Web site uses sound to teach Inuktitut

Qallunaat who are impressed with their mastery of Inuktitut phrases such as "nakurmiik" and "illali" are going to have to get to work.

Iqaluit's Piruvik Centre last week officially launched Tusaalanga.ca, a website that puts online the same curriculum that's used to teach Inuktitut to Government of Nunavut deputy ministers.

"Sometimes a lack of resources is used as an excuse not to learn," said Piruvik co-founder Gavin Nesbitt, before Tusaalanga's official launch July 13. "You have to hear Inuktitut to get it."

Tusaalanga, Inuktitut for "let me hear it" tackles the single biggest obstacle to learning Inuktitut: the fact that words are sometimes pronounced much differently than Roman orthography would indicate to a southern tongue. Each of the site's 15 lessons come with audio files, voiced by Nunavut's former languages commissioner Eva Aariak, demonstrating the proper pronunciation. There are more than 600 audio files on the site.

It's a solution for people who can't afford or don't have access to classroom lessons, Nesbitt said. Before Tusaalanga came along, "there was really no way to know if you were getting the pronunciation down pat."

The online material is drawn from the same lesson plans Piruvik that uses to teach Inuktitut to GN workers, and which they designed to get new Inuktitut speakers conversant in the language as quickly as possible. It's based on the pioneering work of Inuktitut educators Mick Mallon and Alexina Kublu, Nesbitt said.

The early lessons focus on learning how to say where you come from and how you are doing, then build in complexity to body parts and places of work.

"It was really developed from scratch," Piruvik co-founder Leena Evic said of the curriculum. "[The GN] told us it should be practical."

While Inuktitut classes may cost thousands of dollars, the folks behind the Piruvik centre say they've unveiled Tusaalanga as a public resource that can get people to a basic level of conversational Inuktitut, though they caution there's no replacing classroom conversation as a way to learn the language.

Piruvik plans to eventually develop an intermediate online program, with an introduction to writing in syllabics, for people with basic fluency or, as Evic put it, "cultural knowledge."

Evic said sites like Tusaalanga show how useful the internet can be for preserving and spreading Inuit culture.

"It definitely will have a positive impact. Sharing this kind of program with Inuit from around the globe is a very positive move."