a Pite Sámi legend from Arjeplog, from Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V (1893)

This short legend stands among the primeval legends that open Halász's collection. It was told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891. Two dogs meet, one lean and one fat: the first will go away from its stingy master, the second will not leave its good one, and the tale ends with the saying that goes with it.

Translation

Once, then, when two slorhtē met, one of those dogs was lean, but the other was fat, and the one that was lean said: "I shall go away; my master is stingy and starves me, and beats me as well."

But the other answered: "I shall not go, though; my master is good, he gives me butter-tuvā, skauča mūste vûjan puńuči (?); I do not want to go away from my master, though." The first one said in turn: "I am going all the same!" — And people also have this as a proverb: that a wicked and stingy man does not make a dog stay at all.

Colophon

Translated from the Pite Sámi of Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 16, p. 16, in the section of primeval legends. Halász took these texts down in 1891 at Saltdalen from Sámi of Arjeplog parish, and printed a Hungarian translation after each, which was not consulted: it was masked out of the page images before translation.

The words that decide the reading were checked in K. B. Wiklund's Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch (1890), in Lindahl and Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), in Halász's South Sámi dictionary (Svéd-lapp nyelv IV, 1891) and in Joshua Wilbur's A Grammar of Pite Saami (2014). Pētnaḳi, pētnaḳist, pētnaḳau are forms of "dog" (Wiklund s.v. pętnaɔke-); kaunaṭiḳan is "the two met" (Wiklund s.v. kǫunate-, "sich treffen"; Halász IV s.v. kaunetet); livāhk, livā’k is "lean" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. LIWAK, "defatigatus, uttröttad", said of horses and draught reindeer, and also "macilentus, mager"; the tale sets it against the fat dog); pɵʼiṭē is "fat" (Wiklund s.v. fǫuru-, where -puiete is "das fett"); saʼiḳē and sāikēs are "stingy" (Wiklund s.v. sai'ke-, attr. saikes, "geizig", Swedish snål); nälĕkūṭa is "starves" (Wiklund s.v. nęl'kute-, "hungern lassen"); slovvā is "beats" (Halász IV s.v. slöwui, "schlagen"); vastēt is "answered" (Wiklund s.v. vastete-, "antworten"); vûďďa- is "butter" (Wiklund s.v. vuɔʒa-, "butter, fett"), and vûjan is the same word in the inessive or essive ("in fat", "as fat"); punnṭe, punṭen is "master", the householder (Wiklund s.v. pon'ṭi-, "hausherr", from Norse bóndi); mūste is "from me" and muńī "to me" (Wilbur Table 6.1, muvvste, munje); ville is "besides, again" (Halász IV s.v. vielie, "mehr; noch; wieder; weiter"); kuit, kuiht is "though, all the same" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KUIT, "quidem, certe … tamen"); kalhkau is "I shall" (Wiklund s.v. kal'ka-, "sollen, werden"); copcuhte is "make stay" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. TSÅPTSOTET, "facere ut famuli in famulatu eodem permanendi lubentes sint", to make servants willing to stay in their service, from TSÅPTSOT, "fixum manere", said of servants who will not stay long with a master); vœʼlĕḳēt is "to go away"; obonis is "at all", with a negative (Wiklund s.v. oɓonis, "nur mit negat. = oɓo", and oɓo, "i o. gar nicht"; image); pahas is "wicked" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PAHA, pahas).

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: slorhtē, what the two were that met, is kept in Sámi (Halász IV's slohte, "Schloss", from Swedish slott, does not fit; Wiklund s.v. sor'ta-, "sorte, art", and s.v. slækta-, "Geschlecht", would give "two of a kind", but neither matches the form; that they are two dogs is plain from what follows). Tuvāu in vûďďa-tuvāu, and the clause skauča mūste vûjan puńuči, which Halász himself marked with a query, are not decided by the dictionaries and are kept in Sámi (skauča may be the word for "beard", Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SKAUTJA, "barba, skägg", but the clause is not decided). Jis in akta pālēn jis and tat mubbē jis is read as "then", "in turn", from the range of senses Halász IV gives (s.v. jis, "auch, und, wieder, dann"); kosse, "when", is read from context; and tat mubbē, who speaks the last words, is read as the first dog, since only it can say "I am going all the same". Pāhkū-vāďďasen, "as a proverb", is read as "word" and "gift" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WADDES, waddas, "donum, gåfva"), a saying handed on. The second dog's first speech is printed without an opening quotation mark; the English gives it the usual marks. Pite Sámi is close to Lule and South Sámi; where no dictionary of those languages decides a word, the reading is named here.

No English translation of this text is known to us.

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Source Text: Supcas pētnaḳi pirra

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 16, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling, with his query after one word. Line-end hyphens are joined; Halász's paragraph is divided here at the same place as the English.

akta pālēn jis, kosse kᵘœkte slorhtē kaunaṭiḳan, akta lī livāhk taiste pētnaḳist, vala mubbē pɵʼiṭē, te jahhtā tut, ku’te lī livā’k: «vœʼlĕḳēt kalhkau mon, mū punnṭe lē saʼiḳē ja nälĕkūṭa mū ja ville slovvā mū.»

vala tut mubbē vastēt: iu kuit mon vūlhkē, mū punnṭe lē pûrak, vaddā muńī vûďďa-tuvāu, skauča mūste vûjan puńuči (?) iu kuiht mon sitā vœʼlĕḳēt punṭen luhte.» tat mubbē jis jahhtā: «vūlhkau kuiht mon!» — ja tē almača itni tau āi pāhkū-vāďďasen, āhte ī pahas ja sāikēs almač obonis pētnaḳau copcuhte.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 16, p. 16. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the scan of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (REAL-EOD 4154). Halász's spelling is kept letter for letter, with his length marks, dots above and below, breves, raised vowels, œ, ɵ, the raised stroke of the checked syllable (written here ʼ), his punctuation, and his own query "(?)" after puńuči. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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