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Translators gather in Kangirsuk

Avataq workshop helps expand Inuktitut vocabulary

MIRIAM HILL

The streets of Kangirsuk will be filled with interpreter/translators next week.

Avataq’s second language workshop of the year is being held in the community from Sept. 24 to Oct. 4.
The workshop brings together interpreter/translators, elders and linguists to work on two databases for the Avataq Cultural Institute.

One database is concerned with coming up with Inuktitut words to explain English terms that have never been translated.

"As a group we discuss it with the elders and come up with the best term," explained Martha Kauki of Kangirsuk, who has helpedcoordinate the workshop in years past.

Another database is built from Inuktitut words no longer used in everyday language. This is referred to as recuperation.

"Words not spoken today in Inuktitut are put on paper," Kauki said. "We keep adding them with the elders and we learn from them. They explain the use of the word and what it means." The group also tries to come up with an appropriate English translation.

Minnie Amidlak, Avataq’s Inuktitut language coordinator, is organizing this fall’s workshop and said the recuperation aspect is vital.

"Our generation benefits from [the elders]," she said. "We’re almost like the tools they can use to come up with papers and terminology."

Amidlak said the workshops used to be held once a year, but recently it was decided to hold them once in February and once in September. The last one was held in Salluit.

The Kangirsuk event is bringing about 37 people to the community. Ten elders are being flown in to participate. They will represent the regions of Hudson Bay coast, the Hudson Strait and the Ungava coast so as many dialects as possible will be covered.

Amidlak said a linguist will also be on hand, as well as independent interpreter/ translators and others from organizations such as the Katavik Regional School, Makivik Corporation, the Federation Cooperative of Northern Quebec, and hospitals in Puvirnituq and Kuujjuaq.

Organizations employing interpreter/translators are responsible for paying the travel and accommodation costs for the workshop, but independents and the nine students from the interpreter/translator program in Puvirnituq will have their costs paid jointly by the Kativik Regional Government’s Employment and Training Program and Avataq.

Amidlak said the workshop costs between $50,000 and $75,000 in total.

"In the beginning we had to start from scratch, but with all the hard work Avataq has being doing we’ve been getting lots of support from the communities," she said. The workshop is approaching the stage where Avataq may be able to organize the workshops into specific domains, such as words encountered in health, education, law or politics.

While no participants are attending the workshop from Nunavut, Amidlak said Nunavut’s Language Commissioner, Eva Aariak, met with Avataq’s president during the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Kuujjuaq last month to discuss Avataq’s language preservation activities. Aariak said she was interested in exchanging ideas.

"I hope to delegate an elder to go with me to share the Inuktitut language in other areas," Amidlak said.
An interpreter/translator herself, Amidlak is passionate about the work Avataq is doing to preserve the Inuktitut language.

"I believe in my language," she said. "Without it my culture would be crippled."

The words and translations agreed upon during the workshop will be entered into the Avataq databases and sent to future workshops and participating organizations. For a fee, copies of the documents can also be ordered from Avataq.

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