Yes, I made Šordle – the Northern Sámi version of the popular word guessing game Wordle. I’ve received multiple humbling reports of how popular it is, even years after its creation. Some Northern Sámi teachers apparently play it regularly with their students as a “warm up” to the class. A few work places with a high Northern Sámi literacy have separate group chats made for the sake of sharing the results of the daily Šordle. After all, sharing the results in the main group chat of colleagues is understandably rather annoying for those that do not play it. People play it while drinking their morning coffee, eating their lunch or when winding down in the evening. Let me stroke my ego for a bit longer by reminiscing how this simple game adaption came to be and how it almost couldn’t be.
Wordle was originally made by a guy who wanted a simple word game to play with his wife. The game has some great qualities to it: it is incredibly simple, it is intuitive and it is addicting. Another element that contributed to its immense popularity was the copy-paste memetic nature of the game, where you can copy and paste an outline for others to see how your game went. Here’s how one of my games went back in January 29th 2022:
Wordle 223 4/6
⬛⬛🟩🟨⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
It had me hooked. And while it was garnering popularity, there were naturally several clones being made in different languages. When I eventually found the open-source GitHub repository for the game, I thought to myself that developing a Northern Sámi version would not be too challenging. The code for the core functionality of the game was already there, so I saw no need to reinvent the wheel. It was just a matter of localizing the front-end UI, personalizing the design, and curating the word lists. I had already spent time experimenting with GiellaTekno’s public Sámi language APIs, where I stumbled across word frequency lists that were perfect for the task. I ended up implementing a mix of 5-letter and 6-letter words, slightly randomizing the order to keep the daily challenge fresh.
I had worked for Gáisi (a language centre in Romsa - Tromsø) on language tech before, so I decided to reach out to them so that they can help out with publishing and promoting the game. They were very supportive of the project, even letting me use their design profile to create the unique color design of the game that is still used today. One of the only hurdles was that we couldn’t figure out how to use Squarespace to implement the game in their own web page natively so the game was hosted on my NTNU student domain until recently. Today the official web address is šordle.jullan.me.
As Wordle kept exploding in early 2022, it garnered interest from companies seeking to capitalize on the trend. The New York Times bought the original game in April 2022, and what started out as a sweet gift between partners was now suddenly a high-value corporate asset.
The shift was indeed immediate and aggressive. The New York Times eventually began filing copyright takedowns and sending cease-and-desist letters to hundreds of developers who had forked the open-source repository of the original Wordle game. By targeting these repositories, they effectively paralyzed the ability for smaller, marginalized language communities to collaboratively maintain their own open-source versions.
This is a case where “intellectual property” becomes a threat to language revitalization. In the western English-speaking world, a takedown like this is just considered a smart business move. But for smaller languages, the clones made for games like this are very meaningful for those languages and provide a unique opportunity to use them casually, competitively, or even socially. When a company nukes a repository of code with any resemblance of Wordle, they are pulling the plug on a large swath of grassroots games that help keep minority languages relevant in the digital world.
Luckily, this did not affect the hosted versions of the game, only the open-source code repositories. It may have stalled the code, but it didn’t stall its players. So, if you haven’t yet had your daily dose of Sámi linguistic frustration (or triumph), the grid is waiting for you at šordle.jullan.me. I have recently added a calendar function and game progression system to it so you may play Šordle game for any date. Good luck!