Scandinavia’s Sami see hope in Hebrew revival
Israel’s educational success offers lessons for those seeking to teach old languages to new generations
JERUSALEM— Norway’s Sami people, an indigenous community with roots as reindeer herders in the northern reaches of Scandinavia and Russia, are looking south to Israel for help in preserving their fading native language.
A Sami delegation spent five days in Israel recently, hoping the Jewish state’s experience reviving the once-dormant ancient Hebrew language can provide a blueprint for them.
Over the past century, Israel has transformed Hebrew, once reserved almost exclusively for prayer and religious study, into a vibrant modern language. Through its “ulpan” language immersion program, it has taught a common tongue to immigrants from all over the world, helping the young state absorb generations of newcomers.
“We are trying different methods for 20, 30 years and we haven’t succeeded in increasing the number of fluent Sami speakers,” said Odd Willenfeldt, principal of Sami School for Mid-norway and a member of the delegation. “So we are looking for methods that are good and have shown results to make people bilingual.”
The Sami, the Nordic countries’ only officially indigenous people, also live in northern Sweden, Finland and Russia. Best estimates of the Sami population range between 80,000 and 100,000; around 30,000 speak Sami languages, Willenfeldt said.
Sami were formerly known outside their community as Lapps — a term that means “patch” and has been abandoned because the Sami regard it as derogatory.
Nils Ante Eira and Lars Joar Halonen stood in a Hebrew class late last month at Ulpan Morasha in Jerusalem as a class of two dozen adults mumbled through introductions in Hebrew. The men watched carefully, with an eye toward picking up ideas for how to teach adults Sami at home.
Both men speak Sami at home to their children, but say they are the exception following years of government suppression of indigenous culture. “It was prohibited to use Sami at school,” Halonen said. “It was prohibited for Sami to have land, and it was prohibited for Sami to use Sami.”
Today, most Sami are fully integrated into the societies where they live and have adopted Christianity instead of the traditional shamanism. Although reindeer herding remains prevalent, many Sami also work in fishing, education and other industries because of shrinking habitat and earlier official efforts to suppress the indigenous culture.
In recent years the Norwegian government has made an aboutface and now funds the revival of the Sami language.
The revival of Hebrew dates to 1881, when Belarus-born Eliezer Ben-yehuda moved to Israel and vowed to speak only Hebrew with his family, said Gabriel Birnbaum, a senior researcher at the Academy of the Hebrew Language.
Ben-yehuda eventually persuaded his friends and schools to switch to the new language.
“By 1914 Hebrew as a spoken language in the land of Israel was a fact,” Birnbaum said.
Today, Israel offers free intensive Hebrew classes to new immigrants of all ages. The ulpan, Hebrew for studio, allows newcomers to gain a rudimentary grasp of the language in their first few months in the country.
The Norwegians are not the first foreigners to look to Israel for language tips. Visitors from the Maori tribes of New Zealand, from Wales and from the Basque region of Spain have come before.
Halonen and Eira said they hope to start a two-month course for adults modelled on the Israeli ulpan next year.