Inuktitut
Failures, and Some Successes, in Nunavut
The Nunavut territory was formally created by the government of Canada for the Inuit of the eastern Arctic nearly 20 years ago. Anticipating the upcoming 20th anniversary, Maclean’s, a popular Canadian news magazine, recently published a critical analysis of the failures and accomplishments of the new territory for fulfilling the needs—and the dreams—of the Inuit […]
Climate Change and Peacefulness [journal article review]
Over the past ten years, policies related to climate change in the Arctic have increasingly focused on approaches that might help the Inuit adapt to the inevitability of change. Instead, some scholars have recently argued, everyone might be better off if the traditional Inuit concepts that foster peacefulness—their firm beliefs in restoring harmony and promoting […]
Inuit Language Stability [journal article review]
Inuktitut, the language of the Eastern Canadian Arctic Inuit, is one of the few indigenous languages in North America with a good long-term probability of survival, according to a recent journal article. Shanley Allen explores literature on the ways Inuit young people learn and retain their own language in the face of the majority English […]
Inuit Language Offers Wide Emotional Nuances [journal article review]
The Inuit language, called Inuktitut, allows the Inuit people to express human emotion concepts such as protective love with greater precision than English does. According to Michèle Therrien, an ethnolinguist who teaches Inuktitut, the concept of nagli, protective love, suggests a preoccupation with the well-being of another person. As she teaches Inuktitut courses to French […]
