a song from Härjedalen, from Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (1876)

A tiny South Sámi joik in the form of a dialogue between two summer creatures. The Sámi poet Lars Fjellner had it from Härjedalen, in the far south of the Sámi lands in Sweden, and dictated it to Otto Donner, who printed it in 1876 and noted that the same tune was known at Karesuando and across Lapland. The Hopper asks the mosquito what work it does in summer: the mosquito joiks, and the Hopper leaps.

Translation

The Hopper asks the mosquito:
What do you work at, come summer? —
— I joik. What do you do yourself? —
I leap.

Colophon

Translated from the Sámi of Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 14. Donner wrote it down from the dictation of the Sámi poet Lars Fjellner, who had it from Härjedalen; Donner adds that the same tune is known at Karesuando and across Lapland. He warns that the language of Fjellner's pieces is faulty and that Fjellner could not always explain obscure phrases. Donner printed a Finnish translation after each song; it was not consulted. The text used is the Project Gutenberg transcription of Donner's book, with the Sámi lines proofed against the Sámi of his German edition, Lieder der Lappen, 1876.

The song is not in North Sámi but in the South Sámi of Härjedalen, written in Fjellner's spelling. Its words were checked in Ignácz Halász's South Sámi dictionary (Svéd-lapp nyelv IV, 1891), in Lindahl and Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), in K. B. Wiklund's Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch (1890), and in J. A. Friis's Ordbog over det lappiske Sprog (1887). In the title, čụö́ihkan is "of the mosquito" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Tjuoik, "culex, mygg"; Friis 1887 s.v. Čuoikka; Halász gives the southern čụik, čuö́ika as "fly", IV s.v. čụik); "mosquito" is kept because the creature that joiks in the song is the nuigo of the first line. Vụ́öle is a song, a joik (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Wuole, "cantilena, visa, sång"; Halász IV s.v. vüolie, "Lied"). In the first line the mosquito has another name, nuigo, here in the accusative nuigūb (Friis 1887 s.v. Nuigo, a Swedish-side word, "culex, Myg"). Ńulčūdejē is read as "one who hops", the Hopper, from the verb "to hop, to jump" (Halász IV s.v. ńulhčet, "springen, hüpfen", with the same initial ń; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Njultjet and Njultjot); the Sámi does not say whether it is a grasshopper or a flea, and neither does the English. Gahpadam is "I leap" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Kappet and Kappetet, "salire, hoppa"; Wiklund s.v. kaɔpa-, "springen, hüpfen", and kaɔpate-, "einmal hüpfen"). Meitē is "what" (Halász IV s.v. mi); parkā "you work" (Halász IV s.v. pąräkat); jụö́igam "I joik" (Halász IV s.v. juóiket); jēš "yourself" (Halász IV s.v. ice). The verbs of the dialogue are in the present tense, and so is the English: jụö́igam and gahpadam end in -am, like the first-person present šittḁm "I become" that Halász records for Härjedalen (IV s.v. šittet).

Two words are less sure. Pöttom is read as "come", the past participle of "to come", which Halász records for Härjedalen as pōḁtoma (IV s.v. poatet); kiesien is "in summer" (Halász IV s.v. kiesie, tan kiesien "in this summer"). Together they are rendered "come summer", that is, when summer has come; the participle may instead go with "you", "you who have come in summer". Dihčī is printed so, with a d, and is in no dictionary; it is read from context as "asks", because a colon and a question follow it. Its tense is a reading as well: Halász prints third-person past forms ending in -i or -ī in other southern dialects (šitti "became", IV s.v. šittet; puitī "came", IV s.v. poatet), so "asked" is as possible as "asks". No word is left in Sámi.

No English translation of this song is known to us.

© 2026 Tianmu Anglican Church. This English translation is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use with credit to the Good Works Library, tianmu.org. The source text keeps its own terms. For other uses, see Rights and Reuse.

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Source Text: Čụö́ihkan vụ́öle

The Sámi text as printed by Donner (1876), no. 14, from the Project Gutenberg transcription, proofed against his German edition.

Ńulčūdejē nuigūb dihčī:
Meitē tōn kiesien pöttom parkā? —
— Jụö́igam mon. Meitē tōn jēš? —
Gahpadam mon.

Source Colophon

Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 14. Public domain. The text is from the Project Gutenberg transcription of the book (PG #73262, 2024), with the Sámi lines proofed against the Sámi of Donner's German edition, Lieder der Lappen (1876; Internet Archive identifier liederderlappen00unkngoog). Donner prints no verse numbers with a song this short. His letters and dashes are kept as the transcription gives them, including č, ụ, ō, ū and ē; the marks the transcription lacks, the Č and stacked accents of the title, the Ń of the first line and the ö́ of Jụö́igam, are restored from the German edition. In the second line the German edition prints pottom, without the two dots; the transcription's pöttom is kept. The German edition also prints dihčī with a d.

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