Inuit
Qaimarutin, Tikilluarit, Tikilluaritsi "welcome" (in different dialects)
Qaimarutin, Tikilluarit, Tikilluaritsi "welcome" (in different dialects)
Introduction
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Inroduction
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a continuum of related dialects that are not readily comprehensible at the extremes. Unfortunately, there are no agreed upon criteria for breaking the Inuit language continuum into specific languages. This causes problems with the term Inuit itself which is more appropriately used to refer to the ethnic group rather than to the language. However, by extension, it is also used as a general cover term for the continuum of the language variants spoken by the Inuit people. The Inuit people themselves use different names to refer to their own languages. 
Structure
Sound System |
Vowels Almost all dialects of Inuit have only three basic vowels that can be either short or long. Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning. In Nunavut standard Roman orthography long vowels are written as a double vowel. This rule is not always true for Alaskan dialects and some areas of Greenland. Vowel sequences are limited to two adjacent vowels. Consonants
Consonant clusters are limited to sequences of two consonants. Position of stress in a word affects word meaning.
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Grammatical structures of Yupik and Inuit are very similar. Like other Eskimo-Aleut languages, Inuit is a polysynthetic language, i.e., grammatical functions are represented by numerous suffixes attached to roots and stems. Linguists are attempting to postulate an internal ordering of the suffixes (see Valence and Affix Ordering in Inupiatun). This leads to very long words that are practically equivalent to whole sentences in less synthetic languages such as English. Noun phrase Here is an example from Wikipedia:
Pronouns Verb phrase |
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Below are a few words to give you an idea of Inuktitut vocabulary. Like other Eskimo-Aleut languages, Inuit tends not to borrow words from other languages. Instead, it creates new words out of its internal resources.
By some counts, Inuit has 15 different words for snow!
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Writing |
Until recently, Inuit was a spoken language with no writing system. The first attempt to write Inuit came from Moravian missionaries in Greenland and Labrador in the mid-18th century. In the 1870's, Edmund Peck, an Anglican missionary, adapted the Cree syllabary for writing Inuit. Other missionaries, and later Canadian and American government linguists, adapted the Latin alphabet to the dialects of the Mackenzie River delta, the western Arctic islands and Alaska. Today, Inuit is written with the Latin alphabet in Greenland, Alaska, Labrador, the Mackenzie River delta in the Northwest Territories, and in part of Nunavut. In most of Nunavut and in northern Quebec, Inuit is written using the Inuit syllabary. At present, Inuit syllabics enjoy official status in Nunavut alongside the Latin alphabet. They are also used officially in Quebec. In Greenland, the traditional Latin script is official and is widely used in public life. The Latin script is used to write Inupiaq in Alaska. However in some parts of Canada, it is written in the Inuit syllabary. Here is the Inuit syllabary:
Click here for a fun interactive way to learn Inuit syllabics.
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Inuit words in English
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Scrimshaw |
Resources
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