ABSTRACT
Inari Sámi is one of the three Sámi languages spoken in Finland. It has always been a language of a few hundred speakers, and it has been spoken only in the area of the current municipality of Inari. Inari Sámi became endangered during the 20th century. By the 1990s, it was a seriously marginalized language with only a couple of younger speakers, and it was generally considered a dying language. Instead of letting the language die out, Inari Sámi people started to fight for it. The main methods of reversing language shift have been language nests, mother-tongue-medium education, and intensive language education for adults. Global experience on language revitalization has played an essential role in the efforts of the Inari Sámi speech community. Nowadays Inari Sámi in turn serves as a hopeful example for other communities of very small and endangered languages of the world.
