Inuktitut
Encyclopedia
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit language
s spoken in Canada
. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador
, Québec
, to some extent in northeastern Manitoba
as well as the territories of Nunavut
, the Northwest Territories
, and traditionally on the Arctic Ocean
coast of Yukon
.
It is recognised as an official language in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. It also has legal recognition in Nunavik
—a part of Québec—thanks in part to the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement
, and is recognised in the Charter of the French Language
as the official language of instruction for Inuit school districts there. It also has some recognition in Nunatsiavut
—the Inuit
area in Labrador
—following the ratification of its agreement with the government of Canada
and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian census
reports that there are roughly 35,000 Inuktitut speakers in Canada, including roughly 200 who live regularly outside of traditionally Inuit lands.
For more information on the relationship between Inuktitut and the Inuit languages spoken in Greenland
and Alaska
, see Inuit language
.
, French
, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun
, but to what degree Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun can be thought of as separate languages is ambiguous in state policy. The word Inuktitut is often used to describe both. A more proper term has been adopted using "Inuit Languages" when speaking of Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut.
The demographic situation of Inuktitut is quite strong in Nunavut. Nunavut is the home of some 24,000 Inuit, most of whom – over 80% according to the 2001 census – speak Inuktitut, including some 3,500 people reported as monolinguals. 2001 census data shows that the use of Inuktitut, while lower among the young than the elderly, has stopped declining in Canada as a whole and may even be increasing in Nunavut.
The South Baffin dialect (Qikiqtaaluk nigiani) is spoken across the southern part of Baffin Island, including the territorial capital Iqaluit. This has in recent years made it a much more widely heard dialect, since a great deal of Inuktitut media originates in Iqaluit. Some linguists also distinguish an East Baffin dialect from either South Baffin or North Baffin, which is an Inuvialuk dialect.
As of the early 2000s, Nunavut has gradually implemented early childhood, elementary, and secondary school-level immersion programs within its education system to further preserve and promote the Inuktitut language.
is home to roughly 12,000 Inuit, nearly all of whom live in Nunavik
. According to the 2001 census, 90% of Québec Inuit speak Inuktitut.
The Nunavik dialect (Nunavimmiutitut) is relatively close to the South Baffin dialect, but not identical. Because of the political and physical boundary between Nunavik and Nunavut, Nunavik has separate government and educational institutions from those in the rest of the Inuktitut-speaking world, resulting in a growing standardisation of the local dialect as something separate from other forms of Inuktitut. In the Nunavik dialect, Inuktitut is called Inuttitut. This dialect is also sometimes called Tarramiutut or Taqramiutut.
dialect (Nunatsiavummiutut
, or often in government documents Labradorimiutut) was once spoken across northern Labrador
. It has a distinct writing system, created by German missionaries from the Moravian Church in Greenland in the 1760s. This separate writing tradition, and the remoteness of Nunatsiavut from other Inuit communities, has made it into a distinct dialect with a separate literary tradition. The Nunatsiavummiut call their language Inuttut.
Although Nunatsiavut claims over 4,000 inhabitants of Inuit descent, only 550 reported Inuktitut to be their mother tongue in the 2001 census, mostly in the town of Nain
. Inuktitut is seriously endangered in Labrador.
Nunatsiavut also had a separate dialect reputedly much closer to western Inuktitut dialects, spoken in the area around Rigolet
. According to news reports, in 1999 it had only three very elderly speakers.
s and three vowel
s (which can be long or short). Consonants are arranged with five places of articulation
: bilabial
, alveolar
, palatal
, velar
and uvular
; and three manners of articulation
: voiceless stop
s, voiced continuant
s and nasals
, as well as two additional sounds — voiceless fricative
s. Natsalingmiutut has an additional consonant /ɟ/, a vestige of the Retroflex consonant
s that were present in Proto-Inuit. Inuinnaqtun
has one fewer consonant, as /s/ and /ɬ/ have merged into /h/. All dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. In Inuujingajut – Nunavut standard Roman orthography – long vowels are written as a double vowel.
Inuktitut vowels
Inuktitut consonants in Inuujingajut and IPA notation
s are added to root words to indicate things that, in languages like English, would require several words to express. (See also: Agglutinative language
and Polysynthetic language
). All words begin with a root morpheme to which other morphemes are suffixed. Inuktitut has hundreds of distinct suffixes, in some dialects as many as 700. Fortunately for the learners, the language has a highly regular morphology. Although the rules are sometimes very complicated, they do not have exceptions in the sense that English and other Indo-European languages
do.
Moravia
n missionaries, with the purpose of introducing the Inuit peoples to Christianity
and the Bible
, contributed to the development of an Inuktitut writing system in Greenland during the 1760s that was based on Roman orthography. They later travelled to Labrador in the 1800s, bringing the written Inuktitut with them. This roman alphabet writing scheme is distinguished by its inclusion of the letter kra
.
The Alaskan Yupik and Inupiat (who, in addition, developed their own system of hieroglyphics) and the Siberian Yupik
also adopted the system of Roman orthography.
Eastern Canadian Inuit were the last to adopt the written word when, in the 1860s, missionaries imported the written system Qaniujaaqpait they had developed in their efforts to convert the Cree
to Christianity. The very last Inuit peoples introduced to missionaries and writing were the Netsilik Inuit
in Kugaaruk
and north Baffin Island
. The Netsilik adopted Qaniujaaqpait by the 1920s.
The "Greenlandic" system has been substantially reformed in recent years, making Labrador writing unique to Nunatsiavummiutut
at this time. Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using a scheme called Qaniujaaqpait or Inuktitut syllabics
, based on Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
. The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories
use a Roman orthography (alphabet scheme) usually identified as Inuinnaqtun
or Qaliujaaqpait, reflecting the predispositions of the missionaries who reached this area in the late 19th century and early 20th.
In Siberia
a Cyrillic script is used.
The Inuktitut syllabary used in Canada is based on the Cree syllabary
devised by the missionary James Evans. The present form of the syllabary for Canadian Inuktitut was adopted by the Inuit Cultural Institute in Canada in the 1970s. The Inuit in Alaska, the Inuvialuit
, Inuinnaqtun speakers, and Inuit in Greenland
and Labrador
use the Roman alphabet, although it has been adapted for their use in different ways.
Though conventionally called a syllabary
, the writing system has been classified by some observers as an abugida
, since syllables starting with the same consonant have related glyph
s rather than unrelated ones.
All of the characters needed for the Inuktitut syllabary are available in the Unicode
character repertoire. (See Unified Canadian Aboriginal syllabics (Unicode block).) The territorial government of Nunavut
, Canada
has developed a TrueType
font
called Pigiarniq for computer displays. It was designed by Vancouver
-based Tiro Typeworks. Apple Macintosh computers include an Inuktitut IME (Input Method Editor) as part of keyboard language options.
Inuit language
The Inuit language is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and Russian Far East, particularly the Diomede Islands, but is severely endangered in Russia today and...
s spoken in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
, Québec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, to some extent in northeastern Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
as well as the territories of Nunavut
Nunavut
Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...
, the Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...
, and traditionally on the Arctic Ocean
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...
coast of Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
.
It is recognised as an official language in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. It also has legal recognition in Nunavik
Nunavik
Nunavik comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, Canada. Covering a land area of 443,684.71 km² north of the 55th parallel, it is the homeland of the Inuit of Quebec...
—a part of Québec—thanks in part to the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement
James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement
The James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement was an Aboriginal land claim settlement, approved in 1975 by the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, and later slightly modified in 1978 by the Northeastern Quebec Agreement, through which Quebec's Naskapi First Nations joined the treaty...
, and is recognised in the Charter of the French Language
Charter of the French Language
The Charter of the French Language , also known as Bill 101 and Loi 101, is a law in the province of Quebec in Canada defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the only official language of Quebec, and framing fundamental language rights for everyone in the province...
as the official language of instruction for Inuit school districts there. It also has some recognition in Nunatsiavut
Nunatsiavut
Nunatsiavut is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inuit Association submitted a proposal for limited autonomy to the government of Newfoundland and...
—the Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
area in Labrador
Labrador
Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
—following the ratification of its agreement with the government of Canada
Government of Canada
The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...
and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian census
Canada 2006 Census
The Canada 2006 Census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 16, 2006. The next census following will be the 2011 Census. Canada's total population enumerated by the 2006 census was 31,612,897...
reports that there are roughly 35,000 Inuktitut speakers in Canada, including roughly 200 who live regularly outside of traditionally Inuit lands.
For more information on the relationship between Inuktitut and the Inuit languages spoken in Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, see Inuit language
Inuit language
The Inuit language is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and Russian Far East, particularly the Diomede Islands, but is severely endangered in Russia today and...
.
Dialects and variants
Nunavut
Nunavut's basic law lists four official languages: EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun , is an indigenous Inuit language of Canada and a dialect of Inuvialuktun. It is related very closely to Inuktitut, and some scholars, such as Richard Condon, believe that Inuinnaqtun is more appropriately classified as a dialect of Inuktitut...
, but to what degree Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun can be thought of as separate languages is ambiguous in state policy. The word Inuktitut is often used to describe both. A more proper term has been adopted using "Inuit Languages" when speaking of Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut.
The demographic situation of Inuktitut is quite strong in Nunavut. Nunavut is the home of some 24,000 Inuit, most of whom – over 80% according to the 2001 census – speak Inuktitut, including some 3,500 people reported as monolinguals. 2001 census data shows that the use of Inuktitut, while lower among the young than the elderly, has stopped declining in Canada as a whole and may even be increasing in Nunavut.
The South Baffin dialect (Qikiqtaaluk nigiani) is spoken across the southern part of Baffin Island, including the territorial capital Iqaluit. This has in recent years made it a much more widely heard dialect, since a great deal of Inuktitut media originates in Iqaluit. Some linguists also distinguish an East Baffin dialect from either South Baffin or North Baffin, which is an Inuvialuk dialect.
As of the early 2000s, Nunavut has gradually implemented early childhood, elementary, and secondary school-level immersion programs within its education system to further preserve and promote the Inuktitut language.
Nunavik
QuébecQuebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
is home to roughly 12,000 Inuit, nearly all of whom live in Nunavik
Nunavik
Nunavik comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, Canada. Covering a land area of 443,684.71 km² north of the 55th parallel, it is the homeland of the Inuit of Quebec...
. According to the 2001 census, 90% of Québec Inuit speak Inuktitut.
The Nunavik dialect (Nunavimmiutitut) is relatively close to the South Baffin dialect, but not identical. Because of the political and physical boundary between Nunavik and Nunavut, Nunavik has separate government and educational institutions from those in the rest of the Inuktitut-speaking world, resulting in a growing standardisation of the local dialect as something separate from other forms of Inuktitut. In the Nunavik dialect, Inuktitut is called Inuttitut. This dialect is also sometimes called Tarramiutut or Taqramiutut.
Labrador
The NunatsiavutNunatsiavut
Nunatsiavut is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inuit Association submitted a proposal for limited autonomy to the government of Newfoundland and...
dialect (Nunatsiavummiutut
Nunatsiavummiutut
The Nunatsiavummiut dialect, or Nunatsiavummiutut, also known as Labradorimiutut and called Inuttut by its speakers, is a dialect of the Inuit language...
, or often in government documents Labradorimiutut) was once spoken across northern Labrador
Labrador
Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
. It has a distinct writing system, created by German missionaries from the Moravian Church in Greenland in the 1760s. This separate writing tradition, and the remoteness of Nunatsiavut from other Inuit communities, has made it into a distinct dialect with a separate literary tradition. The Nunatsiavummiut call their language Inuttut.
Although Nunatsiavut claims over 4,000 inhabitants of Inuit descent, only 550 reported Inuktitut to be their mother tongue in the 2001 census, mostly in the town of Nain
Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador
Nain or Naina is the northernmost town of any size in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located about 370 kilometres by air from Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The town was established as a Moravian mission in 1771 by Jens Haven and other missionaries...
. Inuktitut is seriously endangered in Labrador.
Nunatsiavut also had a separate dialect reputedly much closer to western Inuktitut dialects, spoken in the area around Rigolet
Rigolet, Newfoundland and Labrador
Rigolet is a remote, coastal Labrador Inuit community established in 1735 by French-Canadian trader Louis Fornel....
. According to news reports, in 1999 it had only three very elderly speakers.
Phonology and phonetics
Eastern Canadian dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s and three vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s (which can be long or short). Consonants are arranged with five places of articulation
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator , and a passive location...
: bilabial
Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
, alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
, palatal
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
, velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
and uvular
Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
; and three manners of articulation
Manner of articulation
In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
: voiceless stop
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
s, voiced continuant
Continuant
A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. That is, any sound except a stop or nasal. An affricate is considered to be a complex segment, composed of both a stop and a continuant.-See also:...
s and nasals
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
, as well as two additional sounds — voiceless fricative
Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
s. Natsalingmiutut has an additional consonant /ɟ/, a vestige of the Retroflex consonant
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
s that were present in Proto-Inuit. Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun , is an indigenous Inuit language of Canada and a dialect of Inuvialuktun. It is related very closely to Inuktitut, and some scholars, such as Richard Condon, believe that Inuinnaqtun is more appropriately classified as a dialect of Inuktitut...
has one fewer consonant, as /s/ and /ɬ/ have merged into /h/. All dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. In Inuujingajut – Nunavut standard Roman orthography – long vowels are written as a double vowel.
| IPA | Inuujingajut | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short open front unrounded | /a/ | a | |
| Long open front unrounded | /aː/ | aa | |
| Short closed front unrounded | /i/ | i | Short i is sometimes realised as [e] or [ɛ] |
| Long closed front unrounded | /iː/ | ii | |
| Short closed back rounded | /u/ | u | Short u is sometimes realised as [o] or [ɔ] |
| Long closed back rounded | /uː/ | uu |
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stop | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | q /q/ |
|
|
| Voiceless fricative | s /s/ ł /ɬ/ (h /h/) |
|||||
| Voiced | v /v/ | l /l/ | j /j/ (j /ɟ/) |
g /ɡ/ | r /ɢ/ | , being absent from most dialects, is not written with a separate letter is replaced by [ɣ] in Siglitun, and may be realised as [ɣ] between vowels or vowels and approximants in other dialects assimilated Assimilation (linguistics) Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been... to [ɴ] before nasals |
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ng /ŋ/ |
|
Morphology and syntax
Inuktitut, like other Eskimo–Aleut languages, has a very rich morphological system, in which a succession of different morphemeMorpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s are added to root words to indicate things that, in languages like English, would require several words to express. (See also: Agglutinative language
Agglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view...
and Polysynthetic language
Polysynthetic language
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes. Whereas isolating languages have a low morpheme-to-word ratio, polysynthetic languages have extremely high morpheme-to-word ratios.Not all languages can be...
). All words begin with a root morpheme to which other morphemes are suffixed. Inuktitut has hundreds of distinct suffixes, in some dialects as many as 700. Fortunately for the learners, the language has a highly regular morphology. Although the rules are sometimes very complicated, they do not have exceptions in the sense that English and other Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
do.
Writing
Inuktitut is written in several different ways, depending on the dialect and region, but also on historical and political factors.Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n missionaries, with the purpose of introducing the Inuit peoples to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, contributed to the development of an Inuktitut writing system in Greenland during the 1760s that was based on Roman orthography. They later travelled to Labrador in the 1800s, bringing the written Inuktitut with them. This roman alphabet writing scheme is distinguished by its inclusion of the letter kra
Kra (letter)
Kra is a character formerly used to write the Kalaallisut language of Greenland and is now only found in the Labrador Inuit Language of Inuttitut, a distinct Inuktitut dialect. It is visually similar to a Latin small capital letter K and the Greek letter kappa κ.It is used to denote the sound...
.
The Alaskan Yupik and Inupiat (who, in addition, developed their own system of hieroglyphics) and the Siberian Yupik
Siberian Yupik
Siberian Yupiks, or Yuits, are indigenous people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far northeast of the Russian Federation and on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. They speak Central Siberian Yupik , a Yupik language of the Eskimo–Aleut family of languages.They were also...
also adopted the system of Roman orthography.
Eastern Canadian Inuit were the last to adopt the written word when, in the 1860s, missionaries imported the written system Qaniujaaqpait they had developed in their efforts to convert the Cree
Cree
The Cree are one of the largest groups of First Nations / Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada. In Canada, the major proportion of Cree live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, although...
to Christianity. The very last Inuit peoples introduced to missionaries and writing were the Netsilik Inuit
Netsilik Inuit
The Netsilik Inuit live predominantly in the communities of Kugaaruk and Gjoa Haven of the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut and to a smaller extent in Taloyoak and the north Qikiqtaaluk Region...
in Kugaaruk
Kugaaruk, Nunavut
-Culture:The historical inhabitants were Arviligjuarmiut. Kugaaruk is a traditional "Central Inuit" community. Until 1968, the people followed a nomadic lifestyle. The population is approximately 97% Inuit and most people self-identify as Netsilik Inuit. The residents blend a land based lifestyle...
and north Baffin Island
Baffin Island
Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is and its population is about 11,000...
. The Netsilik adopted Qaniujaaqpait by the 1920s.
The "Greenlandic" system has been substantially reformed in recent years, making Labrador writing unique to Nunatsiavummiutut
Nunatsiavummiutut
The Nunatsiavummiut dialect, or Nunatsiavummiutut, also known as Labradorimiutut and called Inuttut by its speakers, is a dialect of the Inuit language...
at this time. Most Inuktitut in Nunavut and Nunavik is written using a scheme called Qaniujaaqpait or Inuktitut syllabics
Inuktitut syllabics
Inuktitut syllabics is a writing system used by the Inuit in Nunavut and in Nunavik, Quebec...
, based on Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
Canadian Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families....
. The western part of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...
use a Roman orthography (alphabet scheme) usually identified as Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun , is an indigenous Inuit language of Canada and a dialect of Inuvialuktun. It is related very closely to Inuktitut, and some scholars, such as Richard Condon, believe that Inuinnaqtun is more appropriately classified as a dialect of Inuktitut...
or Qaliujaaqpait, reflecting the predispositions of the missionaries who reached this area in the late 19th century and early 20th.
In Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
a Cyrillic script is used.
The Canadian syllabary
Cree syllabics
Cree syllabics, found in two primary variants, are the versions of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics used to write Cree dialects, including the original syllabics system created for Cree and Ojibwe. Syllabics were later adapted to several other languages...
devised by the missionary James Evans. The present form of the syllabary for Canadian Inuktitut was adopted by the Inuit Cultural Institute in Canada in the 1970s. The Inuit in Alaska, the Inuvialuit
Inuvialuit
The Inuvialuit or Western Canadian Inuit are Inuit people who live in the western Canadian Arctic region. They, like all other Inuit, are descendants of the Thule who migrated eastward from Alaska...
, Inuinnaqtun speakers, and Inuit in Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and Labrador
Labrador
Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
use the Roman alphabet, although it has been adapted for their use in different ways.
Though conventionally called a syllabary
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
, the writing system has been classified by some observers as an abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
, since syllables starting with the same consonant have related glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
s rather than unrelated ones.
All of the characters needed for the Inuktitut syllabary are available in the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
character repertoire. (See Unified Canadian Aboriginal syllabics (Unicode block).) The territorial government of Nunavut
Nunavut
Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
has developed a TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
called Pigiarniq for computer displays. It was designed by Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
-based Tiro Typeworks. Apple Macintosh computers include an Inuktitut IME (Input Method Editor) as part of keyboard language options.
See also
- “Eskimo” words for snowEskimo words for snowThe "Eskimo words for snow" claim is a widespread misconception alleging that Eskimos have an unusually large number of words for snow. In fact, the Eskimo–Aleut languages have about the same number of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does...
- Inuktitut writingInuktitut writingThe Inuktitut language is written in different ways in different places. In Greenland, Alaska, Labrador, the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories and in the western part of the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, it is written with the Latin alphabet...
- Thule peopleThule peopleThe Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region...
Dictionaries and lexica
Webpages
- A Brief History of Inuktitut Writing Culture
- Inuktitut Syllabarium (Languagegeek)
- Our Language, Our Selves
- Government of Nunavut font download
- Inuktitut-friendly website hosting and development
- Tusaalanga ("Let me hear it"), a website with Inuktitut online lessons with sound files
Utilities
- Microsoft Transliteration Utility – Powerful, free tool for transliterating text between different scripts. Includes a module for transliterating back and forth between Inuktitut syllabary and Inuktitut romanization.
- NANIVARA – Inuktitut Search Engine. – NANIVARA means "I've found it!" in Inuktitut.