ABSTRACT
Contemporary globalization trends might be a threat to Indigenous language revitalization efforts, or might act as catalysts that stimulate interest in learning and writing in Indigenous languages. This chapter presents a snapshot case study of young multilingual writers of North Sámi and considers the interaction of supercomplexity and the super dimensions of Sápmi on North Sámi literacy. Using illustrations taken from 126 young writers’ narratives texts collected from 12 schools across the North Sámi speaking area of Sápmi in Finland, Norway, and Sweden, this chapter discusses how these young writers express in written North Sámi what they do in their lives, their understandings of their identities, and how these reflect the global and the local dimensions that they engage in on a daily basis. Based on our analysis, together with earlier research, we argue that young writers have the literacy skills necessary for meaning making, but that more possibilities for exposure to North Sámi are required, coupled with structural support from policy makers, society generally, and education opportunities, to raise the linguistics competencies for more nuanced North Sámi writing.
