Saying Inuktitut the right way

This is to clarify some commonly used terms and some not-so-commonly-used terms of our native language. I feel that many of our words have already been misused by the non-Inuktitut speaking world and now cannot be corrected.

However, I know that those people who want to learn our language will get a boost from this letter.

Our language, though, has some pronunciations that cannot be written in English. So, as some people know, we differentiate between the pronunciation “Kee” and the pronunciation “Qee” as having two distinct sounds, although the English language allows us to pronounce them in exactly the same way.

For the sake of this letter, “Kee” is pronounced the way it’s written, while “Qee” is pronounced something like “Hee”, except with a guttural sound that I cannot put into a written word.

If you want to be more proper in pronunciation, you may change the letter Q to H. It isn’t perfect, but at least your pronunciation will be more accepted. Then there’s the “RREE” and the “NGEE,” but let’s forget those for now.

The following table should help those that want to be more concise with our language. It must be remembered that this table represents one that comes from northern Nunavik, whose dialect is different from other regions. There are subtle and big differences from region to region. However….

About the word the word INUK (Inuk): it can mean any living human being. In my dialect, we say INUTUINNAQ (inu.TUIN.naq) to mean “Eskimo,” or that race of people that are indigenous to this region.

We also say INUULIRTTUQ (i.NUU.lir.tuq) to say that any human being is born, which literally means that he or she has become a human being.

When any human being dies, he or she becomes INUVINIQ (i.NU.vi.niq), which means that he or she used to be a human being. We can take that further by adding the same suffix VINIQ (VI.niq) to any human being’s name. For example: ADAMIE-VINIQ (A.da.mi.VI.niq) means one who used to be Adamie.

The suffix VINIQ is added to any animal that has died.Hence, when you say NANUQ (NA.nuq), I take you to mean that you’re talking of a live polar bear. If you say NANUVINIQ (na.nu.VI.niq), I immediately understand that the bear is dead

And, about the words QAMUTEEEK (qa.mu.TEEEK) and KAMEEEK (ka.MEEEK): both denote a pair. The famous words KAMOTIK and KAMIK are really bad Inuktitut. They literally mean one of two pieces of wood that forms a runner and one skin-boot, respectively

Lastly, I want to clarify the word NAKOMIK, which is also bad Inuktitut. It should be spelled NAKURMEEEK (na.kur.MEEEK).

Thank you for your kind attention.

Adamie Kalingo
Ivujivik
Nunavik, QC