Ter Sámi

(2006)|alt= In the end of the 19th century, there were six Ter Sámi villages in the eastern part of the Kola Peninsula, with a total population of approximately 450. In 2004, there were approximately 100 ethnic Ter Sámi of whom two elderly persons speak the language; the rest have shifted their language to Russian. The rapid decline in the number of speakers was caused by Soviet collectivisation, in the 1930s, and the largest Ter Sámi village, Yokanga, was declared "perspectiveless" and its inhabitants were forced to move to the Gremikha military base. ==Documentation==

There are no educational materials or facilities in Ter Sámi, and the language has no standardized orthography. The language is incompletely studied and documented, though text specimens and audio recordings as well as dictionaries for linguistic purposes exist. == Phonology ==

Consonants • All consonants except for /j/ may be palatalized [ʲ]. • Consonants /t, d/ can also sound as half-palatalized. Vowels • After palatalized consonants, is realized as . ==Writing system==

A spelling system for Sámi languages using the Latin alphabet and based on Skolt Sámi was developed in the 1930s. Oktyabrina Voronova published the only poetry booklet in Ter Sámi in 1989 using an orthography based on the Cyrillic Kildin Sámi orthography of 1982. == Morphology ==

Ter Sámi has 8 cases, Nominative, Genitive, Accusative, Essive, Inessive-Lative, Dative-Illative, Abessive, and Comitative. Examples of the genitive (in the UPA) = raining cloud = slaughter of deer = German inhabitant = Russian boys Plurals In the nominative case, the base word changes when a plural is made. The word ku 'who' in the cases. == Vocabulary ==