‘What does maqaitu-ing mean?’: Inuktitut faces challenging times, Sanikiluaq teachers say
Learning the Inuit language is a tough sell in modern English-speaking Canada, says Johnassie Kudluarok
Sanikiluaq Inuktitut teachers Johnassie Kudluarok, left, and Mary Kavik say Inuktitut is declining in the minds of young Inuit. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Every time Johnassie Kudluarok hears his students use the word “maqaitu-ing” in Inuktitut, it admittedly drives him “nuts.”
Students often anglicize Inuktitut word like maqaitu (hunting) by adding suffix -ing, which is a sign of the language’s decline, Mary Kavik says. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
“What does ‘maqaitu-ing’ mean? Where did that ‘-ing’ come from?” he wonders.
The word maqaitu means hunting in Inuktitut, but younger students tend to anglicize it, said Kudluarok, an Inuktitut teacher at Sanikiluaq’s Paatsaali High School.
But anglicisms like “maqaitu-ing” are just the beginning of the problem, adds Mary Kavik, who teaches Inuktitut and sewing at the school.
“Decline of the language starts at home,” she said.
“If you keep speaking it inside the house, they’re going to learn to just speak English and French.”
The number of native Inuktut speakers has been in decline for years. Census data show the proportion of Nunavummiut who reported their mother tongue as Inuktut fell to 52.9 per cent in 2021 from 61.9 per cent in 2016. And in 2001, it was 69.6 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.
The United Nations classifies most dialects of the Inuit language spoken in Canada as “vulnerable,” with Inuinnaqtun — the Inuit language of western Nunavut — as “definitely endangered.”
Things are not as bad in Sanikiluaq, where most young people are still able to express themselves in Inuktitut, but it’s getting worse, Kavik said.
Unlike today, her generation spoke Inuktitut at home and studied English at school. Now it’s the other way around for most families.
“I had unilingual parents. We got so lucky to be able to connect with them — English was never used or not even mixed with our language at home,” Kavik said.
Learning Inuktitut can be a tough sell to teenagers when most of what they see online is in English.
“I blame the iPhones,” Kudluarok said. “They watch TV, read Facebook — and all of it is in English”
Also, a lot of the teaching materials the Sanikiluaq school receives from the Department of Education in Iqaluit are not geared toward the local dialect.
“This doesn’t make sense at all to us,” Kudluarok said, pointing at the cover of an Inhabit Education book featuring a photo of a young girl with a spatula and pancakes and an Inuktitut word in syllabics as its title.
“From the picture, I guess it means ‘making pancakes,’ but I don’t know this word,” he said.
Still, Kudluarok said he is optimistic that the language can survive in the minds of young Inuit even during these over-anglicized times.
“If we keep correcting them — yes. If we keep encouraging them — yes,” he said.
“This is our heritage. I don’t want them to lose that.”
I wish you can speak out about what used to happen.
Our language is dying and our Nunavut government is fine with that, the GN has continually weakened the education act over the years since Nunavut was created, making Inuktut less and less in the school system, NETP at the college has been degrading and even the schools in Iqaluit will not hire teachers from the college, this has not been addressed even though the GN knows about for some time now.
We do our part at home, to try and fight the system that is set up against Inuktut but it’s a losing battle, most of our kids time is spent at school at is not designed for them or for Nunavut.
It’s amazing to spend some time in Greenland to see how it should be done, how their language has flourished and used on a daily basis in their schools and in the government, all services offered in their language. It’s incredible how a small country like Denmark can do so much in infrastructure, education in Greenland but here in Canada, a larger richer country we can do the same. Why is that? Why can’t we think outside of the narrow mind of only English?
What is wrong with our GN when most of the leadership is Inuit, why can’t we do much for Inuit in Nunavut? What is stopping us when in other regions it works so well? What is the issues?
We can’t even fill the language commissioner position in Nunavut, shows how inept our government is to Inuktut language.
Our government is not serious about our language in our homeland, until we truly control our government we will continue to be colonized from outside, this will not change unless we get into position of power within our government, the manger positions, director positions, policy positions within our government, no matter who is Premier, Minister we will not have any control of our government.
You are on control of your own government…..
Our government has done a terrible job at building capacity in Nunavut, the college has cut so many programs since Nunavut came to be, there has been more transient growth, more consultants (former GN employees) that cost more, I wish we were in control of our government but unfortunately that is not the case here, we have token politicians that listen to whatever the government bureaucrats say and tell them to do.