Discussions on the intergenerational transmission of the Sámi languages in Finland

In the context of language shift and revitalization, speech communities of endangered languages often struggle with the transmission of their languages from one generation to another. This chapter focuses on the transmission of the Inari, North, and Skolt Sámi languages in Finland. The study’s main data consists of recorded livestreams of Kielineuvola, language consultation services for Sámi and Sámi-speaking families. In these livestreams, I examine questions that parents addressed to Kielineuvola, and the discussion around these questions by the counselors and experts of Sámi languages and children’s multilingualism. Another part of the data includes news items and reports related to intergenerational language transmission, published on the news platform of Yle Sápmi during the period 2013–2023. Through these data, I examine what kind of questions parents have concerning intergenerational transmission of Sámi languages, how intergenerational language transmission is discussed in the Sámi media, and finally, what the data tells about the needs of the Sámi communities for strengthening their languages. Common topics of both parental questions and media data relate to new speaker parents transmitting Sámi languages as well as language transmission outside the Sámi homeland region, and the importance of children’s content in Sámi languages. The data underlines the importance of supporting parents transmitting Sámi languages to their children and professionals working with Sámi-speaking families.