MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. Experts of the Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition found that the Sami living in the Murmansk Region want their children to learn the native language. The scientists supported the idea to teach kids Sami at local schools beginning from 2025, the expedition's press service told TASS.
"We have a wonderful institute of native languages, which has great specialists to help Sami teachers develop programs. Four reading textbooks for grades 1 to 4 have been examined, and now continues the work on other textbooks and on electronic textbooks. There is not a single reason known to our informants why not start teaching the language at schools from September 1, 2025, as soon as the programs and textbooks are ready," the press service quoted Veronika Simonova of the Center for Arctic and Siberian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology as saying.
Scientists have interviewed indigenous residents of the Lovozersky District in the Murmansk region. The surveyed stressed two subjects - Native Language and Literary Reading in Sami should be taught in primary school, according to the Russian national educational standards. In the literary sense, Sami is richer than many other Northern languages. Famous Murmansk writers and poets have written in Sami, the scientists noted.
"The Sami are descendants of Northern Europe's oldest population, they have a rich culture, epic heritage and even ancient national team sports. This heritage is based on the Sami language terms. Besides, only Sami has preserved the oldest words from Europe's Pre-Finno-Ugric ancient proto-languages. The loss of such a language would mean a gradual extinction of the Sami culture and the merging of the Sami with surrounding bigger groups. For sciences, this would mean the irretrievable loss of the oldest European language, spoken by mammoth hunters. Additionally, the language must be preserved precisely because the study has demonstrated the desire of the Kola Sami to learn it, to preserve it and use it in everyday life," the expert added.
About expedition
Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 is the biggest scientific expedition in terms of the number of participants in continental high-latitude scientific expeditions over the history of the North's studies. It will have 77 expedition teams. The route has been structured to meet the objectives, set by the Russian Academy of Sciences' research centers, and in accordance with due studies under university grants. Over a year-long term, 700 participants from more than 20 research centers and federal universities, as well as the Russian Geographical Society volunteers, will conduct 200 studies at routes that will be as long as 12,000 km. one of the tasks the expedition has is to research and preserve the North's rare languages. TASS is the expedition's general information partner.