[8] Northern Sámi was first described by Knud Leem (En lappisk Grammatica efter den Dialect, som bruges af Field-Lapperne udi Porsanger-Fiorden) in 1748 and in dictionaries in 1752 and 1768.

Tromsø Municipality has no speaker statistics despite having (as of June 2019) the largest voter roll in the 2021 Norwegian Sámi parliamentary election.

The mass mobilization during the Alta controversy as well as a more tolerant political environment caused a change to the Norwegian policy of assimilation during the last decades of the twentieth century.

In Norway, Northern Sámi is currently an official language in Troms and Finnmark counties along with eight municipalities (Guovdageaidnu, Kárášjohka, Unjárga, Deatnu, Porsáŋgu, Gáivuotna, Loabák and Dielddanuorri).

In the 1980s, a Northern Sámi Braille alphabet was developed, based on the Scandinavian Braille alphabet but with seven additional letters (á, č, đ, ŋ, š, ŧ, ž) required for writing in Northern Sámi.

Some analyses of Northern Sámi phonology may include preaspirated stops and affricates (/hp/, /ht/, /ht͡s/, /ht͡ʃ/, /hk/) and pre-stopped or pre-glottalised nasals (voiceless /pm/, /tn/, /tɲ/, /kŋ/ and voiced /bːm/, /dːn/, /dːɲ/, /ɡːŋ/).

In quantity 3, if the syllable coda consists of only /ð/, /l/ or /r/, the additional length of this consonant is realised phonetically as an epenthetic vowel.

The standard orthography of Northern Sámi distinguishes vowel length in the case of ⟨a⟩ /a/ versus ⟨á⟩ /aː/, although this is primarily on an etymological basis.

[13]: 24  This means that only the first vowel of the diphthong remains, which also undergoes lengthening before grade 1 and 2 consonant clusters and geminates.

Combined with the preceding change, vowel length in stressed syllables becomes conditioned entirely by the following consonant quantity.

The roots of the current orthography for Northern Sámi were laid by Rasmus Rask who, after discussions with Nils Vibe Stockfleth, published Ræsonneret lappisk sproglære efter den sprogart, som bruges af fjældlapperne i Porsangerfjorden i Finmarken.

Following in the tradition of Rask meant that diacritics were used with some consonants (⟨č⟩, ⟨đ⟩, ⟨ŋ⟩, ⟨š⟩, ⟨ŧ⟩ and ⟨ž⟩), which caused data-processing problems before Unicode was introduced.

The groundwork for Northern Sámi lexicography was laid by Konrad Nielsen who used an orthography of his own creation in his dictionary Lappisk ordbok.

[18] These substitutions are still found in books printed after the common orthography was adopted due to system limitations when typing.

The following are used in Pekka Sammallahti's Sámi-suoma sátnegirji: Northern Sámi orthography includes many combinations of multiple letters.

The first letter is doubled to indicate longer versions, and a vertical line[clarification needed] is then used for overlong /ɲːɲ/.

Sámi has also developed considerably into the direction from originally an agglutinative morphology, to that of fusional and inflected one, much like Estonian to which it is distantly related.

The system of consonant gradation in Northern Sámi is complex, especially compared to that found in the Finnic languages.

In reference works, the special mark ˈ is placed between the consonants to indicate the strong grade.

Some cases are indicated specially in the orthography, but behave as expected from a phonological point of view: In some clusters, there is an alternation in the quality of the first consonant between the two grades.

[13]: 31  Therefore, consonants will be modified or deleted when they come to stand word-finally: Certain inflectional endings and derivational suffixes trigger changes in the first unstressed (post-stressed) vowel of the stem.

For example, the change of a to á in the present tense third-person singular of verbs is unexpected and must simply be taken as-is.

Likewise, the appearance of u or o in some verb imperative forms is not based on any rule, but is an inherent part of the ending.

For nouns and adjectives, the stem is taken from the accusative/genitive singular rather than the nominative, as the latter often drops the final vowel and sometimes also the preceding consonant.

The following table shows the general endings; the actual forms can differ based on consonant gradation and the inflection type of the word.

The preceding consonant cluster receives compensatory lengthening, making them quantity 3 regardless of original length.

The stem also undergoes consonant gradation in the accusative and genitive singular forms, and endings beginning with e or o also trigger diphthong simplification.

Northern Sámi, like other Uralic languages, has a negative verb that conjugates according to mood (indicative and imperative), person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular, dual and plural).

For the vast majority of numbers, the ordinal form is created by suffixing -t, and putting the stem in the weak grade.

When a number is composed of multiple parts, only the last one is converted to an ordinal, the rest stay in their cardinal form.