Language Week the talk of the territory

DENISE RIDEOUT

Whether it was singing traditional songs in Gjoa Haven, meeting with elders in Cape Dorset or attending a community feast in Igloolik, Inuktitut was the name of the game in Nunavut last week.

The activities were part of Language Week, which ran from Feb. 11 to 16. They brought out Inuit for fun and games in all of Nunavut’s 25 communities.

Now in its third year, Language Week is a joint project of the Nunavut Social Development Council and the department of culture, language, elders and youth.

“Different communities put together different programs,” said John Illupalik, the language co-ordinator for the Nunavut Social Development Council. Illupalik was tasked with helping Nunavut put on a fun, educational Language Week.

Early indications point to a success, Illupalik said.

In the west, Gjoa Haven residents had fun using the Inuktitut language. “We played string games and we did some songs, all kinds of songs they used to sing long ago when they played games. We went through all that in Inuktitut,” said Ledwina Porter, Gjoa Haven’s co-ordinator for Language Week.

Four of the community’s elders visited schools and spoke to students about hunting and their lives in the old outpost camps.

During those talks, Porter noticed that students in the lower grades had difficulty with Inuktitut. “The younger ones are not really fluent in Inuktitut and when they really don’t understand what we’re saying, we had to explain it to them in English,” she said. “We encouraged them to try to learn more Inuktitut and read and write in it.”

In Cape Dorset, activities ranged from traditional games to a community feast.

In Igloolik, where Illupalik’s office is located, there were daily phone-in shows on the local radio station. “They were talking about words that are no longer used that could still be in use today,” he said.

Pulling off the language events wasn’t a cheap task. Illupalik said $300,000 was allotted for this year’s Language Week. Of that money, $7,000 went to each of the 25 communities in Nunavut.

The $7,000 covered the costs of hiring a community co-ordinator and an assistant, paying elders to give talks in schools, buying meat and other groceries for the community feast and purchasing prizes to give out to winners of the traditional games.

The remaining money was used to pay for representatives from the three regional Inuit organizations and from the Nunavut Social Development Council to hold two meetings in Iqaluit to plan Language Week.