Numbers are one of the most practical things you’ll learn in North Sami.

You need them to tell the time, pay for items, and talk about your age.

North Sami counting follows a highly logical pattern once you learn the first ten numbers.

I’ll show you exactly how to build any number from one to one hundred.

Numbers 1 to 10

The first ten numbers are the building blocks for all other numbers in North Sami.

You must memorize these before moving on to larger numbers.

Here’s the vocabulary for counting from one to ten.

Numbers 11 to 19

To make the numbers eleven through nineteen, you just take the base number and add the word nuppelohkái.

This literally translates to “into the second ten” in English.

For example, eleven is oktanuppelohkái because it’s one into the second ten.

Counting by tens

Counting by tens is even easier than learning the teens.

You simply take the base number and add logi to the end of it.

The word logi means “ten” and acts like a suffix to form words like twenty, thirty, and forty.

Combining numbers up to 99

When you want to say a number like 21 or 45, you just combine the ten and the base number.

In North Sami, these are written together as one single word.

You don’t use a hyphen or a space between them.

While pronunciation varies slightly across different regions like Kautokeino and Karasjok, this unified spelling remains standard.

Here are a few examples of combined numbers.

One hundred

The North Sami word for one hundred is čuohti.

If you want to say two hundred, you simply combine the word for two and hundred to make guoktečuohti.

You can now use this vocabulary to talk about amounts or your age.