In fact, the belief now, based on DNA is that the Sa'ami are primarily the descendants of the first Western Europeans to escape from the Franco-Spanish "refugia" at the end of the last period of glaciation as far back as 14,000 years ago.
As such they have to be looked at as a SOURCE of linguistic development in the region, and not as simply runaway Finns.
Of note, the latest discovery is that the Sa'ami went due North up the Norwegian Coast and then East around the residual icelobe in Sweden/Finland and then down toward what became the Baltic ~ and even settled the Carpathian Mountains.
Rather than the Sa'ami languages being part of a Fenno-Ughric group, most of the analysts digging into the problem are positing them as being part of a totally different group ~ one proposal is that they are a variation on Sumerian. Intriguingly Hungarian Sumerian language translators are now getting back into business and they've been arguing for 60 years that Hungarian has more than a Central Asian root language worked into its structure ~ and that older root is akin to Sumerian.
Sumerian specialists are also pointing to the Dravidian group found mostly in India these days as the primary source for Sumerian.
DNA studies will get more sophisticated, and if there's any trace of ancient Dravidian people working their way across India to the Middle East to the Carpathians to the Sapma, it'll show up sure as shootin'.
Like I noted about the Hungarian theory on Sumerian, this is hardly a new idea.
Now, a caveat, we live in modern times and the Sa'ami and Finnish languages share a great deal of vocabulary. At the same time both sets of languages share a great deal of vocabulary with German and English, and when it comes to Finnish, WITH LATIN due to a conscious effort starting in the 1880s to "upgrade the couth" (so to speak). People even Latinized their names ~ much to the distress of many American genealogists BTW. You'all gotta' go back to the old names so's we can figger this out!
German has a gramatical structure that's commonly found in the Sa'ami languages, BTW, and probably came from them when Sa'ami ventured South into the more primitive hunter/gatherer communities of 5,000 years ago.
Again, everything you ever read about Uralic/Altaic language groupings, or a Fenno-Ughric is under study and revisions are being made as we speak.
One group has already formed to RESIST this Sa'amification of history because they claim they'll simply use it as the basis of a major land claim and try to kick the Norse out!
‘At the same time both sets of languages share a great deal of vocabulary with German and English, and when it comes to Finnish, WITH LATIN due to a conscious effort starting in the 1880s to “upgrade the couth” (so to speak). People even Latinized their names ~’
I remember reading many years ago that there was a Finnish radio station that broadcast at least part time in Latin. Your info helps explain that, thanks. I wonder if they broadcast in Medieval (Church) Latin, like Vatican radio, or in Classical Latin, which I guess is more likely, the Finns not being very Catholic these days.