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Promoting dialects the key to success

Tolerance will help strengthen the language

SARA MINOGUE

A study into Inuit language dialects in Nunavut found that dialects should be supported at the community level – because understanding your own dialect well will help you to understand other dialects.

“The report also highlighted the lack of dialectical tolerance from community to community and suggested that comes from a lack of exposure to other dialects,” said Shauna-Leigh Wright, a policy analyst with the office of the languages commissioner, in a brief synopsis of the report she gave to a standing committee of the legislative assembly.

The report, Preserving Inuit dialects in Nunavut, does not make any political recommendations, such as which dialects should become official languages.

But it does point out that strengthening local dialects will strengthen the Inuit language as a whole, and that more exposure to different dialects will help people understand the language better, without necessarily eroding their own dialects.

“Proficiency in your own dialect allows you to understand other dialects more easily,” Wright said.

At present, many Inuit use English when they meet someone who speaks a different dialect, the author of the report notes in a summary of the report. But this is likely a symptom of the erosion of Inuit languages in general, and not a sign that dialects are mutually incomprehensible.

Dialects are not separate languages, but are regional variations of a language.

Nunavut has two main dialects: Western Inuktun and Eastern Inuktitut.

Inuinnaqtun and Natsilingmiutut are both Western Inuktun dialects. Eastern dialects include Kivalliq, Aivilik, North Baffin and South Baffin.

A summary of the report, by Dr. Shelley Tulloch of Saint Mary’s University, is available at the Office of the Languages Commissioner website at http://langcom.nu.ca. A complete copy of the report is available at their office.

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