There exists a vast collection of historical spoken Saami language material preserved in sound archives in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Estonia. Two types of performances dominate the historical archive collections: recordings of storytelling and Saami music traditions. In this article, we focus on three Saami languages spoken in Finland: North Saami, Aanaar Saami, and Skolt Saami, and their traditional vocal music respectively. We look more closely at the municipality of Aanaar (Inari), where all the three language groups have existed after the Second World War. We compare the linguistic characteristics of historical Saami storytelling and music across these languages and point out various ways how language and singing intersect. Since these are sung traditions, the linguistic features play a crucial role beside music, and it is evident that analysis of structures of performances require co-operation of both music studies and linguistic research. This approach provides a comprehensive understanding of how words and melodies are constructed in the performance.