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May 2, 2003

Radio announcers need Inuttitut training, Avataq says

Group wants TNI, CBC announcers to attend language workshops

ODILE NELSON

In a bid to end what it is calling the "misuse of Inuttitut" on public radio, the Avataq Cultural Institute may move its next language workshop to Salluit – headquarters of Taqramiut Nipingat Inc., the regional public broadcaster.

Avataq completed the first of two biannual interpreter-translator workshops in Kuujjuarapik on April 15 and had planned to host the second meeting in Quaqtaq next September.

But Minnie Amidlak, Avataq's language programs coordinator, said this week the organization may switch the fall meeting's location to allow Salluit-based TNI announcers to attend the workshop.

Amidlak said Avataq is considering the move because, since the organization took over the language initiative from the Kativik School Board in the late 1990s, workshop participants have questioned TNI and CBC about their announcers' use of Inuttitut.

"They [public radio announcers] have a great influence and a lot of people are listening to them. The elders and everybody, mainly people who are able to understand perfectly in Inuttitut, there is a great concern that they are not using the right words," Amidlak said.

Avataq's language workshops recover neglected Inuttitut words and develop Inuttitut equivalents for new English terms. These words are then entered into two databases. The workshops also train interpreters and raise concerns about Inuttitut.

A few weeks before the latest workshop, Amidlak said, Claude Grenier, TNI's general director, asked Avataq to consider moving the next meeting so TNI could send all its broadcasters for training.

Though TNI television reporters have attended the workshops in the past, no radio announcers from TNI, CBC or local FM stations have attended the meetings.

Grenier confirmed he requested a change in venue for the fall workshop so TNI's announcers could attend.

"For a number of years now we've been trying to get specific terminology training for our staff in Salluit. But it's always very difficult for our radio people to attend these workshops, because if they do that [go to another community] we can't do our radio programming," Grenier said.

Grenier also said he does not share concerns that radio announcers are blatantly misusing Inuttitut.

"I see it completely differently and so does our board of directors. There are different dialects from one community to the other and it's not because it's different from one community to another that the language is not proper," he said.

But Amidlak said it is not simply a question of different dialects. She said previous workshop participants worry radio announcers are propagating the misuse of Inuttitut altogether.

Still, she praised Grenier for taking the initiative.

"We would like to see the CBC staff have the same attitude as TNI," she said.

William Tagoona, a radio announcer with CBC's Kuujjuaq station, said he had not heard any criticism.

He said he would consider attending a language meeting but, since the Kuujjuaq station has only two people on staff, he would not likely participate if it were held in Salluit or Quaqtaq.

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