Sami

[jarkko.hietaniemi@nokia.com]

> Most Samis live in Norway. In Norway, the Germanic language there=20
> borrowed the word S=E1pmi, S=E1mi, as "same" with an adjective =
"samisk".=20
> In Finland, where there are not very many Sami speakers compared to=20
> Norway, particular orthographic practices of that language write long=20
> vowels with double letters, hence "saami".

I don't know how much the relative number of Sami speakers in Finland =
contributed to
the spelling; my guess is that the "long vowel -> double vowel" rule was =
much stronger
in this case.  Any kind of diacritics very rarely survive when words are =
"finnishized"
(made to agree with Finnish ortography) (In fact, I can't think of any =
examples right
now where the diacritics would survive, but I'm certain there are =
counterexamples...)