South Saami
South Saami is a Saami language traditionally spoken in the southern parts of Saepmie, the Saami area. Its speakers number in the hundreds and live in and beyond the South Saami area.
Many indigenous cultures and languages are under severe pressure from the surrounding majority societies. Therefore, the study of these languages is important for their development and preservation.
As a university in the South Saami area, Gaskeuniversiteete / Mid Sweden University has in recent years begun to build an environment for Saami research and education, including South Saami. This is an important development to preserve and promote South Saami as a language and culture.
South Saami as an academic subject can help to revitalise the language and make it accessible to more people. There are many opportunities for research on South Saami. It can be about traditional South Saami grammar with a focus on, for example, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. It can also be about how the language is used in society, the composition of the language's speakers, i.e. classic questions in sociolinguistics. A specific challenge at Gaskeuniversiteete concerns teachers and preschool teachers as central professional categories in the South Saami language revitalisation project. Offering programmes that support them is of utmost importance. Thus, Gaskeunsiteete's South Saami subject is strongly linked to the field of educational linguistics.