Evidence of Proto-Sámi’s rapid spread contrasts sharply with its emergence within a small speech community. Even if the process of spread was initially quite gradual in local networks, there is nothing to suggest a population explosion with a critical mass of migration in every direction but south. Of course, the language would not spread without the mobility of speakers and some migration is probable. Whatever occurred, Proto-Sámi’s spread was connected with the activities of people speaking it: they were doing things, communicating with other people, and whatever they were doing
made it seem useful or desirable for others to be able to also speak Proto-Sámi. The language seems to have spread specifically or predominantly through mobile hunting and fishing groups whose local languages were gradually eclipsed, potentially much later. An aggressive or authoritative role in some sort of economic network could potentially account for the language of an otherwise small number of speakers to rapidly spread across a large geographical area without mass migrations or a centralizing political structure. Aikio (2012: 105–106, and cf. 79) suggests that the role of the language in the Scandinavian fur trade could have been a factor in Proto-Sámi’s spread in Lapland. However, Scandinavian contacts seem to have been a consequence of language spread rather than its motivation. On the other hand, the increase of the fur trade in the Viking Age may have been a catalyst that led Proto- Sámi to finally eclipse other languages (Frog & Saarikivi 2014/2015: 107n.19). Whatever initiated the process of spread, Proto-Sámi seems to have become de facto enabled as a lingua
franca for the majority of what were likely
multilingual populations across most of Fenno- scandia. If it did not spread through the agency of speakers conducting trade, its role in trade networks would have been a natural outcome.
Aikio (2012: 77) distinguishes three Proto- Sámi dialects reflected in surviving Sámi languages (cf. also Häkkinen 2010: 60):
Southwest dialect – reflected in South Sámi, Ume Sámi and probably Pite Sámi
Northwest dialect – reflected in Lule Sámi and North Sámi
Northeast9 dialect – reflected in Inari, Kemi,
Skolt, Kildin and Ter Sámi
Additional dialects can be assumed in Finland and Karelia that disappeared with the spread of North Finnic languages (cf. Aikio 2012: 88– 97; Kuzmin 2014: 285–287), which becomes particularly evident when Proto-Sámi dialects are superimposed on a map of their descendant languages (Map 2).
Later Sámi languages form an interlocking continuum (Map 3). Considering potentially distinctive influences that Proto-Sámi may have received through contacts in different
Map 2. Grey dashed lines roughly distinguish dialects of Proto-Sámi according to Aikio (2012: 77) superimposed on descendant Sámi languages of Map 3. N.B. – the geographical distribution of Proto-Sámi dialects likely changed across the centuries and thus the dialect areas indicated here should not be considered to accurately reflect their areal distribution in e.g. AD 500.
regions, it is necessary to consider that the interlocking continuum of documented Sámi languages may primarily reflect a millennium of interaction between mobile groups speaking dialects of Proto-Sámi and their emerging languages. This continuum cannot be assumed to reflect a single route of dispersal of a uniform Proto-Sámi that first spread north through Finland and Karelia and then east and west across the Kola and Scandinavian Peninsulas, respectively. Jaakko Häkkinen (2010: 59–60) argues that the northeast and northwest dialects of Proto-Sámi are the result of language spread north through Finland, but that mobility carried the southwest dialect over the bottleneck of the Gulf of Bothnia from the area where the Kyrö culture would later emerge. However, mobile groups appear to have been active farther south than has tended to be acknowledged.10 Particularly if Proto- Sámi’s spread is connected with trade, it is equally likely that the language was carried via the long-established route past Åland, which was also inhabited by a predominantly hunting and fishing culture until the second half of the
6th century (Ahola et al. 2014b). According to this model, Proto-Sámi did not spread down the Scandinavian Peninsula and gradually break up. Instead, two distinct forms of Proto- Sámi with different backgrounds met there, speakers of the southwest dialect never having directly encountered the cultures inhabiting Lapland further north.
Religion versus Language
‘Culture’ can be considered “localized in concrete, publically accessible signs” (Urban 1991: 1), within which language provides only one system of signification. Religion is here considered:
a type of register of practice that has developed through intergenerational transmission, is characterized by mythology, and entails an ideology and worldview. (Frog 2015: 35.) From this perspective, a register of religion simultaneously provides models for behaviours (Agha 2007) associated with the roles taken by individuals within the community. A religious register provides a framework against which
Map 3. Isoglosses of innovations from Proto-Sámi reflected in modern languages as presented by Mikko Korhonen (1981: 22, Kuva 1; Korhonen did not include Akkala or Kemi Sámi on his map). The black dashed line indicates Aikio’s (2012: 64, Figure 1) approximation of maximal Proto-Sámi language spread in the Ladoga region and to the east prior to the spread of Proto-Finnic. The grey dotted line approximates a dialect or language boundary observed in toponymy by Denis Kuzmin (2014: 286, Map 3).
others can assess performed behaviours (see also Bauman 1984), familiar in the modern West from assessments of whether someone is or is not ‘being a good Christian’.
Mythology is here considered broadly in terms of systems of emotionally invested symbols (rather than narrowly in terms of stories) that provide models for understanding the world and interpreting experience (for discussion, see Frog 2015). These symbols range from gods, stories about them (considered signs insofar as they can operate and be referred to as a meaning-bearing unit), and also symbolic actions and their scripts such as performable signs emblematic of rituals. The crucial point here is that mythic symbols may be mediated verbally, rendered visually through iconography or realized through performative action, but they are not linguistic signs per se. The linguistic signifier of the name of a god may have a complex symbolic image of the god as its signified and these may operate as a coherent sign in linguistic discourse, but the symbolic image can also be visually represented or performed without the linguistic sign – i.e. the god is not the name.
Within culture as social semiotic, religion and language become linked and interact in different ways. Nevertheless, religion can be transmitted across languages, a single language may be spoken by practitioners of different religions, and many mythic symbols or scripts enacted and manipulated in ritual may be largely or wholly independent of language. We