Vocabulary related to iron manufacture and iron-working in Saami languages

In this article, etymologies of the lexical set related to iron manufacture and iron-working in the Saami languages are examined. The aim is to examine, from a linguistic perspective, when Saami speakers started to manufacture and work iron and from which direction they learned these activities. The data consists of 32 words relating to iron. Only the most central terms of the lexical set have been included, namely terms for ‘iron’; ‘steel’; ‘ore’; ‘iron slag’; ‘forge (v.)’; ‘forge (n.), smithy’; ‘furnace’; ‘smith’; ‘coal; ember’; ‘bellows’; ‘pliers’; ‘hammer’; ‘anvil’. The data was collected from dictionaries of the Saami languages. According to the data analysis, it seems that Saami speakers received their iron-related vocabulary mainly from two directions: Proto-Scandinavian and Finnic/Finnish. The southwestern Saami languages which are today spoken in central Scandinavia and Lule Saami received the vocabulary mainly from Proto-Scandinavian. The more northern and northeastern languages have borrowed words from Finnic/Finnish.