“People don’t really know much about the Sámi. They don’t know that the Sámi languages are different languages and that we are working so hard to revitalize them,” Ulpu Mattus-Kumpunen, an Inari Sámi student at the Sámi Education Institute (SAKK), said during an online interview.
By Laura Ditto, Freelance Journalist, Former Intern, University of Lapland / UArctic
SAKK is a secondary education institution located in Inari, Finland, providing vocational training with specialization in Sámi handicrafts, reindeer herding, and Sámi languages, among other programs. Skolt, Inari, and Northern Sámi are all taught through the SAKK Sámi language and culture program. According to SAKK’s website, there are only 300–400 speakers of Inari Sámi.
Mattus-Kumpunen’s grandfather was born in Inari, and she grew up just 40 kilometers south, in Ivalo. “When I was in high school, my father tried to convince me to study there. He would have liked to see me stay in the area and study something related to the Sámi culture, but at that time I was so uncertain of my Sámi-ness,” Mattus-Kumpunen said.
Growing up, Mattus-Kumpunen spent a lot of time with her grandparents, who she described as being “as Sámi as they come.” Yet Sámi languages remained absent. She was never taught Inari Sámi but occasionally learned Northern Sámi language and culture at school or from her grandparents. “But I never felt a strong connection to Northern Sámi,” she said. “It was more like a foreign language for me.”
Even after learning some Northern Sámi, Mattus-Kumpunen seldom had a place to speak it. If it was not for the lack of other Sámi speakers, then it was a discomfort around not being able to speak the language “well enough.”
She moved to Turku, Finland after high school, and it was there, away from her family home, that she began to rekindle the connection to her Sámi culture.
“When I was far enough from home, I didn’t feel the pressure of having to speak perfectly,” Mattus-Kumpunen said. Sometimes she would even joik – a type of Sámi folk singing – for friends or events. It was through one of these events that she met a young Udmurt woman who encouraged her to embrace the language and take it back.
“What she said had a huge impact on me. Like, if I don’t take the language back, if I don’t pass it to my children, who will do it?”
This was how, after her second daughter was born, Mattus-Kumpunen found herself with a baby in one arm and a Northern Sámi dictionary in her hand, teaching herself and her children at the same time.
After moving back to Ivalo, Mattus-Kumpunen worked at the Siida Sámi Museum and Nature Center. Here she learned more about her heritage and formed a list of goals for herself. She wanted to use her traditional language, Inari Sámi, to write children’s stories, or do radio or voice acting, but she had only been able to study the language on her own by this time. At a local Indigenous film festival, Skábmagovat, Mattus-Kumpunen watched a documentary on the
Inari Sámi course at SAKK. As part of the program, students were able to meet elders of the community and practice speaking in mundane settings – fishing, baking, having coffee by an open fire. It was a chance to learn Inari Sámi in natural surroundings.
“That film kind of opened my eyes. It felt like a physical wound – like I have a hole in my heart – that I really need this language to fill that hole,” Mattus-Kumpunen said. In 2021, a little under a week before classes were to begin, she secured a spot in the SAKK class and began the intensive one-year course for Inari Sámi language and culture.
“I’ve learned many languages, but learning Inari Sámi didn’t feel the same. I had the kind of feeling that it is already somewhere in me, and I needed to pull it out, get it out, or open the doors and let the language out,” Mattus-Kumpunen said. Once she had started, the language came out in force. She began to translate songs, perform them, and officially changed her mother tongue in the Finnish register to Inari Sámi.
“Learning the language alone was really hard, especially because I craved to use the language with other people. What [SAKK] gave me most is that I became part of the united Sámi language community,” Mattus-Kumpunen explained.
SAKK helps foster a community of mutual growth and knowledge sharing. The school prepares students with education and training in traditional practices while considering how these skills can be implemented into local enterprises such as the tourism industry, restaurant catering, reindeer herding, or nursing. Lessons consider sustainability, hands-on learning, and cultural importance and background.
“The point of the school is to give a chance to get the tradition back when it wasn’t passed from the previous generation,” Mattus-Kumpunen said. “This is the way for us to learn and strengthen our roots.”
Author's note
A verse of Inari rap that Ulpu gave a translation of, remarking it to have been very influential in her language learning.
Puohah vissâ tiettih tom tobdo
ko halijdiččih sárnuđ mut jieh kuittâg tuostâ
Mutâ tääl eeđâm tunjin rähis ustev
Ele, ele poolâ, ko puohah ferttejeh kevttiđ kielâ
Nuuvt tun oopah
Já kielâ siäilu veikâ maailm loopân
Kihheen ij pyevti leđe tievâslâš
mutâ juáháš kal puáhtá leđe sáámásteijee
Ulpu’s translation:
Everybody knows the feeling
When you would like to speak, but you don't dare to
But I'm telling you, my dear friend
Don't be afraid—everybody needs to use the language
That's how you learn
And that's how the language will stay alive
Until the end of the world
Nobody can be perfect, but everybody can be an Inari Sámi speaker
Sámás muinna | Sáámást muin | Säämast muin by Marianne Ketola, Sáára Seipiharju, Teemu Titola, and Teija Kaartokallio.
Listen to Sámás muinna | Sáámást muin | Säämast muin on YouTube
Photo: Laura Ditto
