Uralic · ISO 639-3 sme · se
Northern Sami Language davvisámegiella
Northern Sami is an Uralic language spoken by about 25,700 people in 3 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Northern Sami is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
About the Northern Sami language
Northern Sami (davvisámegiella) is spoken by about 25,700 people, which makes it the 541st most spoken language in the world — just behind Hawaiian (30,000) and ahead of Palauan (17,000). It belongs to the Uralic language family and, more precisely, to the Central Western Saami group within the Western Saami branch.
Where is Northern Sami spoken?
Northern Sami is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in Sweden (34,946), Norway (15,978) and Finland (2,025).
Share of the population that speaks Northern Sami: Sweden 0.3% (34,946), Norway 0.3% (15,978) and Finland <0.1% (2,025).
Northern Sami is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in Norway.
Writing system and status
Northern Sami is written in the Latin script. Glottolog classifies it as vulnerable, meaning fewer children learn it than in the past.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 se, ISO 639-3 sme.
Frequently asked questions about Northern Sami
How many people speak Northern Sami?
Where is Northern Sami spoken?
What language family does Northern Sami belong to?
What is Northern Sami called in Northern Sami?
Is Northern Sami an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.