Why are we writing Sami instead of Lapps on these pages?
"Lapp" means a patch of cloth for mending, thus the name suggests that the Sami are wearing patched clothes, a derogatory term and one that needs to be replaced. The word "Laplander" is also problematic since that could mean any person who lives within this region, also those that are non native. Finally there's a part of the Sami population who always have lived outside the region of "Lapland" such as the Sami's in Swedens, Jemtland and Härjedalen.
Webmasters note:
As a curiosity I'd like to mention that there's one Sami word that has made it into several of the major languages of this world, that word is Tundra -doesn't it speak volumes about which part of the world this is. :)
The fact that this word is so short, and so universal suggests it dates from a time in the distant past ~ during the Ice Age, when the Cro-Magnon people moved into Europe (35,000 BC).
In the Indo European group it almost invariably means someting very flat ~ a sheet ~ which may be woven, or processed from leather, or bark, or any other substance.
In Ladino, which preceeded the German based Yiddish used by the Jews, the trades name "Schmidlap" (spelled numerous ways) derives from the Latin base Schmei, meaning "smear" and "de" meaning from or on top of or derivative of, and "lap" meaning sheet, or cloth, or paper. A Schmidlap thereby is the name for a PAPER MAKER.
It's only in Sweden that people have gotten hung up on the "lap" root word having connotations of "rags". Fur Shur, it means nothing but "flat pieces of cloth", or maybe even "birch veneer"!
This same sort of nonsense has taken hold in the United States when it comes to the word "squaw" or "squa". It's is simply the feminine personal form used by the Abenaki and Iriquoian languages. The issue behind the campaign to suppress the term "squaw" is the question of "payments to tribes". The United States every year pays money to all recognized American Indian tribes. The Abenaki, who were the FIRST tribe of Indians to meet Europeans in the Northeast have not yet been fully recognized as a tribe. The ones who are recognized by the government fear that adding the Abenaki to the official lists will deplete the annual allocation for themselves.
People who tell you not to say "squaw" because that means "whore" are either misinformed or they are part of the disinformation campaign designed to exclude the Abenaki Indians from official federal recognition.
I'm sure that eventually the Swedes will figure out that the "Lap" thing was pretty much part of a similar campaign to portray the Lapland people as being "dirty".