Saami
/ˈsɑːmi/noun
A member of the Indigenous Sámi peoples of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, or relating to their languages and culture.
Did you know?The spelling “Saami” is an English form of the endonym “Sámi”; older outsiders often called the people “Lapps,” a label many Sámi reject today.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Samic
Proto-Samic
*sāmē
“A reconstructed ancestral form believed to underlie the modern ethnonym; its ultimate origin is uncertain.”
Medieval period
Old Norse
Finnar
“An Old Norse name for the Sámi and, in some contexts, other northern peoples; it is not the direct ancestor of Saami.”
16th–17th Century
Swedish/Finnish
Same / Saame
“Early recorded forms used in Scandinavian and Finnish sources for the Sámi people.”
17th Century
Sámi languages
Sápmi
“The Sámi name for their homeland and cultural region across northern Fennoscandia.”
Modern English
English
Saami / Sámi
“The modern English ethnonym and adjective for the Indigenous Sámi people, languages, and culture.”