New CD will bring Inuktitut to children (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

February 25, 2005

New CD will bring Inuktitut to children
"When you sing a song in Inuktitut, you're not worried about stumbling"

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

[photo inset - Leena Evic learned to sing while growing up in a winter
camp across from Pangnirtung. (PHOTO BY GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS)]

How do you say "intsy-wintsy spider" in Inuktitut?

Leena Evic, a former school teacher, has put the answer to music in the
familiar children's song on a new CD, to give all generations an extra
tool to teach themselves the language.

"It's for everybody who enjoys music," Evic said in an interview earlier
this week.

"It's also a reference for learning Inuktitut."

The CD, called And There Were Inuit, will be launched during Iqaluit's
Toonik Tyme festivities in April.

But Evic is already excited to share the 24 songs that took her more
than two years to record.

During a sneak preview of the disc, Evic told Nunatsiaq News about how
she hopes the short, cheery songs will inspire coming generations to
keep the language alive. She said she draws on her elders' tradition of
singing ayaya songs to recount stories about the past in an entertaining
way.

"They tell a lot about the culture," she said of elders' songs.

"They tell a lot about... who the people were, and how they lived."

The CD fits Evic's life mission of helping preserve traditional culture.
As a primary school teacher at Joamie School in Iqaluit, she used music
to pique the interest of her students learning Inuktitut as a second
language.

Since then, she left the school system and co-founded a consultancy, the
Pirurvik Centre, which handles cultural events, and language projects
like translating the Windows computer operating system into syllabics.

While sorting through potential Inuktitut teaching material, Evic came
across her old song sheets for popular children's songs, like "London
Bridge is Falling Down," and "The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a
Shoe."

With encouragement from her business partner, Evic started visiting a
recording studio in Kingston, Ont., while she was working as an
instructor in the Tupiq Program for Inuit prisoners at the Fenbrook
Institution, outside Toronto.

Several years later, Evic has the CD in hand, full of tunes spanning the
1970s to the 1990s. Even listeners who don't know a word of Inuktitut
will likely recognize the melodies of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Our
Land," and "You are my Sunshine."

However, Evic seems to light up with pride when talking about the title
track, which she wrote herself (the music comes from a Russian folk
song).

The lyrics are based on the first decade of Evic's life, when she lived
in a winter camp with six other families across from the nascent
settlement of Pangnirtung. At the time, Evic learned to sing from her
mother who entertained the children, and loved to tell stories. She
said her father influenced her musically, by humming tunes to relax at
night.

"In a traditional society... values gave us a great source of strength,"
Evic said.

"One of the greatest groundings we had was love for one another."

But the tightly-knit camps eventually disbanded. Evic's family moved to
the settlement, where she joined the Anglican choir, and learned to
sing in upbeat harmonies.

Decades later, Evic said she found she had a knack for using her musical
talents to teach her mother tongue to people of every age.

Evic's business partner has already benefited from the CD in his quest
to speak more Inuktitut. Gavin Nesbitt, who moved to Iqaluit about nine
years ago, said he's struggled with the language, in part, because every
phrase looks really long on paper.

But he said Evic's songs tend to show him where proper emphasis should
be in Inuktitut, and are easy to memorize because of the melodies.

"People learn more through music," Nesbitt said.

"When you sing a song in Inuktitut, you're not worried about stumbling."

The CD, produced by former Iqaluit musician Chris Coleman, will be
available in stores later this year.