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Inuktitut computing takes shape

Shamanism revived in Inuktitut computer programs

SARA MINOGUE

Leena Evic lights her seal oil lamp before firing up her laptop in her summer office. (PHOTO BY SARA MINOGUE)

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Leena Evic and Eva Aariak of Iqaluit's Pirurvik Centre are mixing old worlds with new as they take their summer project to their traditional canvas tents on the Sylvia Grinnell River.

The pair are working outdoors as much as they can on an Inuktitut translation of Microsoft Office as part of a Microsoft initiative funding similar translations in India, Ethiopia and the Ukraine.

The goal is to have a first draft of the new words ready by October, along with a functional Windows operating system in roman orthography. A syllabics version will follow.

The group plans to complete a language review with the help of the department of culture, language elders and youth this fall, but some of the suggested terms are likely to stick.

The word for Internet, for instance, is "ikiaqqivik," or, "traveling through layers," which Aariak believes is an appropriate metaphor, even though young people may not recognize the term as it falls out of use.

The word comes from the term used to describe what a shaman does when asked to find out how loved ones were doing, or where animals had gone, by traveling through time and space.

"They used to travel all over the world - even to the moon," says Aariak, who was Nunavut official languages commissioner before joining Pirurvik. "The 1969 moon landing did not impress local elders, Aariak adds. "They said: 'We've already been there.'"

The word for email is "irngiinaaqtauq," the Inuktitut word for "instant."

Both Aariak and Evic are aware that not all of the terms will catch on, but both say that usage will be the test.

The pair also say they've striven to include as many dialects as possible, rather than stick to one regional version of Inuktitut. Contributors have come from the North and South Baffin, Nunavik, the Kivalliq and Greenland.

Nonetheless, they expect they will likely have to produce a glossary of the new terms.

"We are not practicing shamans anymore, but we feel that it's part of keeping our language alive," Aariak says.

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