Sápmelaš
/ˈsaːpmelaʃ/noun
A Sámi person or someone belonging to the Sámi people of Sápmi.
Did you know?Sápmelaš is formed from Sápmi, the Sámi name for their homeland, plus the suffix -laš, meaning someone associated with or belonging to a place or group.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Samic
Proto-Samic
*sāmē
“Reconstructed ancestral ethnonym or place-name associated with the Sámi; the deeper origin remains uncertain.”
Early Finnic
Finnic
Saami
“Name for the Sámi people or their language; a related Finnic form.”
Medieval period
Northern Sami
Sápmi
“The Sámi homeland and, by extension, the Sámi people or culture.”
Modern Northern Sami
Northern Sami
sápmi + -laš
“A person belonging to Sápmi; the suffix -laš forms an inhabitant or affiliation term.”
Modern English
English
Sámi / Saami
“The Indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, or their languages and culture.”