Papers by Olle Kejonen
Svenska landsmål och svenskt folkliv 2023 (146), 2024
Saami loan etymologies are presented for three Meänkieli nouns featuring the foreign consonant cl... more Saami loan etymologies are presented for three Meänkieli nouns featuring the foreign consonant cluster /tn/: katnanen : katnas- ‘hip bone’ (< North Saami gátnis : gádnás- ‘sacrum’), ketnia ‘protective spirit’ (< Lule Saami genij : gednih- ‘mythological subterranean being’), and tutna ‘owl’ (< North Saami dutna id.).
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Där Östersjön är Västersjön – Seal, kus Läänemeri on Idameri: Festskrift till Virve och Raimo Raag – Pühendusteos Virve ja Raimo Raagile, 2020
This paper describes the loss of a relative age distinction in the terms for maternal aunts and p... more This paper describes the loss of a relative age distinction in the terms for maternal aunts and paternal uncles in several varieties of North Saami, Lule Saami and South Saami (Saamic, Uralic) spoken in Sweden and Norway. I conclude that there is a strong tendency for the words traditionally meaning ‘father’s younger brother’ and ‘mother’s younger sister’ to obtain a general meaning ‘father’s brother’ and ‘mother’s sister’ respectively, while the corresponding words for elder siblings of the parents are rendered obsolete. The analysis is based on original interviews, as well as on published and previously unpublished word collections.
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Language Documentation and Description, 2020
North Saami is a Uralic language spoken by the indigenous Saami minority in the Arctic region of ... more North Saami is a Uralic language spoken by the indigenous Saami minority in the Arctic region of Norway, Sweden and Finland. In this paper, I outline the current situation of the language and present my own work in documenting and describing the endangered and underdescribed Čohkkiras variety, spoken in Sweden and Norway.
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Popular scientific by Olle Kejonen
Vuovddesáme – Skogssamer i Flakaberg, 2022
Popular scientific paper on Björn Collinder's (1894–1983) work documenting the Lule Saami Forest ... more Popular scientific paper on Björn Collinder's (1894–1983) work documenting the Lule Saami Forest dialect in the 1920s and 1930s.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2022. Björn Collinder och den lulesamiska skogsdialekten. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Vuovddesáme – Skogssamer i Flakaberg. Stockholm: Vulkan. 118–124.
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Bringing our languages home: samisk / svensk version, 2023
Popular scientific paper on the situation of the Saamic languages in Sweden (North Saami, Lule Sa... more Popular scientific paper on the situation of the Saamic languages in Sweden (North Saami, Lule Saami, Pite Saami, Ume Saami, South Saami). Swedish abstract:
I Sverige talas fem samiska språk: nordsamiska, lulesamiska, pitesamiska, umesamiska och sydsamiska. Samtliga fem språk är hotade, även om situationen för de olika språken skiljer sig åt i många avseenden. I det här kapitlet beskrivs förutsättningarna för de samiska språkens fortlevnad och utveckling i Sverige, bland annat utifrån deras respektive vitalitet, skriftspråk, medieutbud och undervisningssituation. I ett appendix listas resurser som kan vara värdefulla för den som vill lära sig något av de samiska språken, såsom ordböcker, frasordlistor och läroböcker.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2023. De samiska språken i Sverige – en introduktion. In: Hinton, Leanne & Sparrock, Sylvia (eds.). Bringing our languages home: samisk / svensk version. Kiruna: Sametinget. 29–52.
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Samefolket, 2023
Popular scientific text presenting a short story in North Saami about the old church of Rounala i... more Popular scientific text presenting a short story in North Saami about the old church of Rounala in Giron (Kiruna) municipality, Sweden, likely noted down in 1941. Errata: ahkitvuođa gokte sån > ahkitvuohta gokte son.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2023. En sägen om Rounala kyrka. Samefolket. 104 (1): 30–31.
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Samefolket, 2021
Popular scientific text presenting four short stories about contagious diseases, noted down in Sw... more Popular scientific text presenting four short stories about contagious diseases, noted down in Swedish in the Lule Saami forest area by clergyman Otto Lindgren (1884–1952) in the early 1900s.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. ”Tauta är ett levande väsen” – skogssamiska berättelser om sjukdom och smitta. Samefolket. 102 (5): 34–35.
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Unna Saiva – en skändad samisk offerplats, 2021
Popular scientific paper presenting a tale about the Saami sacrificial site of Unna Sájvva (Lills... more Popular scientific paper presenting a tale about the Saami sacrificial site of Unna Sájvva (Lillsaivis) in Jiellevárre (Gällivare) municipality, Sweden, noted down in the Lule Saami Forest dialect in 1912. Two shorter texts, noted down at the same time, treat the Saami ceremonial drum and traditions related to the Saami bear cult.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. Om offer – en berättelse från 1912. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Unna Saiva – en skändad samisk offerplats. Stockholm: Vulkan. 24–27.
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Book Reviews by Olle Kejonen
Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, 2023
Review of: Svonni, Mikael. 2023. Davvisámegiela-ruoŧagiela, ruoŧagiela-davvisámegiela sátnegirj... more Review of: Svonni, Mikael. 2023. Davvisámegiela-ruoŧagiela, ruoŧagiela-davvisámegiela sátnegirji = Nordsamisk-svensk, svensk-nordsamisk ordbok. Kiruna: Ravda Lágádus.
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Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, 2023
Review of: Skåden, Asbjørg (ed.). 2022. Márkku sánit. Ravda Lágádus. (Android app.)
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Multiethnica, 2019
Review of Mikael Svonni's North Saami grammar (2018).
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Svenska landsmål och svenskt folkliv, 2019
Review of Lars-Gunnar Larsson's edition of a Saami wordlist from the late 1700s.
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Linguistica Uralica, 2019
Review of the Ume Saami–Swedish, Swedish–Ume Saami dictionary of Henrik Barruk (2018).
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MA Thesis by Olle Kejonen
This study deals with grammatical number in the North Saami dialect of Ofoten and Sør-Troms, Norw... more This study deals with grammatical number in the North Saami dialect of Ofoten and Sør-Troms, Norway. Five informants were interviewed and the material was collected both through free speech and elicitation. The study shows that in this dialect, plural forms are used when referring to two individuals. One of the informants is able to produce personal pronouns in the dual, but even this informant usually uses plural forms when referring to two individuals. The material from Ofoten and Sør-Troms is also compared with material from the Guovdageaidnu, Gárasavvon and Čohkkiras dialects.
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Books by Olle Kejonen
Pedagogical description of the Lule Saami verbal inflection. Available online: https://julevsamev... more Pedagogical description of the Lule Saami verbal inflection. Available online: https://julevsameverba.wordpress.com/
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Conference Presentations by Olle Kejonen
MFL1: Minor Finnic Languages 1 – Historical and Current Perspectives, Uppsala, 2022
The dialect of Meänkieli traditionally spoken in the village of Nattavaara in Jellivaara (Gälliva... more The dialect of Meänkieli traditionally spoken in the village of Nattavaara in Jellivaara (Gällivare) municipality is arguably the most innovative of all Meänkieli varieties. Among the characteristic features of this dialect, there is a metathesis *tk > kt, as in *matka > makta ‘trip’ (Airila 1912: 19). While such a metathesis is attested also in other languages (see Blevins & Garrett 2004: 137–138), I argue that this specific sound change has been induced not by language-internal factors, but by contact with the co-territorial Lule Saami language.
In doing so, I expand on the claim of Airila (1912: 22–23, cf. Kettunen 1930: 97–98) that this, as well as several other characteristic features of Nattavaara Meänkieli are due to Saami influence. More specifically, I argue that Nattavaara Meänkieli has adopted the Lule Saami phonotactic constraint against the cluster tk, applying it to native words with the metathesized cluster kt as a result. Additionally, I describe a parallel case of metathesis found in some varieties of North Saami.
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Descriptive grammars and typology, Helsinki, 2019
The Saamic languages and dialects are traditionally described as a linguistic continuum stretchin... more The Saamic languages and dialects are traditionally described as a linguistic continuum stretching from central Sweden and Norway in the southwest via northern Finland to the Russian Kola peninsula in the northeast. In the seasonal migrations of Saami reindeer herders, national borders have historically been of little importance. Consequently, descriptions of the Saamic varieties made during the 1900s have largely disregarded national borders as linguistic dividing lines or even declared them irrelevant in the description of Saamic dialects (see for instance Nielsen 1926: VIII). In this presentation, I argue that for some syntactic constructions, the Swedish-Norwegian national border does in fact function as a dialectal border as well. I further argue that these isoglosses have emerged as a result of language contact with Norwegian (North Germanic, Indo-European) and, to some extent, Meänkieli (Finnic, Uralic). As noted by Ylikoski (2009: 201–202), North Saami is unusual in a European perspective, being a minority language under severe pressure of majority languages from two families unrelated to each other. The analysis presented here is based on preliminary findings from an ongoing project aiming at producing a corpus-based and typologically informed grammar of North Saami, based on the underdescribed and endangered Čohkkiras
dialect, spoken in Sweden and Norway.
The formation of polar interrogatives is given special attention as an example of variation within Čohkkiras North Saami. In the eastern subdialect, spoken in Sweden, polar interrogatives are marked simultaneously by constituent fronting and a question marker =go ~ =gos (1). In the western dialect, spoken in Norway, polar questions can be formed with mere constituent fronting (2).
(1) osttiide=go doai mielkki?
buy.2DU.PST=Q 2DU.NOM milk.ACC.SG
‘Did you (two) buy milk?
(2) lehpet dii oastán biepmu?
be.2PL.PRS 2PL.NOM buy.PRF food.ACC.SG
‘Have you bought food?’
I argue that the western construction is a result of intense contact with Norwegian, and I also make some comparisons with other Saamic languages. Paradoxically, in drawing closer to the majority language Norwegian, the western subdialect favors a typologically unusual way of marking polar questions, almost exclusively attested in Western Europe (Dryer 2013).
References
Dryer, Matthew S. (2013). Polar Questions. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: http://wals.info/chapter/116
Nielsen, Konrad (1926). Lærebok i lappisk: utarbeidet på grunnlag av dialektene i Polmak, Karasjok og Kautokeino. Oslo: Brøgger.
Ylikoski, Jussi (2009). Non-finites in North Saami. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.
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Sámegiela ja sámi girjjálašvuođa symposia, Oulu, 2018
Presentation on variation regarding predicative possession in Čohkkiras North Saami. In the Easte... more Presentation on variation regarding predicative possession in Čohkkiras North Saami. In the Eastern dialect of this variety (spoken in Sweden), a locational possessive is used, just as in the North Saami standard language. In the Western dialect (spoken in Norway), a have-possessive with the verb atnit ‘to have’ is used instead. The latter construction – not described in grammars of North Saami – is used with all kinds of possessors and possessees, regardless of animacy, alienability, polarity, tense etc. While arguably a result of contact with Norwegian (which similarly has a have-possessive), the construction with atnit ‘to have’ is attested already in the oldest sources on the variety, dating back more than 150 years. Identical constructions are also attested in Lule Saami, Pite Saami, Ume Saami and South Saami. The locational possessive of the Eastern dialect may in turn have been reinforced by contact with Meänkieli (which similarly has a locational possessive).
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Other by Olle Kejonen
Index to Lehtiranta's (2015) etymological dictionary. Originally made for personal use, but may p... more Index to Lehtiranta's (2015) etymological dictionary. Originally made for personal use, but may perhaps be useful also for others. Notation according to Koponen (2022).
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Index to Lehtiranta's (2015) etymological dictionary. Originally made for personal use, but may p... more Index to Lehtiranta's (2015) etymological dictionary. Originally made for personal use, but may perhaps be useful also for others. Notation according to Koponen (2022).
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Papers by Olle Kejonen
Popular scientific by Olle Kejonen
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2022. Björn Collinder och den lulesamiska skogsdialekten. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Vuovddesáme – Skogssamer i Flakaberg. Stockholm: Vulkan. 118–124.
I Sverige talas fem samiska språk: nordsamiska, lulesamiska, pitesamiska, umesamiska och sydsamiska. Samtliga fem språk är hotade, även om situationen för de olika språken skiljer sig åt i många avseenden. I det här kapitlet beskrivs förutsättningarna för de samiska språkens fortlevnad och utveckling i Sverige, bland annat utifrån deras respektive vitalitet, skriftspråk, medieutbud och undervisningssituation. I ett appendix listas resurser som kan vara värdefulla för den som vill lära sig något av de samiska språken, såsom ordböcker, frasordlistor och läroböcker.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2023. De samiska språken i Sverige – en introduktion. In: Hinton, Leanne & Sparrock, Sylvia (eds.). Bringing our languages home: samisk / svensk version. Kiruna: Sametinget. 29–52.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2023. En sägen om Rounala kyrka. Samefolket. 104 (1): 30–31.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. ”Tauta är ett levande väsen” – skogssamiska berättelser om sjukdom och smitta. Samefolket. 102 (5): 34–35.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. Om offer – en berättelse från 1912. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Unna Saiva – en skändad samisk offerplats. Stockholm: Vulkan. 24–27.
Book Reviews by Olle Kejonen
MA Thesis by Olle Kejonen
Books by Olle Kejonen
Conference Presentations by Olle Kejonen
In doing so, I expand on the claim of Airila (1912: 22–23, cf. Kettunen 1930: 97–98) that this, as well as several other characteristic features of Nattavaara Meänkieli are due to Saami influence. More specifically, I argue that Nattavaara Meänkieli has adopted the Lule Saami phonotactic constraint against the cluster tk, applying it to native words with the metathesized cluster kt as a result. Additionally, I describe a parallel case of metathesis found in some varieties of North Saami.
dialect, spoken in Sweden and Norway.
The formation of polar interrogatives is given special attention as an example of variation within Čohkkiras North Saami. In the eastern subdialect, spoken in Sweden, polar interrogatives are marked simultaneously by constituent fronting and a question marker =go ~ =gos (1). In the western dialect, spoken in Norway, polar questions can be formed with mere constituent fronting (2).
(1) osttiide=go doai mielkki?
buy.2DU.PST=Q 2DU.NOM milk.ACC.SG
‘Did you (two) buy milk?
(2) lehpet dii oastán biepmu?
be.2PL.PRS 2PL.NOM buy.PRF food.ACC.SG
‘Have you bought food?’
I argue that the western construction is a result of intense contact with Norwegian, and I also make some comparisons with other Saamic languages. Paradoxically, in drawing closer to the majority language Norwegian, the western subdialect favors a typologically unusual way of marking polar questions, almost exclusively attested in Western Europe (Dryer 2013).
References
Dryer, Matthew S. (2013). Polar Questions. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: http://wals.info/chapter/116
Nielsen, Konrad (1926). Lærebok i lappisk: utarbeidet på grunnlag av dialektene i Polmak, Karasjok og Kautokeino. Oslo: Brøgger.
Ylikoski, Jussi (2009). Non-finites in North Saami. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.
Other by Olle Kejonen
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2022. Björn Collinder och den lulesamiska skogsdialekten. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Vuovddesáme – Skogssamer i Flakaberg. Stockholm: Vulkan. 118–124.
I Sverige talas fem samiska språk: nordsamiska, lulesamiska, pitesamiska, umesamiska och sydsamiska. Samtliga fem språk är hotade, även om situationen för de olika språken skiljer sig åt i många avseenden. I det här kapitlet beskrivs förutsättningarna för de samiska språkens fortlevnad och utveckling i Sverige, bland annat utifrån deras respektive vitalitet, skriftspråk, medieutbud och undervisningssituation. I ett appendix listas resurser som kan vara värdefulla för den som vill lära sig något av de samiska språken, såsom ordböcker, frasordlistor och läroböcker.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2023. De samiska språken i Sverige – en introduktion. In: Hinton, Leanne & Sparrock, Sylvia (eds.). Bringing our languages home: samisk / svensk version. Kiruna: Sametinget. 29–52.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2023. En sägen om Rounala kyrka. Samefolket. 104 (1): 30–31.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. ”Tauta är ett levande väsen” – skogssamiska berättelser om sjukdom och smitta. Samefolket. 102 (5): 34–35.
Full reference: Kejonen, Olle. 2021. Om offer – en berättelse från 1912. In: Andersson, Kerstin (ed.). Unna Saiva – en skändad samisk offerplats. Stockholm: Vulkan. 24–27.
In doing so, I expand on the claim of Airila (1912: 22–23, cf. Kettunen 1930: 97–98) that this, as well as several other characteristic features of Nattavaara Meänkieli are due to Saami influence. More specifically, I argue that Nattavaara Meänkieli has adopted the Lule Saami phonotactic constraint against the cluster tk, applying it to native words with the metathesized cluster kt as a result. Additionally, I describe a parallel case of metathesis found in some varieties of North Saami.
dialect, spoken in Sweden and Norway.
The formation of polar interrogatives is given special attention as an example of variation within Čohkkiras North Saami. In the eastern subdialect, spoken in Sweden, polar interrogatives are marked simultaneously by constituent fronting and a question marker =go ~ =gos (1). In the western dialect, spoken in Norway, polar questions can be formed with mere constituent fronting (2).
(1) osttiide=go doai mielkki?
buy.2DU.PST=Q 2DU.NOM milk.ACC.SG
‘Did you (two) buy milk?
(2) lehpet dii oastán biepmu?
be.2PL.PRS 2PL.NOM buy.PRF food.ACC.SG
‘Have you bought food?’
I argue that the western construction is a result of intense contact with Norwegian, and I also make some comparisons with other Saamic languages. Paradoxically, in drawing closer to the majority language Norwegian, the western subdialect favors a typologically unusual way of marking polar questions, almost exclusively attested in Western Europe (Dryer 2013).
References
Dryer, Matthew S. (2013). Polar Questions. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: http://wals.info/chapter/116
Nielsen, Konrad (1926). Lærebok i lappisk: utarbeidet på grunnlag av dialektene i Polmak, Karasjok og Kautokeino. Oslo: Brøgger.
Ylikoski, Jussi (2009). Non-finites in North Saami. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.