Page 173 - FUD20

THE EARLIEST CONTACTS BETWEEN SCANDINAVIANS AND S OUTH SAAMI
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beginning of the 16th century.3 The results of Sköld (1985) and Rydving
(2012), however, indicate that the southern Saami have been there before the
beginning of the 15th century. It must once again be underlined that the forms
in Hovre- are almost exclusively restricted to southern South Saami. It is not
attested in more northerly Saami languages.
Would then the difference between a couple of centuries in the dating of
the South Saami – Scandinavian contacts be of such a great importance? Yes,
it certainly would, depending on the kind of criteria that it is based on. The
important difference between the datings of Nielsen and Wiklund and the
dating based on SaaS. hovre- is that the latter one is supported by an undis-
puted sound-criterium. Nielsen’s and Wiklund’s, on the other hand, is an es-
timation based on an idea about Saami immigration. To put it frankly: it is
pure guesswork.
If one were to follow Nielsen’s dating, one would have to assume that there
elapsed some 200 or 300 years before Proto-Saami *θ had changed into t in
the Saami language in Härjedalen. That would be an impossibility. By the be-
ginning of the 18th century Saami was growing into a written language. The
amount of texts varied from region to region and the written language can be
more or less obscure, but the general picture is getting clearer and clearer and
the dating of the texts is certain. An earlier dating of the Saami presence in
the southermost areas is further supported by many circumstances, such as
the general differences in snow terminology pointed out by Magga (2012).
So, if there was a desparate need – for some incomprehensible reason – to
declare that the contacts between the South Saami and the Scandinavians had
started after 1500, it would be necessary to explain how an occlusive in
Scandinavian could be rendered by a South Saami fricative. Such efforts
would probably be as convincing as an explanation that the South Saami
word Hovre was taken over from Icelandic, where the fricative has remained.
Furthermore, Wessén’s dating ”at the latest 1400” is a termiunus ante
quem and according to Sköld there was a period of almost 700 years, during
which the word could be taken over and result in a form with an initial h-.
So, the difference between the datings of Nielsen and Wiklund and that of
3 A frequently used argument against an early presence of the Saami in their present-day
areas has been the lack of old Saami place-names (to this discussion see, e.g., Zachrisson
1997: 18). Proponents of the theory of an old Saami presence have then, more or less suc-
cessfully, tried to find Saami place-names that reflect very old stages in the development of
Scandinavian languages. When it comes to place-names, however, it must never be
forgotten that mapping has always been in the hands of the majority population.