of place names throughout central and southern Finland as well; in many cases, it probably refers to earlier Sami presence, though in some cases the underlying meaning may be mere "periphery" or "outlying district". "Sides" Finally, Sápmi may also be subdivided into cultural regions according to the state's borders, that obviously affects daily life for people no matter their ethnicity. These regions are commonly referred to as "sides" by Sami, for example, "the Norwegian side" (norgga bealli) or "the Finnish side" (suoma bealli). Languages Sámi languages The Saamic languages are the region's main minority languages and also its oldest attested languages. They belong to the Uralic language family and are most closely related to the Finnic languages. Many Sami languages are mutually unintelligible, but the languages originally formed a dialect continuum stretching southwest–northeast, so that a message could hypothetically be passed between Sami speakers from one end to the other and be understood by all. Today, however, many of the languages are moribund and thus there are "gaps" in the original continuum. On the map to the right numbers indicate Sámi Languages (Darkened areas represent municipalities that recognize Sami as an official language.): 1. South (Åarjil) Sámi, 2. Ume (Upme) Sámi, 3. Pite (Bitthun) Sámi, 4. Lule (Julev) Sámi, 5. North (Davvi) Sámi, 6. Skolt Sámi, 7. Inari (Ánár) Sámi, 8. Kildin Sámi, 9. Ter (Kill) Sámi. Of these languages, the North one is by far the most vital; whereas Ume and Pite seem to be dying languages. Kemi Sámi and Ter Sami are extinct. North Sami is subdivided into three main dialects: West, East, and Coast. The written standard is based on the Western dialect. East Slavic languages Russian is the dominant language on the Russian side of the border and is also spoken by recently immigrated minority groups elsewhere in Sápmi. Earlier, a common pidgin language was spoken on the northern coast of Sápmi that combined elements of Russian and Norwegian. This language was known as Russenorsk. On the Russian side, there are also speakers of the East Slavic Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages Norwegian and Swedish dominate the largest part of Sápmi, including the entire Southern region and most of the Central region. There also used to be minorities speaking Norwegian on the Kola Peninsula. The Scandinavian languages are to a very large degree mutually intelligible, much more so than South Sami and North