Johan Sandberg McGuinne (1987–) took the unique step of making the story of Beowulf available in Saami, a group of the languages within the Uralic language branch spoken by the Saami people of the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. It is an endangered group of languages, and South Saami, the target language for McGuinne, is the most endangered of all according to the Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat, with just around 500 people still speaking it in Sweden and Norway.
1 See https://www.arcticpeoples.com/sagstallamin-the-saami-languages. McGuinne, who is both South Saami and Scottish and active in the Saami revitalization movement, chose Rob Lloyd Jones’s retelling of
Beowulf to translate in consultation with the South Saami elders because “we felt that we lacked adventure stories aimed at a younger audience, and the Beowulf myth is both exciting and, as retold by Rob Lloyd Jones, appropriate for a younger audience.” The book, complete with Victor Travares’ illustrations, was published in Norway in 2019 but was not as simple as one might assume to translate into Saami. McGuinne had to find old, “now often forgotten words, for specific things in the story,” one of which is the dragon. “There is an old word, ie.
fuemtie, that could be used, but seeing as fire, and the ability to fly and attack the villagers from above is essential to the understanding of this dragon, we opted to create a [new] name, ie.
dålle-såaja, which could be roughly translated as the Winged One of Fire.”
2 McGuinne, personal email communication to Bjork. Here is the opening of McGuinne’s translation:
Dejpeli, Danmarhke akte isveligs, miehtjies dajve lij. Dubpene ïskeres våårenjassh dohk-diekie vaanterdin. Jïjjege, askedibesne, almetjh meehtin våårenjasside goltelidh mah ujkierdin jïh krïtnin, streadjoejin jïh meerin.
Daaroen gånka lij dåarohke man nomme Hrothgar. Idtji gånka dejstie våårenjassijste bïllh. Jïjtsasse alvas stoerre båarkenem tseegki, gaejsien nelnie goelpenen lïhke. Dovres moerijste båarkenem tseegki, jïh dam dovne sïlpine, gulline jïh måersjie-baeniejgujmie rïesi. Gånka båarkenem Heorot gåhtjoeji.
3 Jones and McGuinne, Beowulf, pp. 5–6.A long, long time ago, Denmark was a land in terror. Horrible monsters roamed the misty bogs. At night, they screamed and hooted, howled and bellowed.
The king in Denmark was a warlord called Hrothgar. He refused to let himself be scared. He built a huge building for himself, highest up on a steep mountain and at the edge of a big bog. It was built of the finest wood and adorned with ivory, silver and glittering gold. The king called it Heorot.
McGuinne heads the Saami Writers’ Union of Sweden (Bágo) and is Head of Department of Saami Studies and English at Finnbacken Secondary School in Lyksele Council / Lïksjuon Kommuvdna in Lappland, northern Sweden. The Laponian or Arctic Circle region was named a World Heritage site in 1996 by UNESCO.
4 See https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/774/.