Inuktun (, , ) is the language of approximately 1,000 Indigenous

Inughuit The Inughuit (singular: Inughuaq), Inuhuit, or Smith Sound Inuit, historically called Arctic Highlanders or Polar Eskimos, are an ethnic subgroup of the Greenlandic Inuit. They are the northernmost group of Inuit and the northernmost people in No ...

(Polar

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

), inhabiting the world's northernmost settlements in Qaanaaq and the surrounding villages in northwestern

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

Geographic distribution

Apart from the town of Qaanaaq, Inuktun is also spoken in the villages of (Inuktun names in brackets) Moriusaq (Muriuhaq), Siorapaluk (Hiurapaluk), Qeqertat (Qikiqtat), Qeqertarsuaq (Qikiqtarhuaq), and Savissivik (Havighivik).

Classification

The language is an Eskimo–Aleut language and dialectologically it is in between the

Greenlandic language Greenlandic, also known by its Endonym and exonym, endonym Kalaallisut (, ), is an Inuit languages, Inuit language belonging to the Eskaleut languages#Internal classification, Eskimoan branch of the Eskaleut languages, Eskaleut language family. ...

(Kalaallisut) and the Canadian

Inuktitut Inuktitut ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...

Inuvialuktun Inuvialuktun (part of ''Western Canadian Inuit'' / ''Inuktitut'' / '' Inuktut'' / '' Inuktun'') comprises several Inuit language varieties spoken in the northern Northwest Territories by Canadian Inuit who call themselves ''Inuvialuit''. Some d ...

or Inuinnaqtun. The language differs from Kalaallisut by some phonological, grammatical and lexical differences.

History

The Polar Inuit were the last to cross from Canada into Greenland and they may have arrived as late as in the 18th century.Fortescue 1991. page 1 The language was first described by the explorers

Knud Rasmussen Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies) ...

and Peter Freuchen who travelled through northern Greenland in the early 20th century and established a trading post in 1910 at Dundas (Uummannaq) near Pituffik.

Current situation

Inuktun does not have its own

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

and is not taught in schools. However, most of the inhabitants of Qaanaaq and the surrounding villages use Inuktun in their everyday communication. All speakers of Inuktun also speak Standard Greenlandic and many also speak Danish and a few also English.

Phonology and orthography

There is no official way to transcribe Inuktun. This article uses the orthography of Michael Fortescue, which deliberately reflects the close connection between Inuktun and

Vowels

The vowels are the same as in other Inuit dialects: , and There are two diphthongs: and , which have been assimilated in West Greenlandic to (except for final )

Consonants

The most notable phonological difference from West Greenlandic is the

debuccalization Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (, , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspiration ...

of West Greenlandic to (often pronounced ) except for geminate (from earlier or ). Inuktun also allows more consonant clusters than Kalaallisut, namely ones with initial , , , or . Older or conservative speakers also still have clusters with initial , or . Younger speakers have gone further in reducing old clusters, with also , and being assimilated to the following consonant. The digraphs and (from earlier and , cognates with West Greenlandic and ) are pronounced like West Greenlandic velar and uvular fricatives -gg- and -rr- respectively.

Comparison with West Greenlandic

Notes

References

* Fortescue, Michael, 1991, Inuktun: an introduction to the language of Qaanaaq, Thule, Institut for Eskimologi 15, Københavns Universitet

External links

* Pax Leonard, Stephen.
Scientist lives with Arctic Innuguit for a year to document and help save disappearing language
"

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Inuktun Language Greenlandic language Endangered Eskaleut languages Inuit languages Inughuit Languages of Greenland Agglutinative languages Indigenous languages of the North American Arctic