Living in an English world

DENISE RIDEOUT

Sitting is his kitchen, Celestin Erkidjuk holds a small portable radio close to his ear, his eyes closed, listening to the 9:30 a.m. news on CBC North. The news reader’s voice rings out in Inuktitut.

Erkidjuk, an Iqaluit resident, speaks and reads Inuktitut. He’s picked up tidbits of English words during his 72 years. But he can’t read it.

Erkidjuk has been around Qallunaat for most of his life. He grew up in Chesterfield Inlet, where the Catholic nuns in the community spoke French to the Inuit. As a young man, he worked in the nickel mine in Rankin Inlet, which employed many Qallunaat miners.

Erkidjuk switches from Inuktitut to English with ease, and says with a smile: “I learned English 300 feet underground in the mine.”

While Erkidjuk speaks enough English to have simple conversations, he talks to Nunatsiaq News through an Inuktitut interpreter.

Erkidjuk says it’s certainly a challenge for him — and elders who are unilingual Inuktitut-speakers — to get by in a world that’s dominated by English.

The English words on food labels, business signs and household appliances are just letters to him: he doesn’t know what they mean.

In the bright, open kitchen in his Iqaluit apartment, caribou meat sits in a pot on the stove and there are pieces of bannock on the counter. Next to the bannock, there’s a white microwave.

Erkidjuk gestures to the appliance, focusing on the English words: “defrost,” “entrees,” “popcorn,” he points out. “In some ways, it’s difficult not to read English. There are some items that don’t have Inuktitut words on them,” he says.

Reading bills and letters he receives in the mail is another challenge. “It’s kind of difficult for me when I get letters and I can’t read them. They are written in English,” he says. Erkidjuk is forced to get his relatives to help him decipher his mail.

The abundance of English-only letters and bills is a major point of contention for some elders.

Eva Aariak, Nunavut’s language commissioner, said elders often complain to her that they face a serious language barrier: they can’t read their mail. “Poor elders,” Aariak says in an interview, shaking her head.

A group of women gathered at Iqaluit’s Elder’s Centre echo those concerns. They each tell their tales, in Inuktitut, about problems they run into as unilingual Inuit.

Siloah Atagooyak, her shoulder-length hair almost white, says the concerns are real.

As she speaks, she moves her hand in a writing motion and says: “The mail is always in English and even though I recognize my name on it, I’m not sure what the letter is saying.”

The other women agree, saying they often turn to their children for help.

“Some of the mail is probably vital, but I can’t read it. Sometimes I just discard it because I don’t know what it is,” says Eqaluk Juraqak, a 70-year-old woman originally from Coral Harbour.

“The English use is a lot bigger than the Inuktitut use,” she says.

Elders often hit a road block, she says, when they go to the offices and stores that don’t have Inuktitut-speaking employees.

“The problem I have is when I go to stores and the clerks don’t speak Inuktitut,” Pauline Erkidjuk adds.

There’s a general concern among the women that English, not Inuktitut, is the language of choice for many young Inuit.

“I worry that we will lose Inuktitut,” Juraqak says.

“The creation of Nunavut promised that Inuktitut would be strong.

But that still hasn’t happened. English is still dominant.”