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Lule Sami julevsáme
Spoken in:	Norway and Sweden
Total speakers:	~2,000
Language family:	Uralic  Finno-Ugric   Finno-Permic    Finno-Volgaic     Finno-Lappic      Sami       Western        Lule Sami
Writing system:	Latin alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	smj
ISO 639-3:	smj
Lule Sami is 4 on this map.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Lule Sami (julevsáme) is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken in Lule Lappmark, i.e., around Luleå Sweden and in the province of Nordland in Norway. It is written using an official Roman orthography.

Contents 1 Status 2 Grammar 2.1 Cases 2.1.1 Nominative 2.1.2 Genitive 2.1.3 Accusative 2.1.4 Inessive 2.1.5 Illative 2.1.6 Elative 2.1.7 Comitative 2.2 Pronouns 2.3 Verbs 2.3.1 Person 2.3.2 Mood 2.3.3 Grammatical number 2.3.4 Tense 2.3.5 Verbal nouns 2.3.6 Negative verb 3 Phonology 3.1 Stress 4 Writing system 5 References 6 External links

With 1,500 to 2,000 speakers it is the second largest of all Sami languages. It is reported that the number of native speakers is in sharp decline among the younger generations. The language has, however, been standardised in 1983 and elaborately cultivated ever since.

Lule Sámi has 8 cases:

Like the other Uralic languages, the nominative singular is unmarked and indicates the subject or a predicate. The nominative plural is also unmarked and always looks the same as the genitive singular.

The genitive singular is unmarked and looks the same as the nominative plural. The genitive plural is marked by an -j. The genitive is used:

• to indicate possession
• with prepositions
• with postpositions.

The accusative is the direct object case and it is marked with -v in the singular. In the plural, its marker is -t, which is preceded by the plural marker -j.

The inessive marker is -n in the singular and the plural, when it is then preceded by the plural marker -j. This case is used to indicate:

• where something is
• who has possession of something

The illative marker is -j in the singular and -da in the plural, which is preceded by the plural marker -i, making it look the same as the plural accusative. This case is used to indicate:

• where something is going
• who is receiving something
• the indirect object

The elative marker is -s in the singular and the plural, when it is then preceded by the plural marker -j. This case is used to indicate:

• where something is coming from

The comitative marker in the singular is -jn and -j in the plural, which means that it looks like the genitive plural. The comitative is used to state with whom or what something was done.

The personal pronouns have three numbers - singular, plural and dual. The following table contains personal pronouns in the nominative and genitive/accusative cases.

	English	nominative	English	genitive
First person (singular)	I	mån	my	muv
Second person (singular)	you (thou)	dån	your, yours	duv
Third person (singular)	he, she	sån	his, her	suv
First person (dual)	we (two)	måj	our	munnu
Second person (dual)	you (two)	dåj	your	dunnu
Third person (dual)	they (two)	såj	theirs	sunnu
First person (plural)	we	mij	our	mijá
Second person (plural)	you	dij	your	tijá
Third person (plural)	they	sij	their	sijá

The next table demonstrates the declension of a personal pronoun he/she (no gender distinction) in various cases:

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	sån	såj	sij
Genitive	suv	sunnu	sijá
Accusative	suv	sunnuv	sijáv
Inessive	sujna	sunnun	sijan
Illative	sunji	sunnuj	sidjij
Elative	sujsta	sunnus	sijas
Comitative	sujna	sunnujn	sijájn

Lule Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical persons:

• first person
• second person
• third person

Lule Sami has 4 grammatical moods:

• indicative
• imperative
• conditional
• potential

Lule Sami verbs conjugate for three grammatical numbers:

• singular
• dual
• plural

Lule Sami verbs has two simple tenses:

• past
• non-past

and 2 compound tenses:

• perfect
• pluperfect

Lule Sami, like Finnish, the other Sámi languages and Estonian, has a negative verb. In Lule Sami, the negative verb conjugates according to tense (past and non-past), mood (indicative and imperative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural).

The orthography used for Lule Sámi is written using an extended form of the Latin alphabet. There are few special characters, only a-acute and n-acute. The character n-acute (Ń/ń) is the eng sound found in the English word "song", [ŋ]. In place of n-acute (found in Unicode, but not in ASCII), many use ñ or even ng.

• Spiik, Nils-Erik: Lulesamisk grammatik
• Grundström, Harald: Lulesamisches Wörterbuch
• Kintel, Anders 1991: Syntaks og ordavledninger i lulesamisk. Kautokeino : Samisk utdanningsråd.
• Wiklund, K.B. 1890: Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilaisen seuran toimituksia ; 1

• Sámásta Lule Sami lessons and resources (in Swedish)
• Morphological analyzer for Lule Sámi
• Language generator for Lule Sámi
• Lule Sámi grammar in Norwegian(Currently only covers pronouns).
• Ådå Testamennta The New Testament in Lule Sámi (PDF)

Finno-Ugric languages
Ugric	Hungarian | Khanty | Mansi
Permic	Komi | Komi-Permyak | Udmurt
Finno-Volgaic	Mari | Erzya | Moksha | Merya† | Meshcherian† | Muromian†
Sami	Akkala Sami† | Inari Sami | Kemi Sami† | Kildin Sami | Lule Sami | Northern Sami | Pite Sami | Skolt Sami | Southern Sami | Ter Sami | Ume Sami
Baltic-Finnic	Estonian | Finnish | Ingrian | Karelian | Kven | Livonian | Ludic | Meänkieli | South Estonian | Veps | Votic | Võro † denotes extinct