Inuit org president urges go-slow approach to Roman orthography

This text from the spring 1987 issue of Inuktitut magazine shows identical versions of the famous Inuit-language story, known in English as “The Woman Who Married a Dog,” represented in syllabics and Roman orthography.

Delegates attending a Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. board of directors meeting in Iqaluit this week, including the organization’s president, are skeptical about a recent recommendation from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami on the adoption of Roman orthography to create a unified writing system for Inuktut.

“Nunavut is not ready at this time. We want to stabilize our language first and determine for ourselves are we capable either of having syllabics or Roman orthography,” NTI President Cathy Towtongie said in an interview Sept. 1 with Nunatsiaq News.

On Aug. 26, ITK’s Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq group, after a summit in Iqaluit, recommended the use of Roman orthography in a common writing system.

And this past March, the Government of Nunavut said they will begin moving from syllabics to Roman orthography in the school system.

But Towtongie said NTI and the Government of Nunavut must adhere to a process first, regardless of the ITK recommendations.

And she said the concerns of the older generation could have been better accommodated in the recommendations set out by the summit.

“In Nunavut alone, Inuit, our elders, are hurting because they felt they had not been consulted. So we [NTI and Government of Nunavut] have to consult the communities,” Towtongie said in the interview.

Towtongie and NTI agree with the summit in principal, but say that any change should not occur overnight.

The president hopes such a dramatic change as the Greenland Inuit adoption of the Roman alphabet is not in store for Nunavut — although the merits of the Greenlandic system, especially its success in digital media, were discussed at length at the summit.

“I told them, we can’t go to sleep one night, and the next day have a totally new written language, which happened in Greenland. They changed their papers overnight,” says Towtongie.

“Language is a very sensitive topic, and how to proceed forward as a working tool is a question all Nunavummiut have to take part in, and that’s the step that has been missing.”

NTI’s CEO, James T. Arreak, who participated in the language unification summit, told Nunatsiaq News that regardless of any conflicts concerning the recommendations, serious language issues still need to be addressed.

“Obviously we are concerned with the deterioration in the use of the Inuktitut language, and how can we make it so that it’s easy to use the language — that’s a big task and there’s no easy solution to it,” Arreak said.

Whatever form written Inuktut takes in Nunavut, Towtongie believes Inuit don’t need to look far for inspiration.

“There’s already a model in Canada, the French [Quebec] government, and we have to take pride in our own language and realize that we can operate in our own language,” she says.

“Greenland is already operating in their Inuktitut language — we already have a model in Canada and a model in the circumpolar region.”

A progress report on the status of the ITK summit’s recommendation is expected to be completed in a year.

Whatever the next step, Towtongie wants all Nunavummiut to get a say.

“It has to come from within.”