Misplaced Pages

Inuttitut
Nunatsiavummiutitut
Labrador Inuktitut
Native to	Canada
Language family	Eskaleut Eskimo Inuit / Inuktut Inuktitut Inuttitut
Early forms	Proto-Eskimo–Aleut Proto-Eskimo Proto-Inuit
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	nuna1235
Inuit dialects. Nunatsiavummiutitut is the pink ( ) in the east.
Nunatsiavummiutitut is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Inuttitut, Inuttut, or Nunatsiavummiutitut is a dialect of Inuktitut. It is spoken across northern Labrador by the Inuit, whose traditional lands are known as Nunatsiavut.

The language has a distinct writing system, created in Greenland in the 1760s by German missionaries from the Moravian Church. This separate writing tradition, the remoteness of Nunatsiavut from other Inuit communities, and its unique history of cultural contacts have made it into a distinct dialect with a separate literary tradition.

It shares features, including Schneider's Law, the reduction of alternate sequences of consonant clusters by simplification, with some Inuit dialects spoken in Quebec. It is differentiated by the tendency to neutralize velars and uvulars, i.e. /ɡ/ ~ /r/, and /k/ ~ /q/ in word final and pre-consonantal positions, as well as by the assimilation of consonants in clusters, compared to other dialects. Morphological systems (~juk/~vuk) and syntactic patterns (e.g. the ergative) have similarly diverged. Nor are the Labrador dialects uniform: there are separate variants traceable to a number of regions, e.g. Rigolet, Nain, Hebron, etc.

Although Nunatsiavut claims over 4,000 inhabitants of Inuit descent, only 550 reported any Inuit language (Inuktut) to be their mother tongue in the 2001 census, mostly in the town of Nain. Inuttitut is seriously endangered.

Alphabet

Nunatsiavut uses a Latin alphabet devised by German-speaking Moravian missionaries, which includes the letter ĸ (kra, often also written with an uppercase K). In 1980, the Labrador Inuit Standardized Writing System was developed during a meeting with elders and educators to provide consistency and clarity. The previous orthography used ⟨o⟩ to represent /u/ before uvulars; however, the Labrador Inuttitut no longer has a distinct /q/ at the end of syllables. In the new orthography, ⟨o⟩ represents /uu/.

The main difference with the Latin orthography used for other Inuktitut dialects are the following letters:

• /aː/ â = aa
• /iː/ e = ii
• /uː/ o = uu
• /χ/ ĸ = q
• /ŋŋ/ ng, n̲g̲ or ngng = nng

Dialects

At one time, there existed two dialects of the Inuttut language. The northern dialect (spoken mainly in Nain) and the southern dialect (spoken only by a few elders in Rigolet). They differ only in phonology.

Vocabulary comparison

The comparison of some animal names in the two dialects of Inuktitut:

German loanwords

The German loanwords used in Inuttitut date from the period of the German missionaries of Moravian Church (1760s).

• ailvat (< Ger. elf) 'eleven'
• ainsik (< Ger. eins) 'one o'clock'
• fiarâ (< Ger. vier) 'four o'clock'
• Fraitâg ( < Ger. Freitag) 'Friday'
• kâttopalak (< Ger. Kartoffel) 'potato'
• Metvog (< Ger. Mittwoch) 'Wednesday'
• Montâg (< Ger. Montag) 'Monday'
• naina (< Ger. neun) 'nine'
• sâksit (< Ger. sechs) 'six'
• senat (< Ger. zehn) 'ten'
• sepat (< Ger. sieben) 'seven'
• silipa (< Ger. Silber) 'coin'
• situnati (< Ger. Stunde) 'hour'
• Sontâg (< Ger. Sonntag) 'Sunday'
• Sunâpint (< Ger. Sonnabend) 'Saturday'
• suvai (< Ger. zwei) 'two'
• suvailva (< Ger. zwölf) 'twelve'
• tarai (< Ger. drei) 'three'
• taraitijik (< Ger. dreißig) '30 odd 30 rifle and ammunition'
• Tenistâg (< Ger. Dienstag) 'Tuesday'
• Tonistâg (< Ger. Donnerstag) 'Thursday'
• viaga (< Ger. vier) 'four'
• vogik (< Ger. Woche) 'week'

References

1. "Labrador Inuit delegation disappointed Premier not available to discuss concerns with north coast ferry". Nunatsiavut Government. 2019-09-26. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
2. "Inuttut Dictionary : Labrador Virtual Museum". www.labradorvirtualmuseum.ca. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
3. "What is Inuktut?". tusaalanga.ca. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
4. "Inuttitut (Labrador)". Canadian Bible Society. Archived from the original on 2017-02-15. Retrieved 2016-08-24.
5. ^ Andersen, Catharyn; Johns, Alana (2005). "Labrador Inuttitut: Speaking into the future". Études/Inuit/Studies. Vol. 29, no. 1–2. pp. 187–205.
6. "The Inuktitut/Inuttut Language".
7. Inuktitut Living Dictionary
8. ^ "English-Inuttut Dictionary".

Further reading

• Smith, L. R., and Sam Metcalfe. Labrador Inuttut – English Glossary. : Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1970.
• Smith, Lawrence .R. (1975) "Labrador Inuttut surface phonology". International journal of American linguistics 41 (2), 97-105.

Dorais, Louis-Jacques (1981) Reviews Etudes/Inuit Studies 5 (1) 149-152

v t e Eskaleut languages
Aleut	Aleut Mednyj Aleut
Eskimoan	Inuit Greenlandic Kalaallisut Tunumiit Inuktitut North Baffin Inuttitut Inuktun Inuvialuktun Siglitun Aivilik Inuinnaqtun Kangiryuarmiutun Kivalliq Netsilik Utkuhiksalik Iñupiaq (Iñupiaq Braille) Qawiaraq Uummarmiutun Yupik Alutiiq Central Alaskan Yugtun Nunivak Cup'ig Chevak Cup’ik Central Siberian Chaplino St. Lawrence Island Naukan Sirenik
See also	Proto-Eskaleut Proto-Eskimoan Inuktitut syllabics (writing system) Inuit phonology Inuit grammar Kaktovik numerals Yugtun script
Italics indicate extinct languages 1: The Inuit language 'family' is a continuum of dialects 2: Some linguists classify Sirenik as under a separate branch

• Agglutinative languages
• Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador
• Inuit languages
• Indigenous languages of the North American Arctic
• History of the Labrador Province of the Moravian Church
• Inuktitut words and phrases
• Endangered indigenous languages of the Americas