The British media BBC interviews Pentti Pieski, a translator based in Sami, north of Finland, and a tourist worker. Pieski is concerned about climate change and, consequently, about the loss of Samian languages. Sami is a country divided between Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia. Climate change has an impact on the life of pain and on the activities they have maintained for centuries, such as salmon fishing and reindeer care. If traditional lifestyles change, languages are also changing.

In the last three years, the Piqui Sami has not gone to the Teno River to fish salmon, the governments of Finland and Norway have banned fishing for salmon shortages. If you are not going to fish, there is no dialogue about salmon and fishing, you do not have to talk to anyone to make the preparations, you will not be with anyone while they fish in the fire, “there is no dialogue and some languages are disappearing.”

According to UNESCO, there are ten Sami languages and they are all in danger, at least one is considered missing. The most spoken samier has between 20,000 and 30,000 speakers in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The second most important language is 2,000 speakers, while the rest has a maximum of hundreds.

No spring salmon

Pieski, a fisherman, recalled that the word jieknagusolli is one of the words in danger of extinction. It means ‘spring salmon’ and less and less is being used. In spring they call the salmon that appears in the river when the ice breaks. Before banning fishing, the fishing season was restricted by a shortage of salmon, and the season starts on 1 June. By then the ice of the river is already melted and fishermen no longer talk about salmon in early spring. Jiekhegolli becomes a word to talk about the past.

360 Ways to Say Snow

Several researchers, leveraging the wisdom of the reindeer guardians, analyze the words to name snow and ice and have over 300 listings. Many of these words are intimately related to the care of reindeer and the ecology of reindeer. For example, a word can tell you what snow looks like for snow deer to find food underneath; or whether deer keepers can easily detect fingerprints in that snow; or whether they can walk comfortably on it. Some of these words no longer need them because climate change is changing and the kind of snow and the time they want to designate is disappearing.

One of those words with many options to lose is ealàt. It refers to a particular snow state: snow is thin and reindeer have no trouble getting lower lichens, as there are no ice sheets between them. They're quality lichens, they're not wet. Reindeer doesn't eat mold licen. So, this word provides information about snow, ice and the state of food.