One way to save the endangered Inuit languages is to create a
standard writing system and introduce it in schools. But organizations
pushing for the shift are facing resistance from those wary of change.
At an
Inuit language conference in Iqaluit, capital of the Canadian
territory of Nunavut, this past February,
Jeela Palluq-Cloutier prefaced
her presentation by asking the audience of Inuktut interpreters and
translators for a show of hands. Were they in favor of adopting a new
standardized writing system, yes or no?
The final tally was close: 4
4 supported adopting a new orthography,
and 39 opposed the idea. Eleven were undecided. Or so it seemed.
With her question, Palluq-Cloutier, the executive director of the
Nunavut Language Authority, had struck a nerve. Some translators claimed
they’d misunderstood the question and demanded a recount. The
experience proved the heated, complicated debate over the future of
Inuktut in Canada is far from over.
The Inuit languages, including Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and
Inuvialuktun, belong to the Eskimo-Aleut language family. The dialects
and subdialects branch out across much of the Arctic, reflecting Inuit
migration over thousands of years from far eastern Russia across Alaska,
northern Canada and Greenland. Inuktut is an umbrella term that
encompasses both Inuktitut, spoken in most of the Inuit regions, and
Inuinnaqtun, a dialect of Inuvialuktun, which is spoken in western
Nunavut and part of the Northwest Territories.
In Alaska and Russia, Inuit languages are rapidly declining, but the
Greenlandic dialects remain strong: Kalaallisut, the West Greenlandic
dialect, is one of Greenland’s official languages (the other is Danish).
The majority of Inuit living in Nunavik, northern Quebec, speak
Inuktitut. But in Canada’s other Inuit regions, including the territory
of Nunavut, Inuit languages are in decline, with younger generations
tending toward English. Given their delicate state in Canada, the mere
suggestion of changing the way the languages are spoken or recorded can
cause uproar.
Currently, in parts of
Nunavut and northern Quebec, Inuit use
syllabics, a writing system
developed by Anglican missionaries in the 19th century. In Labrador, the
Northwest Territories, and western Nunavut, Inuit use variations of
Roman orthography, a writing system that uses the Latin alphabet to
transliterate Inuit languages. Along with English and French, Inukitut
and Inuinnaqtun are official languages in Nunavut.
That means official government documents in all regions have to be
translated from English into French as well as Inuktitut and
Innuinaqtun, which are then written in both syllabics and Roman
orthography.
This affects not only how government-issued forms, manuals and
reports are written, but also
the way children learn Inuit languages at
school. The number of speakers may be on the rise, but it’s not keeping
up with population growth. For Palluq-Cloutier, the statistics say it
all:
in 2006, 68.8 percent of Canada’s Inuit population reported they
could conduct a conversation in Inuktut; in 2011, the figure fell to 63.3 percent, according to Statistics Canada.
Since more than half of the Inuit population in Canada is under 25, a
task group set up by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national Inuit
organization, teamed up with the Nunavut Language Authority as well as
representatives from the other three Inuit regions in Canada – northern
Quebec, Labrador and the Inuvialuit settlement region in the Northwest
Territories – to research ways to improve language education in schools.
Their report recommended adopting a standardized writing system in the
interest of
making learning Inuktut easier for Inuit children, but leaves the final decision to the governments and administrative bodies in each Inuit region.
With 12 Inuit language dialects, not counting various subdialects,
and older generations being accustomed to syllabics, introducing a
standardized writing system for all Inuit won’t happen overnight.
Lessons from the outside
Greenland is a favorite role model when it comes to Inuktut
revitalization. When visiting their Arctic neighbor Greenland, Canadian
Inuit often snap photos of store signs, food labels and menus written
entirely in Kalaallisut, the Western Greenlandic dialect closely related
to certain Inuktut dialects, marveling at how many Greenlanders are
fluent in their native language.
Greenland never adopted a syllabics system; its missionaries
introduced Roman orthography instead, and the written language was
standardized in the 1960s. When it comes to Inuit language teaching
materials, Greenland is ahead of Nunavut “by leaps and bounds,” said
Palluq-Cloutier.
In Canada, those changes couldn’t be made overnight. But an
experimental education model in Alaska might present a model for a more
gradual approach.
Of the U.S. state’s 20 indigenous languages,
Central Yup’ik, which
belongs to the Eskimo-Aleut language family, is exceptionally robust,
said Patrick Marlow, a linguistics professor at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks. He points to the Lower Kuskokwim School District in
southwestern Alaska, which in recent years has been implementing a
new
bilingual education system that aims to strengthen children’s use of
Central Yup’ik.
Starting in kindergarten, the curriculum is split evenly between
Central Yup’ik and English, with subjects assigned a particular
language. Outside the classroom, students and teachers are expected to
speak English on designated weekdays and Central Yup’ik on others.
Schools that adopt this model hope to apply it incrementally, with a
higher grade being added to the system every subsequent year.
“Of course, you run into reality,” said Marlow. For instance,
although school libraries are intended to have an even split of English
and Central Yup’ik texts, not enough Yup’ik texts currently exist to
achieve that balance.
As in Canada’s Inuit regions, the education system also has to
accommodate various dialects. Currently, teaching materials produced in
one dialect can be taught in schools where a different dialect is
spoken, with those differences incorporated into the lessons. “Teachers
are encouraged to use the text and highlight for students, ‘This is how
they say it in village A, and this is how we use it in village C,’” said
Marlow.
It’s too soon to tell whether the new model is working, and some
worry that introducing a new educational system will only weaken the
language. Although these
Alaskan schools adopted a standardized Roman
orthography in the 1970s, older generations are still resentful.
“There are elders who are of the view that the church orthography is
the right way of writing,” said Marlow. They “become concerned if their
grandchildren are not familiar enough with church orthography.”
Like the Central Yup’ik, Canada’s Inuit face a difficult choice, said
Marlow: Change the writing system to promote literacy among children,
or alienate respected elders?
“That is something that the folks in Nunavut will have to weigh for themselves.”
This article originally appeared on Arctic Deeply.
