Inuktitut Inuit\'s Language in Modern Inuit Communities in Northern Canada

Inuktitut in Modern Inuit Communities in Northern Canada

The role of language in identity construction of the Inuit in Nunavik (Quebec, Canada), which nourishes the evolution of their ethno-territorial movement in the eastern Canadian Arctic, had been around since the 1970s. This paper is an analysis of the legal-political context of the Quebec State then enables the detachment of the cornerstones of its policy speech in general, and finally those with respect to the indigenous population, in particular to the Inuit language.

There are eight major Inuit communities: those of the LABRADOR, the UNGAVA, and the BAFFIN, of Iglulik, the CARIBOU, of Netsilik and Copper as well as the Inuit of the Western Arctic (which replaced MACKENZIE INUIT). There are five main dialects Inuit in Canada Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut and inuttut grouped under a single language, Inuktitut or Inuktitut. (McGrath 2007) At the last census, 70% of Inuit said they knew the Inuit language and almost two thirds said that Inuktitut as their mother tongue (first language). (Steckley 2008)

It is in Nunavik and Nunavut, Inuktitut is the most used, and nine out of ten Inuit speak in that language. By comparison, 27% of Inuit of Nunatsiavut and 20% of Inuit in the Inuvialuit region speak this language. Although the use of this language is common among the Inuit, the number of people who speak it gradually declined, prompting the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the federal and territorial governments to develop a curriculum Inuktitut in schools.

The Inuit are a people of hunters and gatherers who traditionally move from one camp to another, depending on the season. (Paver 2008) The broad regional groupings were used randomly divided into smaller seasonal groups: winter camps, called "bands," bringing together a hundred people, and summer hunting groups, which comprise less than a dozen. Each band was identified by a place and a name relating thereto, the Arvirtuurmiut Peninsula Booth was called "eating baleen whales." (McGrath 2007)

Today, the fruits, vegetables and milk are too expensive, are rare and their freshness is poor, as they must be transported long distances before arriving in northern communities. However, game, marine mammals and berries abound, so many Inuit share some of the fruits of the hunt, caribou, duck and whaling and fishing and berry picking. (Steckley 2008) A 2005 report shows that almost all Inuit Nunaat of adult derive their livelihood from this food. Game, marine mammals and berries remain an important food source for many Inuit, almost all families Nunaat (96%) that food barter with other households.

Since the beginning of its settlement, 4000 years ago, the emergence of new people has always enriched the cultural life of the Arctic. The ancestors of the Inuit, whose culture is similar to that of Inuppiats (northern Alaska), the Katladlits (Greenland) and Yuit (Siberia and western Alaska), arrived 1050 years ago. From the eleventh century, VIKINGS influence of an unknown magnitude of the Inuit. (Paver 2008)

The successive arrival of explorers, whalers, traders, missionaries, scientists and other irreversibly alter their culture. As these people want to trade and need guidance and show them how to survive, the Inuit are actively involved in the development of the North. (Paver 2008) Despite the changes made by the Inuit themselves over the last three centuries and the abandonment of certain customs, and Inuit culture still raises more than ever an important realization. Inuit retain their cultural identity through language, cultural customs ancestral attitudes and behaviors as well as the INUIT ART, which has a great reputation.

In North, Inuktitut remains one of the most vibrant indigenous languages, although its use is declining. Some Inuit are learning as a second language. (Hauser et al. 2010) In the 2006 Census, 32,200 Inuit, 64% of this population reported Inuktitut as their mother tongue, down 4 percentage points since 1996. Mother tongue is the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood today. (Eber 2008)

The proportion of Inuit who speak Inuktitut most often at home also decreases. In 2006, about 25,500 Inuit (50% of the population of this group) reported Inuktitut as the language spoken most often at home, down 8 percentage points from 1996. (Eber 2008) Some Inuit learning Inuktitut as a second language. Approximately 11,100 Inuit youth aged 14 and under, 63% of this population had Inuktitut as their mother tongue. (King et al. 2005)

Approximately 12,200 Inuit (69%) mastered the language sufficiently to converse, which is a decrease from 1996 (72%). The Inuit probably come from an Asian nation of hunters and gatherers. They came across the Bering Strait to America, long after the Indians, approximately from 3000 to 2500 BC. (Eber 2008) They move today by the Chukchi Peninsula in the Bering Strait to Alaska along the Arctic Ocean to the islands of northern Canada to Greenland. Archaeologists have found evidence for several waves of immigration, with the new arrivals were mostly developed technically and forced the locals, or mingled with them. (Hauser et al. 2010)

Settlement areas of the Inuit

The last immigration, about 1000 years AD, as the previous ones as in a much warmer climate phase today instead. But the Inuit were able to adapt to colder climates. You were as pure fighter, also in contrast to the Indians, not to agricultural products or gathered fruits and berries need. (Hauser et al. 2010) As long as there was plenty of prey, the existence of the Inuit community was assured. Even the so-called "Little Ice Age" from 1550 to 1850 they could not endanger the public. (Crandall 2000)

The Inuit were living during the warm periods mostly in permanent settlements, at least until it all year round in the area were sufficient prey. In colder periods they changed seasonally with prey of the wandering between several hunting camps. (McGrath 2007) Depending on the region they hunted mainly the different prey species of the Arctic: caribou, musk oxen, fish, seals, walruses and whales. They were usually not in the legendary snow houses, igloos. These were used mostly as a short-term accommodation while traveling or hunting trips. (De Poncins et al. 1996)

The encounter with the whites

Until modern times, had encounters with whites for many Inuit of northern Canada have little impact on their daily lives? However, there have been epidemics of diseases such as tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases, which were transferred on the Inuit. Whalers visited the settlements often only for a short time, had been missionaries greater cultural influence. (Hauser et al. 2010) Sun missionaries around 1770 German missionaries, the Moravians in Saxony, on the coast of Labrador. As a result, there the Christian Inuit and sometimes even had to accept German first names. (Alia 2009)

Apart from the more southern coastal regions, however, were large areas without extensive contact with Western culture. (Kulchyski et al. 2007) A first step in the early 20th Century, the activities of the "Hudson Bay Company," the furs for hunting rifles, tents and other goods exchanged. (McGrath 2007) So many Inuit came first with the rules of the modern economy in contact. The coveted goods had to be paid. The Inuit have been victims of unscrupulous dealers who purchase the coveted hunting rifles shamelessly cheated. (Eber 1997)

Survive in a modern Canada

With the Second World War grew the strategic value of northern Canada. The state began to step up to take care of the Inuit. (Hauser et al. 2010) Apart from this, military interests and natural resources such as lead, silver, zinc, petroleum and natural gas were an incentive. The Inuit had a short time to live in a modern society, but especially in an economic system in which each product must be paid for with money. (Billson et al. 2007)

With hunting, the Inuit could hardly earn money, possibly sealskins could sell. But only until the big markets in Europe and America by boycott calls from animal rights activists broke down. (McGrath 2007) There is other paid work in the Arctic, however, hardly. Although it is currently starve no more Inuk. But many do not earn enough to pay the out of the South introduced foods and goods, of which they are increasingly dependent due to the sedentary lifestyle. The modern wooden houses are comfortable, but it can no longer live exclusively by hunting. Many Inuit have become recipients of state grants. (Stern 2004)

Dramatic consequences

The hopelessness of this situation, coupled with the extreme isolation, meant that occur in some localities extremely high suicide rates. Often in young people who experience while on television the wide world, but find you getting buried alive. (Paver 2008) The high cost of travel in the Arctic mean that they can hardly ever even leaving the village. Also, alcohol abuse is a problem, especially where there is no established social structure, such as in mining villages or in the vicinity of military installations. More recently, the sale of alcohol in self-governing regions is largely prohibited. (Kulchyski et al. 2007)

Many well-intentioned approaches to help the government, the Inuit from their difficult situation, however, caused new problems. Thus, the compulsory education meant that the ancestral language, Inuktitut, partially hidden and forgotten, because it was in boarding school and could not be spoken. As in remote communities but there were no schools, had many young Inuit visit boarding schools and there perceived the culture as a major constraint imposed. (Paver 2008)

Inuktitut in modern Inuit communities in Northern Canada

The Inuit of the North are much more likely to speak Inuktitut as their urban counterparts in southern Canada. In 2006, 15% of Inuit living in urban centers could converse in Inuktitut, compared to 84% for those in Inuit Nunaat, which includes the Inuit regions of northern Canada. (Hauser et al. 2010)

However, mastery of Inuktitut varies considerably within Inuit Nunaat. In Nunavik, 99% of Inuit speak it well enough to converse over 91% in Nunavut. In contrast, just 27% of Inuit in Nunatsiavut and 20% of Inuit in the Inuvialuit region can converse in Inuktitut. (Eber 2008) In northern Canada, the Inuit language has to compete with English. His writing can make it stronger, provided an understanding of the context in which the choices and attitudes of bilingual speakers. (Stern and Lisa 2006)

In Nunavut, 83% of Aboriginal people say the Inuit language as their mother tongue. Inuktitut would be "statistically viable" and there would be no immediate concern about maintaining the language in everyday life for communities. And especially since the Government of Nunavut leads, through the adoption of new laws, a positive language policy to make the Inuit language an official language and even a working language in 2020. (Kulchyski et al. 2007)

Thus, Inuktitut is no longer limited to the private sphere or subsistence activities, but could fight on equal terms with English both politically and economically. (Alia 2009) However, if we want to stabilize bilingualism, the revision of laws in matters of language and the efforts to promote Inuktitut they not intervene too late? (Stern and Lisa 2006) Researchers indeed show some concern. In reality, only the elderly and young children are unilingual. They speak Inuktitut, which poses a problem of its intergenerational transmission. (Billson et al. 2007)

Which, after the grandparents speak the traditional language spontaneously to new generations? And if you look at the practices and language attitudes in families and schools, we realize that bilingualism is subtractive: in other words, the acquisition of English as a Second Language, more socially useful, to the detriment of the mother tongue. It is therefore an unequal bilingualism. (Eber 2008)

Specifically, the pressure of English seems to affect even the appropriation of writing in Aboriginal languages?

can not prevent. (Steckley 2008) In any case, a question worth asking: what is the place and role of writing in search of stable bilingualism? Some argue that it can continue without writing the vernacular is essential, since it is actually in an oral culture.

Although writing is an effort to revitalize and gives a large identity value in some cases, the tendency would be to the marginalization of writing in the spontaneous attitude of the speakers. But his promotion would not allow it not to break this dependence vis-a-vis the dominant language in writing routine? (Alia 2009) Under certain conditions, an anchor could it be created within the community structures to facilitate the intergenerational transmission? Precisely because it concerns the school and literacy classes for adults include several generations. (Steckley 2008)

Do not forget the importance of oral tradition and its scope in terms of social practices. (Kulchyski et al. 2007) Through family ties, events and community celebrations, or activities of hunting and fishing, the traditional language has a symbolic and emotional charge very high in the minds of Inuit. (Stern 2004) Establish written would then call into question the structures, rules and those in the traditional way of imparting knowledge and build social ties. Taken in this context, the writing does indeed play a secondary role. (Alia 2009)

Conversely, its routine use would only lead to internal transformations community ordered to adjust again to a new locale. (Steckley 2008) Changes which are necessary in order to survive culturally, as writing can also be a place of resistance and cultural creativity. For now, even if the introduction of writing is not as recent development outside the institutions by the missionaries, standardization in syllabics and teaching effectiveness are still missing including the glaring absence of educational materials. (Billson et al. 2007)

More than half of the younger generations have confessed their inability to read or write Inuktitut. Under these conditions, the writing could be limited to the preservation and cultural record for an informed public meeting the necessities of the pragmatic use of English. (Kulchyski et al. 2007)

Cultural Occupations and language

Although some groups live in rivers teeming with fish and other hunt caribou inland areas, the Inuit traditionally live in the hunting of marine mammals (seals, walruses and whales), and the structure of their culture and ethics have always turned to the sea. The ability of Inuit to adapt to a cold and difficult is related to their particular ability to make tools and other useful things you can do all kinds of material. (McGrath 2007)

Dressed in leather, spikes d ' ivory and horn, with stone blades, shoes slides made?

with strips of meat frozen if necessary are examples of adaptation to the indigenous natural materials. They use a kayak or motor boats to hunt at sea or near the openings in the roadside waiting for the release of ice seals.

During the hunt use the igloo as an emergency shelter. They use animal skins to make garments (eg anorak). Used for traveling on snow sled dogs although snowmobiles are largely replacing this way of traveling. They use natural materials: ivory or horn harpoons, stone blades.

Conclusion

The linguistic strategies that have become widely accepted in the Canadian Great North, Indicate that we should probably approach the question of linguistic diversity in a less emotive way. Now, we often need a push to perceive moral diversity as a resource instead of a source of worries, but then, we should make sure not to misplace our priorities at least. (McGrath 2007) When we recognize that language is inseparable of the human being, that, if we witness its death, what we are actually witnessing is the death of its last speaker, we need to adopt a more flexible language ideology, which does justice to the countless roles of language in society.