ITK gears up for Iqaluit language summit

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s language task force will host a summit in Iqaluit later this month to try and set the groundwork for a unified Inuktut writing system in Canada. (FILE PHOTO)

Members of a national Inuktut language task group will sit down together to hash out a plan for a written language system at an upcoming summit in Iqaluit.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq task group will host a summit called the Unification of the Inuit Writing Language System Aug. 25 and Aug. 26 at Iqaluit’s parish hall, ITK announced Aug. 12.

At the gathering members of the task group plan to share their findings from a series of consultations in recent months that visited communities in all four regions of Inuit Nunangat, with the goal of drafting recommendations for provincial, territorial and Inuit governments.

“From the consultations, there seems to be a lean towards Roman orthography,” said Jeela Palluq-Cloutier, who heads Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq. “But that will be determined at the summit.”

Most recently, the task force visited Rankin Inlet and Kugluktuk in Nunavut, followed by stops in the Nunavik communities of Puvirnituq and Kuujjuaq

“Those regions are mainly syllabic users, and there was quite a lot of questions about syllabics being omitted and how it impact language use,” Palluq-Cloutier said.

“But we told them that the regions can continue to use the language systems they feel comfortable with.”

Any recommended changes towards a unified Inuktut written system would be gradually introduced into the education systems of each jurisdiction, she explained.

“So it won’t impact the general population immediately,” Palluq-Cloutier said. “People will continue to speak the languages they speak, and people will continue to use the writing systems they’re comfortable with.”

The eight-member Atausiq Inuktut Titirausiq, made up of language experts representing each Inuit region, have been working on the direction of ITK’s Amauraq Centre for Inuit Education since 2012.

The group has hosted consultations in more than a dozen communities over the last year, meeting with teachers, elders, translators and others about specific changes in orthography and spelling that could help Canadian Inuit move towards a more standardized writing system.

Linguists have largely recommended that the group look to majority usage when trying to standardize certain elements of the written Inuit language.

For example, the “ch” sound is used in the Inuvialuit region, although it’s written and pronounced as “ts” elsewhere.

Linguists would recommend the use of “ts” as the new standard, reports the task force, while the Inuvialuit could continue to pronounce the “ch” sound.

Four different versions of syllabics are used between eastern Nunavut and Nunavik while overall, there are 10 variations in the way the Inuit language is written across the Inuit Nunangat regions of Canada.

Once Inuit understand that, task force members said everyone generally sees the need for a more unified system.

The Aug. 25 and Aug. 26 summit is not open to the public, but rather will welcome a number of delegates from each of the four Inuit regions in Canada, as well as delegates from Greenland and Alaska.