Nunavut: Promoting dialects the key to success

[Harold F. Schiffman]

April 14, 2006

Promoting dialects the key to success
Tolerance will help strengthen the language

SARA MINOGUE

A study into Inuit language dialects in Nunavut found that dialects should
be supported at the community level because understanding your own dialect
well will help you to understand other dialects. The report also
highlighted the lack of dialectical tolerance from community to community
and suggested that comes from a lack of exposure to other dialects, said
Shauna-Leigh Wright, a policy analyst with the office of the languages
commissioner, in a brief synopsis of the report she gave to a standing
committee of the legislative assembly.

The report, Preserving Inuit dialects in Nunavut, does not make any
political recommendations, such as which dialects should become official
languages. But it does point out that strengthening local dialects will
strengthen the Inuit language as a whole, and that more exposure to
different dialects will help people understand the language better,
without necessarily eroding their own dialects.

Proficiency in your own dialect allows you to understand other dialects
more easily, Wright said. At present, many Inuit use English when they
meet someone who speaks a different dialect, the author of the report
notes in a summary of the report. But this is likely a symptom of the
erosion of Inuit languages in general, and not a sign that dialects are
mutually incomprehensible. Dialects are not separate languages, but are
regional variations of a language.

Nunavut has two main dialects: Western Inuktun and Eastern Inuktitut.
Inuinnaqtun and Natsilingmiutut are both Western Inuktun dialects. Eastern
dialects include Kivalliq, Aivilik, North Baffin and South Baffin. A
summary of the report, by Dr. Shelley Tulloch of Saint Marys University,
is available at the Office of the Languages Commissioner website at
http://langcom.nu.ca. A complete copy of the report is available at their
office.

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