Breathing the Inuit language down under (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

NEWS: Nunavut July 17, 2012 - 9:28 am

Breathing the Inuit language down under

“Uncle Bob” from Australia promotes Inuktitut learning

David Joanasie uprooted his life so his children could speak Inuktitut.

“I was living down south with my wife, I got a daughter, and she
started to go to daycare,” Joanasie said. He noticed his daughter,
Cynthia, was speaking more English than their home-spoken Inuktitut.

“It was something important to me to pass on Inuktitut before she went
on to preschool or kindergarten. So I said, we’re going to move back,
and I want my children to speak Inuktitut,” Joanasie said.

He says it’s a part of his Inuit identity to speak the language.

“Somebody put it this way: It should be like breathing. Like every day
breathing.”

So the Joanasies moved up to Iqaluit, his daughter attended Tumikuluit
Saipaaqivik daycare, and he found a job at the Qikiqtani Inuit
Association and became a media relations advisor.

And that’s how he encountered an eccentric Australian man with an
Aussie-Inuktitut accent by the name of Bob Carveth — or, as
five-year-old Cynthia now calls him, Uncle Bob.

Access full article below:
http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674breathing_the_inuit_language_down_under/