Inuktun

language
name=Polar Inuit language
nativename=Inuktun
familycolor=Eskimo-Aleut
states=Thule, Northern Greenland, Denmark
region=North America
speakers=approximately 1000
fam2=Inuit
nation=Greenland (Denmark)

Inuktun ( _en. Polar Eskimo, _da. Thulesproget, _kl. Avanersuarmiutut) is the language of approximately 1000 indigenous Inughuit, inhabiting the world's most northerly settlements in Qaanaaq and the surrounding villages in northern Greenland. All speakers of Inuktun also speak Standard West Greenlandic and many also speak Danish and a few speak English. Apart from the town of Qaanaaq, Inuktun is also spoken in the villages of Muriuhaq , Hiurapaluk, Qikiqtat, Qikiqtarhuaq, Havighivik (names given in Inuktun). The language was first described by the explorers Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen who travelled through northern Greenland in the early twentieth century, and established a trading post at Dundas in 1910. Inuktun does not have its own orthogaphy and is not taught in schools - however most of the inhabitants of Qaanaaq and the surrounding villages use Inuktun for everyday communication.

The language is one of the Eskimo-Aleut languages and dialectologically it is in between the greenlandic Kalaallisut languages and the Canadian Inuktitut. The Polar Inuit were the last to cross from Canada into Greenland and they may have arrived as late as in the eighteenth century [Fortescue 1991. page 1] . The languages differs from Kallallisut by substituting the Kalaallisut /s/ with an h-sound often pronounced like a palatal fricative as in German "Ich", and it also allows more consonant combinations than kalaallisut. It also has some minor grammatical and lexical differences.

Vowels

Consonants

Apart from the simple consonants given there are also 5 consonants which exist only in geminate (double) forms: /ss/, /ts/, /gh/, /rh/ and /rng/ (an uvular nasal consonant).

Notes

References

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