a song from Sorsele, from Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (1876)
A six-line song from Sorsele in Swedish Lapland, printed by Otto Donner in his 1876 book of Sámi songs; he names no singer. It is built like a riddle, as question and answer in two short rounds. One voice asks how many times the Sunday ringing happens "at your place", and the answer is three times; it asks how many times the priest's work babbles there, and the answer is two times.
Translation
How many times does the Sunday ringing
happen at your place? —
Three times.
How many times does the priest's work
babble a little at your place? —
Two times?
Colophon
Translated from the Sámi of Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 23, a song from Sorsele; Donner names no singer. 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 language is not North Sámi. It is the Sámi of Sorsele, between the Ume and Pite Sámi country of Swedish Lapland, in Donner's phonetic script. Words were checked in E. Lindahl and J. Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), K. B. Wiklund's Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch (1890), I. Halász's South Sámi dictionary (1891), J. A. Friis's Ordbog over det lappiske Sprog (1887) and J. Wilbur's Grammar of Pite Saami (2014). The frame of the song is sure: Lindahl–Öhrling give Kallen aiken?, "how many times?" (s.v. Aike), Kolmen aiken, "three times" (s.v. Kolm), and qwekten aiken, "two times" (in their Swedish index, under Två); tīja paikin is "at your place", with tīja (in the second round printed tīa), "your", said to more than one (Lindahl–Öhrling's grammar, plural tije, "you"; Wilbur, Table 6.1, genitive dijá), and paikin, "at the place" (Wiklund s.v. paiᵉɔke-, "Ort, Stelle, Gegend"; Friis s.v. Baikke); pappo is the priest (Friis s.v. Bappa; Lindahl–Öhrling, under Präst, pappa). Soittaladda is read as "happens, comes about, again and again", from såitet, to happen (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Såitet, "contingere, evenire, hända"; Friis s.v. Soittet; Wiklund s.v. soiᵉɔte-, "geschehen, sich ereignen"), with the ending of a verb of repeated action. Tihpạrdạsta is from tippertet, to chatter, babble (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Tippertet, "garrire, nugari, sqvallra, pladdra"), in a lesser form: "babble a little". Three words are read partly from context. Sodnu is read as "Sunday", the first part of the word for that day (Wiklund s.v. sodno-pæivi, "Sonntag"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Sodnopeiwe); it could also be the pronoun "the two of them" (Halász s.v. satnā', "sie beide", Stensele sotnuoi), which would make the first question "how many times does the ringing of the two of them happen". Skille is read as the noun "ringing": the dictionaries give only the verb, to ring or tinkle (Friis s.v. Skillat, "tinnire, klinge, ringe"; Wiklund s.v. skila-, "klingen"). Parge is read as the noun "work" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Pargo, "labor, opus, arbete"; Wiklund s.v. paraka-, "arbeiten"; Halász s.v. parähkä, Stensele parăkuo, "Arbeit, Tat"), standing as skille stands in the first round; it could also be a form of the verb "to work". A reading with two verbs in each round is equally possible: skille "rings" beside Soittaladda, and parge "works" beside Tihpạrdạsta, so that the first round asks how many times Sunday rings and comes about at your place, and the second how many times the priest works and babbles a little there. The English keeps the noun reading, which matches the two rounds word for word; the dictionaries do not decide between the two. The question mark after the last answer is printed as in the 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: Kuökten aiken
The Sámi text as printed by Donner (1876), no. 23, from the Project Gutenberg transcription, proofed against his German edition.
Kạllen aiken sodnu skille
Soittaladda tīja paikin? —
Kolmạn aiken.
Kạllen aiken pappo parge
Tihpạrdạsta tīa paikin? —
Kuö́kten aiken?
Source Colophon
Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 23, a song from Sorsele. Public domain. Text 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 numbers every tenth line in his longer songs; no number falls within a song of six lines, so none is left out here. Donner's phonetic letters are kept as printed, including ạ, ī and ö. In the last line the German edition prints an acute over the ö, Kuö́kten, which the Project Gutenberg text does not have; the line follows the German edition, and the title keeps the transcription's Kuökten. Tīja (second line) and tīa (fifth line) are both as printed, and so is the question mark after the last answer.
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