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Lavangen Municipality

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125-558: Lavangen   ( Norwegian ) or Loabák   ( Northern Sami ) is a municipality in Troms county , Norway . The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Tennevoll . Other villages in Lavangen include Fossbakken and Spansdalen (in the inland areas) and Kjeiprød , Røkenes , Låternes , Tennevoll , Hesjevika , Soløy , and Å (surrounding the fjord). The 302-square-kilometre (117 sq mi) municipality

250-452: A Proto-Germanic word * sōma- , itself from Proto-Baltic * sāma- , in turn borrowed from Proto-Finnic * šämä , which was borrowed from * žēmē . The Sámi institutions—notably the parliaments , radio and TV stations, theatres, etc.—all use the term Sámi , including when addressing outsiders in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or English. In Norwegian and Swedish,

375-559: A Norwegian name. This partly caused the dislocation of Sámi people in the 1920s, which increased the gap between local Sámi groups (something still present today) that sometimes has the character of an internal Sámi ethnic conflict. Another example of forced displacement occurred between 1919 and 1920 in Norway and Sweden. This has been the topic of a recent work of journalism by Sámi author Elin Anna Labba , translated into English in 2023 under

500-435: A distinct dialect at the level of farm clusters. Dialects are in some cases so dissimilar as to be unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Many linguists note a trend toward regionalization of dialects that diminishes the differences at such local levels; there is, however, a renewed interest in preserving dialects. Norwegian nouns are inflected for number (singular/plural) and for definiteness (indefinite/definite). In

625-539: A few dialects, definite nouns are also inflected for the dative case . Norwegian nouns belong to three noun classes (genders): masculine, feminine and neuter. All feminine nouns can optionally be inflected using masculine noun class morphology in Bokmål due to its Danish heritage. In comparison, the use of all three genders (including the feminine) is mandatory in Nynorsk. All Norwegian dialects have traditionally retained all

750-521: A full-time basis in Norway. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sámi in some regions of the Nordic countries. Speakers of Northern Sámi refer to themselves as Sámit (the Sámis) or Sápmelaš (of Sámi kin), the word Sápmi being inflected into various grammatical forms. Other Sámi languages use cognate words. As of around 2014,

875-400: A high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonational nature (phrase accent)—the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis or focus, and corresponds in function to the normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone , such as English. That rise culminates in

1000-577: A marketing tool by promoting opportunities to experience "authentic" Sámi ceremonies and lifestyle. At many tourist locales, non-Sámi dress in inaccurate replicas of Sámi traditional clothing, and gift shops sell crude reproductions of Sámi handicraft. One popular "ceremony", crossing the Arctic Circle, actually has no significance in Sámi spirituality. To some Sámi, this is an insulting display of cultural exploitation. The Sámi have for centuries, even today, been

1125-494: A noun, unlike English which has a separate article, the , to indicate the same. In general, almost all nouns in Bokmål follow these patterns (like the words in the examples above): In contrast, almost all nouns in Nynorsk follow these patterns (the noun gender system is more pronounced than in Bokmål): There is in general no way to infer what grammatical gender a specific noun has, but there are some patterns of nouns where

1250-578: A political controversy and the rallying of the Sámi popular movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As a result, the opposition in the Alta controversy brought attention to not only environmental issues but also the issue of Sámi rights. Reindeer have major cultural and economic significance for Indigenous peoples of the North. The human-ecological systems in the North, like reindeer pastoralism, are sensitive to change, perhaps more than in virtually any other region of

1375-421: A single language, to be called Samnorsk . A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at the time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. In the reform in 1959, the 1938 reform was partially reversed in Bokmål, but Nynorsk

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1500-428: A single vote. The name Nynorsk , the linguistic term for modern Norwegian , was chosen to contrast with Danish and emphasise the historical connection to Old Norwegian. Today, this meaning is often lost, and it is commonly mistaken as a "new" Norwegian in contrast to the "real" Norwegian Bokmål. Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by a reform in 1938. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into

1625-519: A special veto right on planned mining projects. Government authorities and NATO have built bombing-practice ranges in Sámi areas in northern Norway and Sweden. These regions have served as reindeer calving and summer grounds for thousands of years, and contain many ancient Sámi sacred sites. State regulation of sea fisheries underwent drastic change in the late 1980s. The regulation linked quotas to vessels and not to fishers. These newly calculated quotas were distributed free of cost to larger vessels on

1750-594: Is indirectly elected by a vote of the municipal council. The municipality is under the jurisdiction of the Midtre Hålogaland District Court and the Hålogaland Court of Appeal . The municipal council (Kommunestyre) of Lavangen is made up of 15 representatives that are elected to four year terms. The tables below show the current and historical composition of the council by political party . The mayor ( Norwegian : ordfører ) of Lavangen

1875-413: Is Bokmål will study Nynorsk as a mandatory subject throughout both elementary and high school. A 2005 poll indicates that 86.3% use primarily Bokmål as their daily written language, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing

2000-506: Is a central geographical feature of the area. The first element is lauf which means " leaf " (here in the sense of ' birchwood '). The last element is angr which means " fjord " or " bay ". On 19 December 2015, the national government approved the municipality's request to add Loabák as a co-equal, official name of the municipality in the Northern Sami language . Both Loabák and Lavangen can be used interchangeably for

2125-615: Is a common element in Norwegian (particularly Northern Norwegian) place names, whereas Lapp is exceedingly rare. Terminological issues in Finnish are somewhat different. Finns living in Finnish Lapland generally call themselves lapp i lainen , whereas the similar word for the Sámi people is lapp a lainen . This can be confusing for foreign visitors because of the similar lives Finns and Sámi people live today in Lapland. Lappalainen

2250-411: Is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The now-abandoned official policy to merge Bokmål and Nynorsk into one common language called Samnorsk through a series of spelling reforms has created a wide spectrum of varieties of both Bokmål and Nynorsk. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål and is far closer to Danish while

2375-551: Is also a common family name in Finland. In Finnish, saamelainen is the most commonly used word nowadays, especially in official contexts. The western Uralic languages are believed to have spread from the original Proto-Uralic homeland along the Volga , which is the longest river in Europe. The speakers of Finnic and Sámi languages have their roots in the middle and upper Volga region in

2500-597: Is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish , Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties; some Norwegian and Swedish dialects , in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages , constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are not mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While

2625-463: Is at the expense of Sámi populations. ILO Convention No. 169 would grant rights to the Sámi people to their land and give them power in matters that affect their future. In Russia's Kola Peninsula, vast areas have already been destroyed by mining and smelting activities, and further development is imminent. This includes oil and natural gas exploration in the Barents Sea . Oil spills affect fishing and

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2750-739: Is part of the Indre Troms prosti ( deanery ) in the Diocese of Nord-Hålogaland . The municipality encompasses the land around the Spansdalelva river valley and most of the area around the Lavangen fjord , south of the Astafjorden . The municipality borders Narvik Municipality (in Nordland county) to the south, Gratangen Municipality to the west, Salangen Municipality to the north, and Bardu Municipality to

2875-548: Is regulated by the Norwegian Academy , which determines acceptable spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. There is also an unofficial form of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk , discarding the post-1917 reforms, and thus close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål. It is supported by Ivar Aasen-sambandet , but has found no widespread use. In 2010, 86.5% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while 13.0% receive education in Nynorsk. From

3000-445: Is the 266th largest by area out of the 357 municipalities in Norway. Lavangen is the 335th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 986. The municipality's population density is 3.3 inhabitants per square kilometre (8.5/sq mi) and its population has decreased by 2.8% over the previous 10-year period. Lavangen was established on 1 January 1907 when it was separated from Ibestad Municipality . The initial population

3125-568: Is the political leader of the municipality and the chairperson of the municipal council. Here is a list of people who have held this position: Spanstind rundt is a famous cross-country skiing race in Lavangen that is held on Maundy Thursdays each year. Norwegian language Norwegian ( endonym : norsk [ˈnɔʂːk] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway , where it

3250-444: Is the reindeer's only source of sustenance during the winter months, when snow is deep. The logging has been under the control of the state-run forest system. Greenpeace , reindeer herders, and Sámi organisations carried out a historic joint campaign, and in 2010, Sámi reindeer herders won some time as a result of these court cases. Industrial logging has now been pushed back from the most important forest areas either permanently or for

3375-459: Is to write in dialect for informal use. When writing an SMS, Facebook update, or fridge note, many people, especially young ones, write approximations of the way they talk rather than using Bokmål or Nynorsk. There is general agreement that a wide range of differences makes it difficult to estimate the number of different Norwegian dialects. Variations in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation cut across geographical boundaries and can create

3500-583: Is today to a large extent the same language as Bokmål though somewhat closer to the Danish language. It is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy , which translates the name as 'Standard Norwegian'. The other is Høgnorsk ('High Norwegian'), a more purist form of Nynorsk, which maintains the language in an original form as given by Ivar Aasen and rejects most of the reforms from the 20th century; this form has limited use. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, but not for how to speak

3625-405: Is uvular [ ʁ ] or [ χ ] . And in the dialects of North-Western Norway, it is realized as [ r ] , much like the trilled ⟨rr⟩ of Spanish. Norwegian is a pitch-accent language with two distinct pitch patterns, like Swedish. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example, in many East Norwegian dialects,

3750-490: Is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, and also in the upper parts of mountain valleys in the southern and eastern parts of Norway. Examples are Setesdal , the western part of Telemark county ( fylke ) and several municipalities in Hallingdal , Valdres , and Gudbrandsdalen . It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in many rural parts of Trøndelag (mid-Norway) and

3875-677: The Bronze Age , the Sámi occupied the area along the coast of Finnmark and the Kola Peninsula . This coincides with the arrival of the Siberian genome to Estonia and Finland, which may correspond with the introduction of the Finno-Ugric languages in the region. Petroglyphs and archeological findings such as settlements, dating from about 10,000 BC can be found in Lapland and Finnmark, although these have not been demonstrated to be related to

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4000-515: The Corded Ware culture . These groups presumably started to move to the northwest from the homeland of the early Uralic peoples in the second and third quarters of the 2nd millennium BC. On their journey, they used the ancient river routes of what is now northern Russia. Some of these peoples, who may have originally spoken the same western Uralic language, stopped and stayed in the regions between Karelia , Ladoga and Lake Ilmen , and even further to

4125-459: The Dano-Norwegian language that replaced Middle Norwegian as the elite language after the union of Denmark–Norway in the 16th and 17th centuries and then evolved in Norway, while Nynorsk was developed based upon a collective of spoken Norwegian dialects. Norwegian is one of the two official languages in Norway, along with Sámi , a Finno-Ugric language spoken by less than one percent of

4250-568: The Germanic languages evolved, further branching off into the North Germanic languages , of which Norwegian is one. Proto-Norse is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic during the first centuries AD in what is today Southern Sweden. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the Elder Futhark inscriptions,

4375-614: The Hanseatic League between 1250 and 1450 in the main Scandinavian cities brought large Middle Low German –speaking populations to Norway. The influence of their language on Scandinavian is comparable with that of French on English after the Norman conquest . In the late Middle Ages, dialects began to develop in Scandinavia because the population was rural and little travel occurred. When

4500-550: The Reformation came from Germany, Martin Luther 's High German translation of the Bible was quickly translated into Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. Norway entered a union with Denmark in 1397 and Danish, over time, replaced Middle Norwegian as the language of the elite, the church, literature, and the law. When the union with Denmark ended in 1814, the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become

4625-580: The Sámi languages , which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family . Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping , and sheep herding . Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding . As of 2007 about 10% of the Sámi were connected to reindeer herding, which provides them with meat, fur, and transportation; around 2,800 Sámi people were actively involved in reindeer herding on

4750-713: The fjords , had access to the major European trade routes so that, in addition to marginal farming in the Nordland , Troms , and Finnmark counties, they were able to establish commerce, trading fish for products from the south. According to old Nordic texts, the Sea Sámi and the Mountain Sámi are two classes of the same people and not two different ethnic groups, as had been erroneously believed. This socioeconomic balance greatly changed when bubonic plague came to northern Norway in December 1349. The Norwegians were closely connected to

4875-467: The 19th century, they showed little interest in the harsh and non-arable inland populated by reindeer-herding Sámi. Unlike the Norwegians on the coast who were strongly dependent on their trade with the south, the Sámi in the inland lived off the land. From the 19th century Norwegian and Swedish authorities started to regard the Sámi as a "backward" and "primitive" people in need of being "civilized", imposing

5000-475: The 20th century, being used by large newspapers, encyclopedias, and a significant proportion of the population of the capital Oslo, surrounding areas, and other urban areas, as well as much of the literary tradition. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003 (effective in 2005), the official Bokmål can be adapted to be almost identical with modern Riksmål. The differences between written Riksmål and Bokmål are comparable to American and British English differences . Riksmål

5125-518: The Finnish government has denied funding for these rights in most of the country, including in Rovaniemi , the largest municipality in Finnish Lapland. Sámi activists have pushed for nationwide application of these basic rights. The city of Rovaniemi offers day care and preschool education in the Sámi language, and then as basic education first as supplementary native language education starting from

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5250-688: The Middle Ages, and in southern Sweden, including finds in Lesja Municipality , in Vang Municipality , in Valdres and in Hol Municipality and Ål Municipality in Hallingdal . Proponents of the Sámi interpretations of these finds assume a mixed population of Norse and Sámi people in the mountainous areas of southern Norway in the Middle Ages. In Finland, a 2022 study said that Sámi habitation

5375-450: The Ministry of Culture, official spelling, grammar, and vocabulary for the Norwegian language. The board's work has been subject to considerable controversy throughout the years. Both Nynorsk and Bokmål have a great variety of optional forms. The Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Riksmål is called moderate or conservative , depending on one's viewpoint, while the Bokmål that uses

5500-512: The Norwegians; being only loosely connected to the European trade routes, they fared far better than the Norwegians. Fishing has always been the main livelihood for the many Sámi living permanently in coastal areas. Archeological research shows that the Sámi have lived along the coast and once lived much farther south in the past, and they were also involved in work other than reindeer herding (e.g., fishing, agriculture, iron work). The fishing along

5625-472: The Scandinavian languages as the only valid languages of the kingdoms and effectively banning Sámi language and culture in many contexts, particularly schools. How far south the Sámi extended in the past has been debated among historians and archeologists for many years. The Norwegian historian Yngvar Nielsen , commissioned by the Norwegian government in 1889 to determine this question in order to settle contemporary questions of Sámi land rights, concluded that

5750-414: The Sámi are today referred to by the localized form Same . The first probable historical mention of the Sámi, naming them Fenni , was by Tacitus , about AD 98. Variants of Finn or Fenni were in wide use in ancient times, judging from the names Fenni and Φίννοι ( Phinnoi ) in classical Roman and Greek works . Finn (or variants, such as skridfinn , 'skiing Finn' )

5875-463: The Sámi had lived no farther south than Lierne Municipality in Trøndelag county until around 1500, when they started moving south, reaching the area around Lake Femund in the 18th century. This hypothesis is still accepted among many historians, but has been the subject of scholarly debate in the 21st century. In recent years, several archaeological finds indicate a Sámi presence in southern Norway in

6000-477: The Sámi migrations into the northern regions. For centuries, the Sámi and the Scandinavians had relatively little contact; the Sámi primarily lived in the inland of northern Fennoscandia , while Scandinavians lived in southern Scandinavia and gradually colonised the Norwegian coast; from the 18th and especially the 19th century, the governments of Norway and Sweden started to assert sovereignty more aggressively in

6125-597: The Sámi people were created. In 1989, the first Sámi parliament in Norway was elected. In 2005, the Finnmark Act was passed in the Norwegian parliament giving the Sámi parliament and the Finnmark Provincial council a joint responsibility of administering the land areas previously considered state property. These areas (96% of the provincial area), which have always been used primarily by the Sámi, now belong officially to

6250-487: The Sámi people. These hunter-gatherers of the late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic were named Komsa by the researchers. The Sámi have a complex relationship with the Scandinavians (known as Norse people in the medieval era), the dominant peoples of Scandinavia, who speak Scandinavian languages and who founded and thus dominated the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden. The migration of Germanic-speaking peoples to Southern Scandinavia happened independently and separate from

6375-514: The Sámi themselves now consider this to be an inappropriate term. Finnish immigrants to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries were referred to as Kvens to distinguish them from the Sámi "Finns". Ethnic Finns ( suomalaiset ) are a group related to the Sámi, but distinct from them. The word Lapp can be traced to Old Swedish lapper , Icelandic lappir (plural) perhaps of Finnish origin; compare Finnish lappalainen "Lapp", Lappi "Lapland" (possibly meaning "wilderness in

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6500-405: The Sámi were mostly independent of supplies from Southern Norway. During the 19th century, the pressure of Christianization of the Sámi increased, with some Sámi adopting Laestadianism . With the introduction of seven compulsory years of school in 1889, the Sámi language and traditional way of life came increasingly under pressure from forced cultural normalization. Strong economic development of

6625-847: The Sámi with the "two Laplands". The term "Lapp" was popularized and became the standard terminology by the work of Johannes Schefferus , Acta Lapponica (1673). The Sámi are often known in other languages by the exonyms Lap , Lapp , or Laplanders , although these are considered derogatory terms by some, while others accept at least the name Lappland . Variants of the name Lapp were originally used in Sweden and Finland and, through Swedish, adopted by many major European languages: English: Lapps ; German, Dutch : Lappen ; French : Lapons ; Greek : Λάπωνες ( Lápōnes ); Hungarian : lappok ; Italian : Lapponi ; Polish : Lapończycy ; Portuguese : Lapões ; Spanish : Lapones ; Romanian : laponi ; Turkish : Lapon . In Russian

6750-578: The UN Racial Discrimination Committee were delivered to Norway, addressing many issues related to the legacy of Norwegianization policies, including the need for more Sámi language education, interpreters, and cultural support. One committee recommendation was that discrimination against someone based upon their language be added to Article 1 of the Norwegian Discrimination and Accessibility Act. A new present status report

6875-412: The area of modern-day Finland, they encountered groups of peoples who spoke a number of smaller ancient languages ( Paleo-Laplandic languages ), which later became extinct. However, these languages left traces in the Sámi language ( Pre-Finnic substrate ). As the language spread further, it became segmented into dialects. The geographical distribution of the Sámi has evolved over the course of history. From

7000-453: The area to avoid forced labour. As a result, the population of Pite - and Lule -speaking Sámi decreased greatly. For long periods of time, the Sámi lifestyle thrived because of its adaptation to the Arctic environment. Indeed, throughout the 18th century, as Norwegians of Northern Norway suffered from low fish prices and consequent depopulation, the Sámi cultural element was strengthened, since

7125-704: The arms have a red field (background) and the charge is three birch leaves that are connected and in a Y-shape design. The leaves have a tincture of Or which means they are commonly colored yellow, but if it is made out of metal, then gold is used. The arms are a canting of the name of the municipality (which means leaf). The three leaves represent how the municipality was settled by Norwegians , Samis , and Kvens . The arms were designed by Øystein Hermod Skaugvolldal. The Church of Norway has one parish ( sokn ) within Lavangen Municipality. It

7250-447: The basis of the amount of the catch in previous years, resulting in small vessels in Sámi districts falling outside the new quota system to a large degree. The Sámi recently stopped a water-prospecting venture that threatened to turn an ancient sacred site and natural spring called Suttesaja into a large-scale water-bottling plant for the world market—without notification or consultation with the local Sámi people, who make up 70 percent of

7375-486: The construction of roads. There is a gas pipeline that stretches across the Kola Peninsula, and power lines cut off access to reindeer calving grounds and sacred sites. In northern Finland, there has been a longstanding dispute over the destruction of forests, which prevents reindeer from migrating between seasonal feeding grounds and destroys supplies of lichen that grow on the upper branches of older trees. This lichen

7500-461: The corresponding term is лопари́ ( lopari ) and in Ukrainian лопарі́ ( lopari ). In Finland and Sweden, Lapp is common in place names, such as Lappi ( Satakunta ), Lappeenranta ( South Karelia ) and Lapinlahti ( North Savo ) in Finland; and Lapp ( Stockholm County ), Lappe ( Södermanland ) and Lappabo ( Småland ) in Sweden. As already mentioned, Finn

7625-520: The current consensus among specialists was that the word Sámi was borrowed from the Proto-Baltic word * žēmē , meaning 'land' ( cognate with Slavic zemlja ( земля ), of the same meaning). The word Sámi has at least one cognate word in Finnish : Proto-Baltic * žēmē was also borrowed into Proto-Finnic , as * šämä . This word became modern Finnish Häme (Finnish for

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7750-399: The dialects and comparing the dialects among the different regions. He examined the development of Icelandic , which had largely escaped the influences under which Norwegian had come. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål , meaning 'national language'. The name Landsmål is sometimes interpreted as 'rural language' or 'country language', but this

7875-577: The dialects. The retroflex consonants only appear in East Norwegian dialects as a result of sandhi , combining / ɾ / with / d / , / l / , / n / , / s / , and / t / . The realization of the rhotic / ɾ / depends on the dialect. In Eastern, Central, and Northern Norwegian dialects, it is a flap [ ɾ ] , whereas in Western and Southern Norway, and for some speakers also in Eastern Norway, it

8000-518: The early 18th century, there were many Sámi who were still settling on these farms left abandoned from the 1350s. After many years of continuous migration, these Sea Sámi became far more numerous than the reindeer-herding mountain Sámi, who today only make up 10% of all Sámi. In contemporary times, there are also ongoing consultations between the Government of Norway and the Sámi Parliament regarding

8125-470: The east and to the southeast. The groups of these peoples that ended up in the Finnish Lakeland from 1600 to 1500 BC later "became" the Sámi. The Sámi people arrived in their current homeland some time during the Bronze Age or early Iron Age . The Sámi language first developed on the southern side of Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga and spread from there. When the speakers of this language extended to

8250-524: The east. The highest point in the municipality is the 1,457.49-metre (4,781.8 ft) tall mountain Spanstinden. Lavangen Municipality is responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services , senior citizen services, welfare and other social services , zoning , economic development , and municipal roads and utilities. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of directly elected representatives. The mayor

8375-644: The eighth grade onwards, pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 431 municipalities in Norway, 161 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (representing 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral. Of 4,549 state publications in 2000, 8% were in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål. The large national newspapers ( Aftenposten , Dagbladet , and VG ) are published in Bokmål or Riksmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad ), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A newer trend

8500-539: The establishment of an independent truth commission to examine and document past abuse of Sámi by the Swedish state. In 2021, the Church of Sweden made a formal apology to Sweden's Sámi population for its role in forced conversions and Swedification efforts, outlining a multiyear reconciliation plan. In Finland, where Sámi children, like all Finnish children, are entitled to day care and language instruction in their own language,

8625-533: The feasibility of using the area for winter grazing in practice is impossible. Sweden has received strong international criticism, including by the UN Racial Discrimination Committee and the Human Rights Committee, that Sweden violates Sámi landrättigheter ( land rights ), including by not regulating industry. In Norway some Sámi politicians (for example—Aili Keskitalo) suggest giving the Sámi Parliament

8750-403: The final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the utterance-final fall common in most languages is either very small or absent. There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2 is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around

8875-507: The first grade and as a voluntary subject on its own starting from the fourth grade. As in the other countries claiming sovereignty over Sámi lands, Sámi activists' efforts in Finland in the 20th century achieved limited government recognition of the Sámis' rights as a recognized minority, but the Finnish government has maintained its legally enforced premise that the Sámi must prove their land ownership, an idea incompatible with and antithetical to

9000-496: The forms that are close to Nynorsk is called radical . Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsmål and forms that are close to Bokmål. Opponents of the spelling reforms aimed at bringing Bokmål closer to Nynorsk have retained the name Riksmål and employ spelling and grammar that predate the Samnorsk movement. Riksmål and conservative versions of Bokmål have been the de facto standard written language of Norway for most of

9125-457: The gender can be inferred. For instance, all nouns ending in - nad will be masculine in both Bokmål and Nynorsk (for instance the noun jobbsøknad , which means 'job application'). Most nouns ending in - ing will be feminine, like the noun forventning ('expectation'). Sami people The Sámi ( / ˈ s ɑː m i / SAH -mee ; also spelled Sami or Saami ) are the traditionally Sámi -speaking Indigenous peoples inhabiting

9250-751: The globe, due in part to the variability of the Arctic climate and ecosystem and the characteristic ways of life of Indigenous Arctic peoples. The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster caused nuclear fallout in the sensitive Arctic ecosystems and poisoned fish, meat and berries. Lichens and mosses are two of the main forms of vegetation in the Arctic and are highly susceptible to airborne pollutants and heavy metals. Since many do not have roots, they absorb nutrients, and toxic compounds, through their leaves. The lichens accumulated airborne radiation, and 73,000 reindeer had to be killed as "unfit" for human consumption in Sweden alone. The government promised Sámi indemnification, which

9375-444: The greater European trade routes, along which the plague traveled; consequently, they were infected and died at a far higher rate than Sámi in the interior. Of all the states in the region, Norway suffered the most from this plague . Depending on the parish , 60 to 76 percent of northern Norwegian farms were abandoned following the plague, while land-rents, another measure of population, dropped to 9–28% of pre-plague levels. Although

9500-555: The language. No standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in many other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect, whether it coincides with the written norms or not, is accepted as correct spoken Norwegian. However, in areas where East Norwegian dialects are used, a tendency exists to accept a de facto spoken standard for this particular regional dialect, Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian (Norwegian: Standard østnorsk ), in which

9625-473: The legacy of laws that were created to deny the Sámi rights (e.g., to their beliefs, language, land and to the practice of traditional livelihoods). The Sámi are experiencing cultural and environmental threats, including: oil exploration, mining, dam building, logging, climate change, military bombing ranges, tourism and commercial development. Sápmi is rich in precious metals, oil, and natural gas. Mining activities and prospecting to extract these resources from

9750-456: The local authorities offered incentives to the Sámi—faced with their own population pressures—to settle on the newly vacant farms. This started the economic division between the Sea Sámi ( sjøsamene ), who fished extensively off the coast, and the Mountain Sámi ( fjellsamene, innlandssamene ), who continued to hunt reindeer and small-game animals. They later herded reindeer. Even as late as

9875-625: The local population. Around 1030, Christianity came to Scandinavia , bringing with it an influx of Latin borrowings and the Roman alphabet . These new words were related to church practices and ceremonies, although many other loanwords related to general culture also entered the language. The Scandinavian languages at this time are not considered to be separate languages, although there were minor differences among what are customarily called Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian , Old Gutnish , Old Danish, and Old Swedish . The economic and political dominance of

10000-479: The mother tongue of around 1% of the population. From the 1840s, some writers experimented with a Norwegianised Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life, and adopting a more Norwegian syntax. Knud Knudsen proposed to change spelling and inflection in accordance with the Dano-Norwegian koiné , known as "cultivated everyday speech." A small adjustment in this direction

10125-508: The municipality. The spelling of the Sami language name changes depending on how it is used. It is called Loabák when it is spelled alone, but it is Loabága suohkan when using the Sami language equivalent to "Lavangen Municipality". The coat of arms was granted on 18 December 1987. The official blazon is " Gules , three birch leaves Or in pall stems conjoined" ( Norwegian : I rødt tre gull bjørkeblad forent i trepass ). This means

10250-400: The new quota system to a large degree. As the Sea Sámi settled along Norway's fjords and inland waterways, pursuing a combination of farming, cattle raising, trapping and fishing, the minority Mountain Sámi continued to hunt wild reindeer . Around 1500, they started to tame these animals into herding groups, becoming the well-known reindeer nomads , often portrayed by outsiders as following

10375-563: The next 20 years, though there are still threats, such as mining and construction plans of holiday resorts on the protected shorelines of Lake Inari. The Swedish government has allowed the world's largest onshore wind farm to be built in Piteå, in the Arctic region where the Eastern Kikkejaure village has its winter reindeer pastures. The wind farm will consist of more than 1,000 wind turbines and an extensive road infrastructure, which means that

10500-521: The north Norwegian coast, especially in the Lofoten and Vesterålen islands, is quite productive, with a variety of fish; during medieval times, it was a major source of income for both the fishermen and the Norwegian monarchy . With such massive population drops caused by the Black Death , the tax revenues from this industry greatly diminished. Because of the huge profits that could be had from these fisheries,

10625-541: The north also ensued, giving Norwegian culture and language higher status. On the Swedish and Finnish sides, the authorities were less militant, although the Sámi language was forbidden in schools and strong economic development in the north led to weakened cultural and economic status for the Sámi. From 1913 to 1920, the Swedish race-segregation political movement created a race-based biological institute that collected research material from living people and graves. Throughout history, Swedish settlers were encouraged to move to

10750-499: The north"), the original meaning being unknown. It is unknown how the word Lapp came into the Norse language , but one of the first written mentions of the term is in the Gesta Danorum by the twelfth-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus , who referred to 'the two Lappias', although he still referred to the Sámi as (Skrid-)Finn s. In fact, Saxo never explicitly connects

10875-443: The north, and targeted the Sámi with Scandinavization policies aimed at forced assimilation from the 19th century. Before the era of forced Scandinavization policies, the Norwegian and Swedish authorities had largely ignored the Sámi and did not interfere much in their way of life. While Norwegians moved north to gradually colonise the coast of modern-day Troms and Finnmark to engage in an export-driven fisheries industry prior to

11000-452: The northern regions through incentives such as land and water rights, tax allowances, and military exemptions. The strongest pressure took place from around 1900 to 1940, when Norway invested considerable money and effort to assimilate Sámi culture. Anyone who wanted to buy or lease state lands for agriculture in Finnmark had to prove knowledge of the Norwegian language and had to register with

11125-417: The oldest form of the runic alphabets . A number of inscriptions are memorials to the dead, while others are magical in content. The oldest are carved on loose objects, while later ones are chiseled in runestones . They are the oldest written record of any Germanic language. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 800 AD,

11250-405: The people of the province, whether Sámi or Norwegian, and not to the Norwegian state. The Indigenous Sámi population is a mostly urbanised demographic, but a substantial number live in villages in the high Arctic. The Sámi are still coping with the cultural consequences of language and culture loss caused by generations of Sámi children being taken to missionary and/or state-run boarding schools and

11375-467: The population of northern Norway is sparse compared to southern Europe, the disease spread just as fast. The spread of the plague-carrying flea ( Xenopsylla cheopsis ) from the south was facilitated by the transport of wooden barrels holding wheat, rye, or wool, where the fleas were able to live, and even reproduce, for several months at a time. The Sámi lived on fish and reindeer meat, and did not eat wheat or rye. They lived in communities detached from

11500-735: The population. Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries who speak Norwegian have the opportunity to use it when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Like most of the languages in Europe, Norwegian derives from Proto-Indo-European . As early Indo-Europeans spread across Europe, they became isolated from each other and new languages developed. In northwest Europe,

11625-529: The population. The Finnish National Board of Antiquities has registered the area as a heritage site of cultural and historical significance, and the stream itself is part of the Deatnu/Tana watershed, which is home to Europe's largest salmon river, an important source of Sámi livelihood. In Norway, government plans for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in the Alta river in Finnmark in northern Norway led to

11750-464: The pressure was relaxed, though the legacy was evident into recent times, such as the 1970s law limiting the size of any house Sámi people were allowed to build. The controversy over the construction of the hydro-electric power station in Alta Municipality in 1979 brought Sámi rights onto the political agenda. In August 1986, the national anthem (" Sámi soga lávlla ") and flag ( Sámi flag ) of

11875-442: The principles of Norwegian orthography, e.g. zebra in Norwegian is written sebra . Due to historical reasons, some otherwise Norwegian family names are also written using these letters. Some letters may be modified by diacritics : é , è , ê , ó , ò , and ô . In Nynorsk, ì and ù and ỳ are occasionally seen as well. The diacritics are not compulsory, but may in a few cases distinguish between different meanings of

12000-694: The proposed mines are in Sámi lands and will affect their ability to maintain their traditional livelihood. In Kallak (Sámi: Gállok ) a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists protested against the UK-based mining company Beowulf which operated a drilling program in lands used for grazing reindeer during the winter. There is often local opposition to new mining projects where environmental impacts are perceived to be very large, as very few plans for mine reclamation have been made. In Sweden, taxes on minerals are intentionally low in an effort to increase mineral exploration for economic benefit, though this policy

12125-524: The region of Sápmi , which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway , Sweden , Finland , and of the Kola Peninsula in Russia . The region of Sápmi was formerly known as Lapland, and the Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders , but these terms are regarded as offensive by the Sámi, who prefer their own endonym , e.g. Northern Sámi Sápmi . Their traditional languages are

12250-500: The region of Tavastia ; the second ä of * šämä is still found in the adjective häm ä läinen ). The Finnish word for Finland, Suomi , is also thought probably to derive ultimately from Proto-Baltic * žēmē , though the precise route is debated and proposals usually involve complex processes of borrowing and reborrowing. Suomi and its adjectival form suom a lainen must come from * sōme- / sōma- . In one proposal, this Finnish word comes from

12375-521: The region often interfere with reindeer grazing and calving areas and other aspects of traditional Sámi life. Some active mining locations include ancient Sámi spaces that are designated as ecologically protected areas, such as the Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve . The Sámi Parliament has opposed and rejected mining projects in the Finnmark area, and demanded that resources and mineral exploration benefit local Sámi communities and populations, as

12500-442: The right of the coastal Sámi to fish in the seas on the basis of historical use and international law. State regulation of sea fisheries underwent drastic change in the late 1980s. The regulation linked quotas to vessels and not to fishers. These newly calculated quotas were distributed free of charge to larger vessels on the basis of the amount of the catch in previous years, resulting in small vessels in Sámi districts falling outside

12625-719: The script was simplified to the Younger Futhark , and inscriptions became more abundant. At the same time, the beginning of the Viking Age led to the spread of Old Norse to Iceland , Greenland , and the Faroe Islands . Viking colonies also existed in parts of the British Isles , France ( Normandy ), North America, and Kievan Rus . In all of these places except Iceland and the Faroes, Old Norse speakers went extinct or were absorbed into

12750-606: The southern part of northern Norway ( Nordland county). Today, Nynorsk is the official language of not only four of the nineteen Norwegian counties but also various municipalities in five other counties. NRK , the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, and Nynorsk in 8% (2000). Like some other European countries, Norway has an official "advisory board"— Språkrådet (Norwegian Language Council)— that determines, after approval from

12875-407: The subject of discrimination and abuse by the dominant cultures in the nations they have historically inhabited. They have never been a single community in a single region of Sápmi, which until recently was considered only a cultural region. Norway has been criticized internationally for the politics of Norwegianization of and discrimination against the Sámi. On 8 April 2011, recommendations from

13000-605: The syllable boundary. The pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality that makes it easy to distinguish from other languages. Accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse , and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters. The letters c , q , w , x and z are only used in loanwords . As loanwords are assimilated into Norwegian, their spelling might change to reflect Norwegian pronunciation and

13125-401: The three grammatical genders from Old Norse to some extent. The only exceptions are the dialect of Bergen and a few upper class sociolects at the west end of Oslo that have completely lost the feminine gender. According to Marit Westergaard , approximately 80% of nouns in Norwegian are masculine. Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages use a suffix to indicate definiteness of

13250-600: The title The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi . In 1913, the Norwegian parliament passed a bill on "native act land" to allocate the best and most useful lands to Norwegian settlers. Another factor was the scorched earth policy conducted by the German army, resulting in heavy war destruction in northern Finland and northern Norway in 1944–45, destroying all existing houses, or kota , and visible traces of Sámi culture. After World War II ,

13375-445: The traditional Sámi lifestyle. The Mountain Sámi had to pay taxes to three states, Norway , Sweden and Russia , as they crossed each border while following the annual reindeer migrations; this caused much resentment over the years. Between 1635 and 1659, the Swedish crown forced Swedish conscripts and Sámi cart drivers to work in the Nasa silver mine , causing many Sámis to emigrate from

13500-433: The traditional reindeer-herding Sámi way of life. This has effectively allowed the Finnish government to take without compensation, motivated by economic gain, land occupied by the Sámi for centuries. Non-Sámi Finns began to move to Lapland in the 1550s. The Sámi have been recognized as an Indigenous people in Norway (1990 according to ILO convention 169 as described below), and therefore, according to international law,

13625-475: The two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . Today there are two official forms of written Norwegian, Bokmål (Riksmål) and Nynorsk (Landsmål), each with its own variants. Bokmål developed from

13750-410: The two provinces by Finns and Swedes led to the assimilation and disappearance of a distinct Sámi population by the 14th century. Until the arrival of bubonic plague in northern Norway in 1349, the Sámi and the Norwegians occupied very separate economic niches . The Sámi hunted reindeer and fished for their livelihood. The Norwegians, who were concentrated on the outer islands and near the mouths of

13875-426: The unofficial Høgnorsk is more conservative than Nynorsk and is far closer to Faroese , Icelandic and Old Norse . Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. Each student gets assigned a native form based on which school they go to, whence the other form (known as Sidemål ) will be a mandatory school subject from elementary school through high school. For instance, a Norwegian whose main language form

14000-447: The vocabulary coincides with Bokmål. Outside Eastern Norway , this spoken variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism , rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk

14125-427: The word bønder ('farmers') is pronounced using the simpler tone 1, while bønner ('beans' or 'prayers') uses the more complex tone 2. Though spelling differences occasionally differentiate written words, in most cases the minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses

14250-516: The word might be related to fen . As Old Norse gradually developed into the separate Scandinavian languages, Swedes apparently took to using Finn to refer to inhabitants of what is now Finland, while the Sámi came to be called Lapps . In Norway, however, Sámi were still called Finns at least until the modern era (reflected in toponyms like Finnmark , Finnsnes , Finnfjord and Finnøy ), and some northern Norwegians will still occasionally use Finn to refer to Sámi people, although

14375-560: The word, e.g.: for ('for/to'), fór ('went'), fòr ('furrow') and fôr ('fodder'). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably ï, ü , á and à . The two legally recognized forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål (literally 'book tongue') and Nynorsk ('new Norwegian'), which are regulated by the Language Council of Norway ( Språkrådet ). Two other written forms without official status also exist. One, called Riksmål ('national language'),

14500-512: Was 1,536. During the 1960s, there were many municipal mergers across Norway due to the work of the Schei Committee . On 1 January 1964, Lavangen Municipality (population: 1,677) and Salangen Municipality (population: 2,611) were merged into a new, larger Salangen Municipality. The merger was brief, however, because on 1 January 1977, the old Lavangen Municipality (except for the Lavangsnes area)

14625-451: Was changed further towards Bokmål. Since then Bokmål has reverted even further toward traditional Riksmål, while Nynorsk still adheres to the 1959 standard. Therefore, a small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts use a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk . The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002. While the sound systems of Norwegian and Swedish are similar, considerable variation exists among

14750-480: Was clearly not Aasen's intended meaning. The name of the Danish language in Norway was a topic of hot dispute throughout the 19th century. Its proponents claimed that it was a language common to Norway and Denmark, and no more Danish than Norwegian. The proponents of Landsmål thought that the Danish character of the language should not be concealed. In 1899, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson proposed the neutral name Riksmål , meaning 'national language' like Landsmål , and this

14875-512: Was found in the entirety of continental Finland at least until the 14th century. Toponyms of Sámi origin are common in the southernmost provinces of Finland Proper and Uusimaa , e.g. Aurajoki ~ Oarrijohka "Squirrel River". The Sámi coexisted with Finns and Swedes and traded squirrel furs with them. The division was based on occupation: unlike Finns and Swedes, the Sámi did not engage in significant agriculture, relying on fishing, hunting, gathering and fur trapping instead. Complete colonization of

15000-453: Was implemented in the first official reform of the Danish language in Norway in 1862 and more extensively after his death in two official reforms in 1907 and 1917. Meanwhile, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen , a botanist and self-taught linguist, began his work to create a new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country collecting words and examples of grammar from

15125-423: Was made a separate municipality once again. On 1 January 2020, the municipality became part of the newly formed Troms og Finnmark county. Previously, it had been part of the old Troms county. On 1 January 2024, the Troms og Finnmark county was divided and the municipality once again became part of Troms county. The municipality is named after the local Lavangen fjord ( Old Norse : Laufangr ) since it

15250-502: Was not acted upon by government. Radioactive wastes and spent nuclear fuel have been stored in the waters off the Kola Peninsula, including locations that are only "two kilometers" from places where Sámi live. There are a minimum of five "dumps" where spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste are being deposited in the Kola Peninsula, often with little concern for the surrounding environment or population. The tourism industry in Finland has been criticized for turning Sámi culture into

15375-641: Was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. The name Riksmål is sometimes interpreted as 'state language', but this meaning is secondary at best. (Compare to Danish rigsmål from where the name was borrowed.) After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, both languages were developed further and reached what is now considered their classic forms after a reform in 1917. Riksmål was, in 1929, officially renamed Bokmål (literally 'book language'), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally 'new Norwegian'). A proposition to substitute Danish-Norwegian ( dansk-norsk ) for Bokmål lost in parliament by

15500-569: Was the name originally used by Norse speakers (and their proto-Norse speaking ancestors) to refer to the Sámi, as attested in the Icelandic Eddas and Norse sagas (11th to 14th centuries). The etymology is somewhat uncertain, but the consensus seems to be that it is related to Old Norse finna , from proto-Germanic * finþanan ('to find'), the logic being that the Sámi, as hunter-gatherers "found" their food, rather than grew it. This etymology has superseded older speculations that

15625-400: Was to have been ready by the end of 2012. In 2018, The Storting commissioned The Truth and Reconciliation Commission to lay the foundation for recognition of the experiences of the Sámi subject to Norwegianization and the subsequent consequences. Sweden has faced similar criticism for its Swedification policies, which began in the 1800s and lasted until the 1970s. In 2020, Sweden funded

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