Talk:Inuit languages/Archive 1

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Words for Snow

No one's edited this for a while, so I don't know if anyone cares. I grew up in Iqaluit and I did learn some Inuktitut although I've mostly forgotten it. "Aput" (more frequently "apu" in the Canadian arctic) is the only word I know of to describe snow in general.

qanik (ᖃᓂᒃ) is the other word usually cited. I don't find it attested in the Nunavut Hansard but that's not too surprising. It is in Dorais' dictionary as a verb: ᖃᓂᒃᑐᖅ (qaniktuq ) = "it snows".
I'm in same boat as an ex-Iqaluimmiut, but I also studied the language in university. I don't know any other root morphemes for snow either. Diderot 10:28, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since the following link came from an Inuit cultural center, I am inclined to take the Inuit's own word as to how they define words. For some Inuktitut words for snow, see http://www.arctic.ca/LUS/Snow%26Ice.html

My information also comes from an Inuit source: http://www.arctictravel.com/chapters/incultpage.html Here's the relevant quote: 

For beginners, let's get one thing clear! Although myth has it that
there are 100 ways of saying the word "snow" in Inuktitut, there is
in fact only one word for it: aput. But just as the English language
has different terms for different conditions of snow (for example,
powdery snow, packing snow, slush, sleet), Inuktitut has different
terms for different conditions of snow, too.

I'll consult some other sources and see if I can find some sort of Inuit consensus. -- Stephen Gilbert

The link just above refers back to an old chestnut about Inuktitut supposedly having more words for snow and ice related phenomena than any other language. This was supposed to show something about the impact of environment of culture or some such.

In fact, it showed something about urban myths and lack of linguistic sophistication. First of all, because of the properties of Inuktitut, it is difficult to distinguish what in English might be called a "word" and ihate tycalled a "phrase". Of course, English as well as most languages have this problem as well as evidenced from the ?words? "New York" and "Europäischewirtschaftgemeinschaft".

And, for the record, languages like English that have been inundated by foreign words tend to win silly vocabulary size contests. Here is a list of English snow and ice terms:

  1. snow = snow (!)
  2. ice = ice (!)
  3. snowdrift = pile of snow, often created by wind
  4. spindrift = light snow in the air created by an avalanche
  5. sastrugi = a layered wind-pack
  6. wind-pack = snow that has hardened by continually blowing wind
  7. hard-pack = snow that has been packed by skiers or machines
  8. packed powder = powder that has been packed by skiers or machines (euphemism for hard-pack)
  9. slush = snow that has melted to near transparency, but still is moderately solid.
  10. verglas = thin ice covering a rock
  11. blue ice = very cold ice that will shatter easily
  12. green ice = even colder ice
  13. black ice = extremely thin, nearly invisible coating of ice that forms on paved surfaces, making it very dangerous to drivers; it develops at temperatures near or below -20° Fahrenheit.
  14. glare ice = extremely smooth ice with high reflectivity; can have serious effects on visibility while driving; very difficult to walk on because it is so slippery
  15. klister snow = any snow that has either undergone freeze/thaw cycles or has sat for a long time so that skis won't stick easily
  16. powder = very dry snow that you can blow out of your hand
  17. champagne powder = even lighter powder
  18. cream powder = not really powder, but has little cohesion
  19. frost = ice that deposits from the air by condensation
  20. hoar frost = big-time frost that has had a long time to deposit under high humidity
  21. rime ice = ?
  22. iceberg = big hunk of ice floating in the ocean
  23. calf = piece of an iceberg
  24. avalanche = snow falling off of a mountain
  25. ice floe = ice-berg that is much wider than it is tall
  26. lacuna = a hole in ice flows
  27. snowball = toy made from snow
  28. snowsuit = clothes that one (usually a child) wears in snowy conditions
  29. flurry = a light snowfall
  30. snow drizzle = light rain-snowfall mixture, often coincident with fog or low clouds
  31. slurry = large, wet snowflakes that either fall as, or upon landing turn into, slush
  32. blizzard = heavy snowfall that results in large accumulations of snow
  33. whiteout = a blizzard with high winds and significant amounts of drifting (airborne) snow that reduces visibility to near zero
  34. ice dam = an accumulation of ice at the eaves of a roof, resulting from repeated freeze-thaw cycles and poor insulation of a house's attic space
  35. icicle = a stalactite of ice hanging down from roof edges, trees, and any other ledgelike spaces, created by repeated freeze-thaw cycles
  36. ice fishing = fishing on a frozen lake or river surface by cutting a hole in the ice and dropping a fishing line through said hole; requires at least 4" of ice thickness for walking on, and at least 12"-16" of thickness to drive a small car on the ice
  37. snowmobile = a small vehicle with sled runners instead of wheels used to drive on or through snow
  38. snowplow = a large vehicle with a wide shovel attached to its front that is used to push snow off of roads, creating snowbanks
  39. snowbank = a pile of snow along the side of a street, driveway, or sidewalk, placed there by the action of snowplows and/or shovels in order to clear roadways and other pathways
I am Swedish, and didn't know that "klister" was a word in English. If I'm correctly, it seems to have entered English through Norwegian ski wax manifacturers Swix' usage of the Norwegian word Klister as a trademark. In Scandinavian, it means glue or paste, and comes originally from a Low German word with a similar meaning. Also, in Swedish "klistersnö" would mean snow that sticks to the skies in large heavy clumps, making it very hard to move forward. Hmmm, either I haven't understood you fully, or you did forget a word with that meaning. =P Btw, one Swedish word for snow is skare" (ska:re), meaning ice-like crusty snow...
Heehee, after writing this, I found out that it seems "Skare" is another sort of ski was/klister, probably originally thought to be suitable for skare-type snow (fragile, non-solid, non-sticky etc). (Norwegian and Swedish vocabulary is generally very similar.)

While I am not an expert in Inuktitut, I maintain that the orginal "one word for snow" statement was correct. Here's a link with a brief article on the nature of Inuktitut: http://www.nunavut.com/nunavut99/english/our.html

I think, basically, that the above should be refactored by someone and included in Inuktitut. We should keep talk on /Talk pages and encyclopedic-type content, from the neutral point of view, on the main page. --LMS

I've just done a massive overhaul of Eskimo words for snow working mostly from Geoffrey Pullum's excellent book "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax". Unfortunately (for me) I did it all before I saw the section on this page. Perhaps someone might like to head over and edit it with a sharper eye - when I started on it it was just a list proporting to be the 22 words. Ever. Yeah right. Anyway, perhaps the section on this page could do with a link once the other article is polished up a bit - I'd do it myself but the writing seems to come at it from a different direction sort-of-thing. Nice work. --Dom 13:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I didn't even know there was an article called Eskimo words for snow. Is it Pullum's list? I have a copy of Pullum's book at home. The problem is that Eskimos speak more than one language - I'd need to check which of the several the list comes from. --Diderot 15:40, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Move

"Inuktitut" means "Inuk language"; "Inuktitut language" is redundant. Is there some reason it should be here, and not Inuktitut (with this as a redirect, of course)? - Montréalais

Yes, it should be to Inuktitut. Latin is a "without language" precedent. Of the 46,000 Googles, only 1,000 is "with language". --Menchi 02:17, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Inuktitut language moved to Inuktitut by Montréalais. --Menchi 05:51, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Abugida vs. Abjad

The article said (before I changed it) that the Inuktitut syllabics were actually an abjad. This is not the case. An abjad is a writing system which essentially only writes consonants, with vowels written by diacritical markings which are generally not written. Arabic, Hebrew, and Amharic all use such writing systems. Inuktitut syllabics, developed from the Cree syllabary which looks very similar, most certainly are not an abjad, because vowels are not optional, nor can they be seperated from the consonant glyphs. The proper term is an abugida.

Just wanted to clear that up.

Hi, original poster here. Was just going through some of my contributions to see how they've changed and I noticed that someone felt the need to clarify that the Inuktitut syllabics were not related to the indic scripts for which the term 'abugida' was coined. I removed this statement, because it is extraneous and false. Not false in the sense that the syllabics were related to indic scripts, but false in the sense that the term abugida was coined for indic scripts in particular. In fact, etymologically, the term abugida "is derived from the first four characters of an order of the Ethiopic script used in some religious contexts" (from Abugida).
It is true that many abugidas in modern use (the majority, even) are indic, and that people generally associate them with indic scripts, but this is a linguistic term, and its definition is precise. I don't feel that saying something like 'Inuktitut syllabics aren't related to any indic scripts' is all that useful, because I don't believe anyone would make that assumption anyway. If you feel otherwise, then by all means, add that information back in. Don't add the bit about abugidas being named for indic scripts though. That's misinformation.
Cheers.202.96.246.206 08:53, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Help: sixteen or two dialects

I was writing or translating this article into Swedish but can someone help me. The page inupik state:

Inupik is one of two dialects of the Inuit language; the other is Yupik

Are they 1) dialects or rather considered as languages and 2) are there two or sixteen variations? Does there exist a language thread, like:

  • Eskimo-Aleutic languages
    • Inuktitut (obsolete: Inuit languages)
      • inupik (obsolete: inuit)
      • yupik
    • Aleutic languages
      • etc...

Regards, Rogper 19:02, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

With the debate about the article name, I suggest using Inuit language as does the LOC. It has "language" in the title, it is proper and many people use it, and is not redundant.

I'm opposed. Most people call it Inuktitut; I think it should be there; or else the article should be refactored to speak about all the Inuit languages, with Inuktitut containing information on the Eastern Arctic language called Inuktitut. - Montréalais 18:53, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'm of two minds on this one. Inuktitut is sometimes used to mean the whole set of Inuit languages, from Inupiaq to Kalaallisut. However, the Oqaasileriffik never refers to Greenlandic as Inuktitut, and the Inupiaq generally don't call what they speak Inuktitut. Most Canadian discussion of Inuit language uses Inuktitut to refer to all the Inuit languages in Canada. The trend is towards calling Nunavik and Labrador Inuktitut Nunavik Inuktitut or Nunatsiavut Inuktitut instead of Inuttitut, but you till see most actual speakers calling it Inuttitut [[1]].
I propose sticking with Inuit language and cleaning up the article to make it better reflect the facts on the ground- an article about Inuit languages as a group and specific articles on each. It's something that's been on my list of things to do for a while - since I actually studied the language once upon a time and have most of the relevant documentation to do it - and I'm getting around to it. I'm doing a big rewrite on Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, which is intended to lead into a revision of all the Algonquian and Inuit language pages as a whole.
Diderot 19:28, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Are we going to have separate articles for Innupiaq but not for Inuktitut proper, then? Also the Eskimo-Aleut list five divisions: Inuktitut, Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Inupiatun, Inuvialuktun while this article list four: Inupiaq, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut proper, Kalaallisut. Which is it? Rmhermen 22:34, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)
None of the above. The division in five is slightly closer to reality than the division into four. There are three major dialect grops in Greenland, one of which is the official language. "Inuktitut proper" encompasses some highly varied dialects and is as much a political construct as a linguistic one. Whether or not Inuinnaqtun is a dialect or merely Inuktitut written in the official roman alphabet is something of a political issue. Inuvialuktun is three separate and dialects, all of which are seriously endangered. Inupiaq covers everything spoken in Alaska - which means several distinct speech forms. On the other hand, similarities across the Inuktitut speaking world are smaller than in, say, the Dutch speaking world. So, arguably its one language with a different dialect in every village. Depends on how you want to look at it.
We should have Kalaallisiut, East Greenlandic, Thule, Inuktitut proper (with a discussion of the phonological variation within it), Inuttitut (a short article placing it in the context of Inuktitut proper), stubs for the three Mackenzie delta dialects and one for Inuvialuktun, an article for Inuinnaqtun discussing both persepctives, and one for Inupiaq unless someone who actually knows Alaskan dialects comes along and does better with it.
On top of this, we need an article for Kalaallisiut writing, Labrador Moravian writing, a better article on syllabics, and some discussion of Canadian state Roman writing, standard Inuinnaqtun writing, and the Alaskan Inupiaq writing system.


Diderot 10:31, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Big edit

I just dumped a load of text into the article. I intend to get sections up expanding on the morphology and syntax tomorrow, as well as a big expansion of the section on writing, comparing the different schemes. --Diderot 22:48, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Capital "K" and last revert

I tried to explain in the edit history, but it got cut off for some reason. The capital "K" at the end of "kulluK" in the Nunatsiavummiutut entry under Inuktitut_language#Non-phonemic_voiced_labials is correct. The Moravians used a Kra, but nowadays, Nunatsiavummiit use a capital "K". This is explained in the 'N.B. section below.

Wow

I haven't really read through but compared to the last version I saw, WOW! LOOKS GREAT! -- Anonymous User

As the principal contributor of the last major revision, thank you. But it's not complete. I need to expand on the morphology section a lot, discuss writing systems in more depth, and then maybe break the article up. Plus, there are some unresolved issues: I have not had access to a complete set of sources, so I've been trying to integrate materials that sometimes are a bit contradictory and I've had to interpolate a bit without getting confirmation. But, I don't think I'm going to have time right away to do any of that. --Diderot 10:35, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Inappropriate move

Sigh... Why was this article moved from Inuktitut? It would be nice if people actually bothered to read the appropriate guidelines before making these kinds of moves. If there is nothing to disambiguate "Inuktitut" from, then what's the point of the extra "language"?

Peter Isotalo 22:13, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

Well, the move was originally to Inuit language half a year ago, on the grounds that not all Inuit would agree that their language is called Inuktitut. Then, someone moved it here because no one ever talks about Inuit language. And round, and round, and round, we go. I stopped trying to follow guidelines a long time ago and decided that as long as the redirects work, it's more productive to actually improve articles and let other people debate their names. Inuktitut is actually a noun in the similaris case, so it's sort of like an adjective. In Inuktitut, it can apply to things other than the language, but not really in English. Don't call it Eskimo language, otherwise, move it wherever you like. --Diderot 22:57, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't if the guidelines have changed since Peter Isotalo wrote that, but at the moment the guidelines say pretty clearly, "Each language should be on a page titled XXX language." --Angr/tɔk tə mi 18:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
No, the policy hasn't changed. *sigh* Read point #4 at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Languages#Structure. --Diderot 19:52, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Formatting of tables

I took the liberty of "prettifying" your border="1" tables using the template {{prettytable}}. I hope there was no intention behind the old formatting. --Salleman 13:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Breaking it up

The article looks great, but it's massive, much larger than WP articles should be. What do people think of moving the "Phonology and phonetics" section into a new article, Inuktitut phonology, and the "Morphology and syntax" section into Inuktitut syntax? --Angr/tɔk tə mi 18:56, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I know. I was hoping to finish it first, but I'm waiting for a better syntax reference that I ought to be receiving soon. But, I suppose now's as good a time to start as any. --Diderot 15:35, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

plurals?

Is this correct? Just guessing from the article :) "kadzait" -> "kadzuk" porges 09:04, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

What the fsck is this language called?

There is no language called Inuit. None. No one, anywhere, ever, refers to such a thing. Inuit language is an adequate description of a group of languages, but doing a find-and-replace on Inuktitut and making it Inuit has now redered this article complete nonsense that has to be thoroughly revised and rewritten.

If this is going to be about the family of languages that includes Inupiat, Inuktitut and Kalaallisut, he article has to be revised thoroughly. Find-and-replace has just made an effective, readable article into a completely useless one.

--Diderot 11:43, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm agreeing with Diderot on this one, though I don't think the article is quite that disastrous. It does need a lot of cleanup. A lot of the material could be severly condensed and still hold the same amount of good info. I think a good idea would be to move a lot of very specific information into the separate language articles and move the article to Inuit languages, so it can be reformatted into an article about the language sub-family just like Italic languages or Indo-Aryan languages.
Peter Isotalo 00:02, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


Im inuk, If our different dialects 'Inupiatun, Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun, West Inuktitun, East Inuktitut and Inuttitut, Inuttut and Kalaallisut and (other 2 dialect Greenlandic) We would call it is 'Inuit Uqausiqatigiit' meaning 'Inuit's Language(Dialects)', Uqausiqatigiit meaning 'Group(partners/team) or same/equality of the languages' or 'Uqausituqaavut' meaning (Our Only Languages). I know Inupiatun, Inuvialuktun/Inuinnaqtun/Inuktitut and Kalaallisut would accept. -Inuit Uqausiqatigiit -Uqausituqaavut -Uqausiqatigiinniq

etc


Misleading sentence

In the first paragraph it says, "spoken in all areas above the tree-line". Shouldn't it read, "All areas that speak this language are above the tree-line"?Leon math 16:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The line is actually in the Inuktitut article not this one, but for some strange reason that talk page redirects here. But to answer your question the line is correct as is. There appear to be areas (communities) below the tree-line that would use Inuktitut. If you look at this map you can see near south-east side of Hudsons Bay and just south of Sanikiluaq, Nunavut there is a tiny red dot that is inside the tree-line. That's Kuujjuarapik, Quebec and 160 km north of that is Umiujaq, Quebec. Then I found this picture on the Umiujaq school web site. Look at the middle picture taken at a camp site north of Umiujaq. So there are places below the tree-line that speak (traditionally at least) Inuktitut. And then just before I hit save I saw this, look for "black spruce and larch". CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, so there may be areas below the tree-line where people speak Inuktitut, so my suggestion is wrong. But the sentence says that Inuktitut is spoken in all areas above the tree line. I doubt that there isn't a single area above the tree-line where the people don't Inuktitut, which the sentence implies (I have no knowledge on the subject, but I want to make sure that the sentence is true). If I said "English is spoken in all areas within the United States", there could be people speaking English outside of the United States, the sentence does not deny that. But what the sentence does imply is that no matter where you go in the United States the people know how to speak English, which is not true. How do we know that there isn't a town, or maybe even a city, north of the tree-line where the inhabitants are a minority and don't know how to speak Inuktitut? (Sorry if I'm being too picky) But I just can't get the thought out of my head, as there could be places not even in Canada that are North of the Arctic tree-line, where the people most likely don't speak Inuktitut. Leon math 20:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
When I saw the sentence I was a bit puzzled at first but for a different reason. I, like most people living in Cambridge Bay and to the west would not think or call the Inuit language Inuktitut. So from that I saw the sentence as being false. However, after reading on I saw that the article looks at them as dialects of Inuktiut and in that case the sentence is true.
But the phrase "It is spoken in all areas north of the tree-line,..." is rather ambiguous. I saw your phrase "English is spoken in all areas within the United States" to mean "English (to some degree) is spoken in all areas (states) within the United States". This is not to say that every place (city, town, etc) in the US has a majority of English speakers or even any English speakers but that within the individual states there are some people who speak English and that would be true.
So, I would see the "all areas north of the tree-line" (NOTTL) to mean those parts of Newfoundland, Quebec, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories lying above the treeline and in that case the sentence would be true. I would also suspect that almost every community north of the treeline would have at least a few Inuktitut speakers. But if the sentence is taken to mean that Inuktitut is the operational langauge or even the majority langauge in all communities NOTTL then the sentence is false. Every community in Nunavut will have a number of Inuktitut speakers but not all communities will have a majority of Inuktitut speakers. However, the majority of every community in Nunavut is Inuit. I see the word "spoken" to mean in this case that some people speak the language but not necessary all of them or that it is used all the time. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 11:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

New section

First off I replaced the Intel numbering with a real disc number that was easy to reference. I also broke it up a bit as it was too long for one paragraph. I have removed the following two sentences:

"This imposition of yet another foreign naming system created a lot of resentment and confusion: surnames didn't necessarily inform people about each other in the way that true names, and even number-names, had done. When the territory of Nunavut was finally established on April 1 1999, hundreds of Inuit petitioned the gov't to change their number-name for their true name on the official rolls."

There are no sources given for either one. I find it hard to believe that the Project Surname created "resentment and confusion". Okpik was given the Order of Canada for his work and, more importantly, was a respected elder. It's not likely people would respect him if they were upset with what he had done. The only complaint I ever heard was that the people with him sometimes spelt the names wrong. The second one seems odd. It's saying that in even after 28 years hundreds of people still were using disc numbers as names. I came north in 1974 and while most people my age can still recall their number I have never met one who went by it. Also, Nunatsiaq News [2] has plenty of online information prior to 1999, it's how I found the information on Okpik, but nothing on people changing their disc numbers at that late date.

On the positive side it did prompt me to write the Abe Okpik and disc numbers articles. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Scouting in Nunavut

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Inuktitut? Thanks! Chris 21:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Russia?

I don't like how it says several times "all Inuit dialects (or something to that extent) are extinct in Russia" where is the evidence? How are we positive there are not isolated areas where they are still spoken. Please cite sources or give a more convincing case Signed by Jammantha LaLapine but logged in under my sister Luna'sPatronus 00:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

According to the report of the third Danish Chokotka expedition of 2003 (found here [3]) the Chukotka Eskimo language (Chaplinski )is spoken by all the elders of Novoe Chaplino, whereas hardly any young people speak more than a few phrases. According to the report two of the formerly four eskimo languages of Russia are still spoken: Naukanski and Chaplinski (Sirenikski is extinct). They report that in novoe Chaplino there were at least two children of seven years of age that spoke fluent Eskimo.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Inuktitut.png

The & symbol on that image is incorrect. It should be ɬ, not ɫ. Can somebody please fix it?--Sonjaaa (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


Perhaps neither ɬ nor ɫ is correct in this context. I believe the standard way of representing the voiceless lateral fricative in Roman orthography is the slash-l ł, which is phonetically [ɬ]. Languagegeek (talk) 14:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

East Baffin??

When East Baffin is separate from South Baffin, where is the border between East and South? What villages and cities fall under East and which ones under South? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sonjaaa (talk • contribs) 09:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

There isn't a particular border between them. It's a dialect thing. Basically the language spoken from Gjoa Haven east is Inuktitut and to the west it is called Inuinnaqtun and/or Inuvialuktun. Each of them is then broken down into sub-dialects. An Inuinnaqtun speaker from Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories (who speaks Kangiryuarmiutun) is not going to have any difficulty understanding someone from Kugluktuk, Nunavut, they are both speaking Inuinnaqtun, but may think they sound odd or don't quite use the correct words. However, it becomes harder for them to understand the language used by people in Taloyoak, Nunavut because words may have a different meaning. The same sort of thing applies to the language as used in the Baffin but I couldn't say which communities have which dialects. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
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