At home again - Ruovttus fas

(North Sami) Ráhkestan Sámi gielaid ja kultuvrra, muhto lea hui stuohtas leat ruovttus fas.

(Finnish) Rakastan Saamenmaan kieliä ja kulttuuria, mutta on todella mukavaa olla kotona taas.

I love Sami land's languages and culture but it's still very nice to be at home again.

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I got home last night after a very long drive. Sápmi was extremely beautiful but after being surrounded by reindeer, pine trees and sun light 24/7 (the sun doesn't set at all in the summer) it was very nice to see some birch forest and big lakes again. I'll add some pictures when I've got more time.

The greatest thing is that I got to speak some davvisámegiella. Some of the native speakers were astonished by the fact that I could speak their language - they were very eager to speak about it and wanted to hear all about my language studies. They also corrected my sentences when I made mistakes and they gave me some useful tips and instructions. 

An old Sami man told me about the diminutive case system which I hadn't heard of before and which my study book doesn't mention at all (thank you very much !). Some adjectives trigger a case system called the diminutive (deminutiivi in Finnish) - usually adjectives like "small" and "tiny". There is a diminutive suffix in Finnish (-nen) but is actually more used in literature.

e.g. tyttönen could be translated as "little girl"

bás prinssaš is "little prince" in English (and is actually the name of Antoine de Saint-Éxupery's book Le Petit Prince) - bás (or unna) is an adjective in an attribute form and is one of the few adjectives that make a noun change its form, and prinssaš is the singular diminutive nominative form of prinsa.

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I enjoyed the trip and will add some pictures sooner or later.