Benoit Aquin
By Charlie Pinguartuq
The Avataq Cultural Institute is presently working with communities in Nunavik on the retention of today’s Inuktitut language. This work is called the "Inuktituurniup Saturtaugasuarninga" (IS in shortened form). This project has been supported by Makivik Corporation, Kativik Regional Government, with practical assistance provided by the Kativik School Board.
Nuatami Qumaaluk points something out (Photo by Gérald McKenzie)
The project covers fifteen communities, including Chisasibi, where a small Inuit population lives among a majority Cree community. As of today, IS fieldworkers have gone to ten communities. A regional IS workshop took place in Inukjuak in which representatives from Hudson Bay communities took part. A similar regional workshop for the Ungava coast took place in Quaqtaq. The purpose of these workshops was to determine how the committee would conduct their work in the communities and how they would proceed with gathering information through a questionnaire.
There were three main questions in the questionnaire: A) What is the situation of Inuktitut today? B) What are the factors undermining it? and C) What are its remaining strengths? This questionnaire targets various community authorities, Elders, Youth, and Secondary students starting from level three and up. The first phase of the workshops were conducted in two groups. The first group was with community residents and the second group was made up of senior, or secondary-level students. In the workshops, there were twenty, and sometimes more, participants.
Zebedee Nungak, Avataq Language Director (Photo by Charlie Pinguartuq)
During Avataq's workshop on IS in Purvinituq. Left to right : Alashuaq Amittuq, Davidee Niviaxie et Zebedee Nungaq (Photo by Charlie Pinguartuq)
The outcome of the workshops has been very satisfactory and the participants’ responses to the questionnaire have been quite similar. The participants came up with answers of their own free will.The gradual loss and erosion of the Inuktitut language has been one of the main concerns of the participants. We are starting to recognize the reasons as to why we are beginning to lose our Inuktitut. Inuktitut speakers are gradually forgetting a lot of the Inuktitut terminologies. Fortunately, Avataq Cultural Institute has been collecting ideas on how to strengthen our beautiful language. We really appreciate the communities’ input and we would like to thank them for making us feel welcome when we arrive.
In all of the communities, there are Local Cultural Committees (LCC’s) and the Elders have been a great source of information for them. In the future, Inuit want to retain pride in their language. The Inuktitut language has to remain the foundation for everything running smoothly. It has to remain as the main source of light amongst the Inuit in Nunavik.
So, if you are going to speak Inuktitut, please finish your sentences and make a conscious effort not to mix foreign words with Inuktitut. As long as we finish all of our sentences in Inuktitut, our spoken words do make perfect sense!
We are determined not to be a people who have lost their mother tongue. The Inuktitut language has been our way of life. From it, and through it, we have learned to be hospitable with one another and live in better harmony.
