A short documentary film about Inari (Aanaar) Saami language revitalisation in North East of Finnish Lapland. A story of a grandmother, Nuuvdi Ailâ, who starts speaking her mother language again to her grandchildren even though she has been incabable of transmitting her own native language to her own children. Aanaar Saami has about 350 speakers. At the end of 1980's there were only two families where children were native Aanaar Saami speakers. The working age generation of speakers was also nearly lost and only elder speakers remained. However, even most elders did no longer use the language. Through language nest activities (a method adopted from the Maoris of NZ) and complementary adult language education the language community is now reviving in all the age groups. The language has become home language again and at school it is possible to get Aanaar Saami instruction in almost all the subjects at elementary/comprehensive/primary school.

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  Tove Skutnabb-Kangas 4520 days ago

  A fantastic documentary! A book related to it will be out in February 2013: Revitalise Indigenous Languages! How to recreate a lost working-age generation Marja-Liisa Olthuis – Suvi Kivelä – Tove Skutnabb-Kanga Bristol: Multilingual Matters Series Linguistic Diversity and Language Rights http://www.multilingual-matters.com/results.asp?sf1=keyword&st1=ref_no&sqf=/7:'Linguistic%20Diversity%20and%20Language%20Rights' In press; expected publishing date February 2013 For details, see my home page: www.Tove-Skutnabb-Kangas.org, Recent books