This paper aims to analyze the efforts of the Samis to revive their language as a modern medium of communication, and, in connection with this, to throw light upon the role of language rehabilitation in the Sami ethnopolitical movement. The Sami people, numbering from 50,000 to 70,000 according to different sources, are the oldest known indigenous inhabitants in Northern Scandinavia and the Kola peninsula. But except in some northernmost administrative communes, they now constitute only a small portion of the total inhabitants, even in their own traditional territory, which is partitioned and controlled by four countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Soviet Union. In sections 2-4 of this paper, the unfavourable conditions of the present Sami language are outlined from various points of view: as a lower-ranked spoken language in multilingual communities, as a standard written language, and as an object and medium of education. The next section attempts to sum up the problems of the Sami language under three major factors: its socio-functional state as a minority language, the linguistic competence of the Samis in their mother tongue, and its normative crisis. By the last term I mean (1) the lack of available linguistic norms in the common written language, (2) the lack of means of protecting the language from direct exposure to foreign influence, and (3) an inability to match the language to the demands of presentday Sami society. The next two sections, 6 and 7, summarize the development of the Sami ethnopolitical movement in three phases: the period of growth from the beginning of this century, the revival of the movement after World War II, and the period of remarkable progress from the 1970s onward. Attention is paid here also to the change of conditions surrounding the Samis, i.e. the attitudes of the authorities toward them and general notions about the inherent rights of indigenous minority peoples. In this connection we discuss the present tendency of the Samis to seek a new ethnical identity by emphasizing their cultural uniqueness on the one hand, and on the other by identifying themselves with indigenous minority peoples. The latter tendency seems to be particularly significant to the movement, because an increasing number of countries and political organizations have, during the last two decades, recognized the preferential rights of indigenous minorities to territorial claims and other natural resources. In the light of Sami ethnopolitical development, sections 8 and 9 characterize various attempts to establish the Sami language as a full-fledged working language for the Samis. Following the generally accepted schema of language planning, Sami language rehabilitation activities are described along two lines: linguistic policy and extralinguistic policy. In the case of the Sami language or, more precisely, Northern Sami, the most central issues in linguistic policy were the establishment of norms for a common orthography for Northern Sami, which has had several systems, and lexical elaboration, i.e. the standardization and modernization of the lexical stock. Extralinguistic policy, the ultimate aim of which is to raise the status of the language in society, is directed to three major points. These are: (1) the acquisition of a legal guarantee to the official status of the Sami language in various situations, including education; (2) the expansion of the domain of use of the language, particularly by ensuring its position in mass media; and (3) the encouragement of the people to revaluate their own language as an irreplaceable medium of their ethnic values. It is not difficult to associate the ideology of the last point with that of the recent tendency in the ethnopolitical movement mentioned above, i.e. the emphasis of cultural uniqueness. It is to be noted, however, that their demand for the right to the mother tongue, especially in education, is not accounted for only in terms of this "uniqueness." It appears that increasing stress is being put on a kind of universal axiom concerning both the importance of the mother tongue in elementary educa tion and the injurious effects of failure in normal language acquisition. This theory, which has been repeatedly resorted to in various connections (e.g. in demands for the improvement of Sami language education and in parents' meetings) seems extremely effective, because little is left for either the political authorities or individuals to argue against when presented with these scientifically attested human rights. The achievement of these activities, at least in the normestablishment and social-legal settings of the Sami language, has been notable since the early 1970s and, in particular, from the late 1970s, when a common orthography for Northern Sami was finally created. In reality, however, concrete achievement in language rehabilitation e.g. an increase in language use or an improvement in the language competence of the speakers, has not been seen yet. The last two sections, 10 and 11, discuss the role of the Sami language rehabilitation movement in Sami ethnopolitics. The aim to revive their mother tongue has been accounted for as being similar to the recovery of their ethnic right to their native lands. It is also to be noted that the language movement itself has played an important role in the entire ethnopolitical movement as a unifying force for the national assembly of the Samis. The unique value of the language in relation to the Sami environment and traditions, coupled with their cooperation to achieve this collective common goal of revitalizing their language in present-day Sami society, has without doubt contributed to the recent ethnopolitical processes of the Sami peoples.