TRACES OF SÁMI-SCANDINAVIAN CONTACT IN SCANDINAVIAN DIALECTS

The present Sami region spans westward from the Kola Peninsula in northern Russia to Dalarna in Sweden and Hedmark in Norway. Loan word studies show that the contact between Sami and Scandinavian began in the Proto-Scandinavian period (200-500 A.D.) (cf. Skold 1992). Such long contact can be traced in both languages. Common Sami-Scandinavian isoglosses were usually interpreted either as a heritage of a common non-Scandinavian and non-Sami substratum (Wagner 1964; Kylstra 1983) or as a result of Scandinavian influence on the Sami dialects (Posti 1954; Schlachter 1991). Influence the other way round is mostly neglected because of Scandinavian dominance (cf. Jahr 1997: 943). However, some Scandinavian dialectologists take into consideration the possibility of Sami influence in some northernmost Swedish and Norwegian vernaculars, contacting present-day Sami. But, this influence is regarded as restricted to marginal phonological features (cf. Wallstrom 1943: 24; Dahlstedt 1950: 1; Bull 1992). In fact, the social dominance of Scandinavian is clearly reflected in the lexicon of the respective languages. During the last 1500 years more than 2000 Scandinavian words have been borrowed into the neighbouring Sami dialects, and the process is continuing. In Scandinavian dialects, however, there are no Sami loan words other than a few related to Sami matters. Under these circumstances one