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Expert: Inuktitut needs far more help to survive

"When the government has to set special days aside to celebrate things like language and culture, it is the surest proof that these things are dying."

JANE GEORGE

Louis-Jacques Dorais of Université Laval says that if children can’t study Inuktitut past Grades 3 or 4, the language will never be given its proper place in Nunavut. (FILE PHOTO)

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If students don’t study in Inuktitut beyond Grades 3 or 4, it will never be possible “to give Inuktitut its proper place in Nunavut,” says Dorais, who speaks several Inuktitut dialects and Greenlandic fluently.

“It will, for sure, continue to be spoken for some decades, at least outside of Iqaluit, but its use risks being increasingly limited to petty topics, on the one hand, and highly symbolic domains (traditional life, political discourse, religious ceremonies) on the other.”

Dorais says that within 10 or 15 years, Iqaluit may well become like Cambridge Bay, where only a massive educational effort might be able revive the Innuinaqtun dialect.

Dorais’s report outlines the principal findings of a research project involving Laval and Nunavut Arctic College.

The goal of the project was to understand how speakers of Inuktitut in Iqaluit think about the future of Inuktitut after the creation of Nunavut.

Dorais says Inuktitut will never become Nunavut’s working language unless the Government of Nunavut:

• Reaffirms its commitment to making Inuktitut the GN’s working language by 2020;
• Creates a strong model for bilingual education;
• Determines where and how Inuktitut and English should be used;
• Trains more Inuktitut teachers, with a target of 85 per cent for 2020.

Dorais says Inuktitut must become the primary means of communication and shaping identity for Nunavummiut, as Greenlandic has been in Greenland.

The key, he says in the 60-page Inuit discourse and identity after the advent of Nunavut, is to increase Inuktitut-language education.

Dorais’s research attributes Inuktitut’s decline partially to the lack of a common dialect, which means Inuit often use English to communicate with each other in Iqaluit.

English also dominates because it’s needed in the job market, it’s the vehicle of popular culture, and most contacts with Qallunaat occur in English.

Since Nunavut’s creation in 1999, Dorais found that Inuit do feel Inuktitut is more visible, that it’s more politically and symbolically important, and that its “market value” for getting jobs has increased.

But all this doesn’t help preserve the language.

“Despite its increasing symbolic and political value, Inuktitut seems to be in decline in Iqaluit homes,” Dorais says. “A majority of younger parents speak English to their kids or speak both languages.”

The idea that you have to speak good Inuktitut or speak a common dialect of Inuktitut isn’t helping. “It may be better to speak a simplified version of Inuktitut than no Inuktitut at all,” Dorais says.

As for expressing emotions or political speech, English is considered more direct and more transparent in its meaning, while Inuktitut is recognized as less direct and better for talking about culture.

Middle-aged Inuit appear to be at the “core of transition” towards full bilingualism in Iqaluit.

Even so, younger people told Dorais they think their grandchildren will be speaking Inuktitut.

“Younger individuals (who, for the most part, do not have grandchildren yet) give an idealistic answer, because they are conscious of the part played by language in asserting Inuit identity.”

But older people aren’t so optimistic about the future of Inuktitut: “when looking at my youngest child and at my grandchild, I know they will hardly be able to talk in Inuktitut, I think they will not be able to read and write in Inuktitut.”

And all language professionals doubt the GN can reach its goal of making Inuktitut the working language by 2020. One said “when the government has to set special days aside to celebrate things like language and culture, it is the surest proof that these things are dying.”

The majority of these language workers did perceive a positive change in the public attitude towards Inuktitut since 1999.

Many told Dorais they want the GN and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. to invest money in Inuktitut programs, although others said the responsibility for language teaching lies first and foremost in the home.

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