Inuktitut

Spoken in

• Eskimo - Aleut languages Eskimo languages Inuktitut

Iu, ik, kl

Iku, ipk, kal

The languages ​​of the Inuit form a dialect continuum from eastern Siberia to Greenland. They are often referred to collectively as the Inuktitut ( language of the people ). Inuktitut but on the other hand is also a single one of these languages, the language of the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

The languages ​​of the Inuit belong to the Eskimo- Aleut languages ​​and language type of polysynthetic languages. They are of about 80,000 people in Greenland, Canada, Alaska (USA ) and Russia as well as spoken in Denmark. The variety spoken in Greenland and Denmark called Kalaallisut or Greenlandic. In Canada, we distinguish the dialects of Western and Eastern Inuktitut.

In Canada's Nunavut Territory Parliament on September 19, 2008, on the Inuit Language Protection Act, which stipulates that citizens can conduct their affairs with the authorities, hospitals, etc. in Inuktitut.

Classification of Inuktitut Languages

From east to west:

Morphology and syntax

Like other Eskimo - Aleut languages ​​have the Inuit languages ​​a very rich morphological system, in which a sequence of distinct bound morphemes are attached to lexemes ( See also incorporating and polysynthetic language structure. ) All the words in the Inuit languages ​​start with a lexeme to the bound morphemes be appended. The languages ​​have hundreds of different affixes, in some dialects up to 700 Their morphology is very regular. Although the rules are sometimes very complicated, there are no exceptions as in English or other Indo-European languages.

Through this system, the words can be very long. For example, in Inuktitut of Central Nunavut, Canada: tusaatsiarunnanngittualuujunga I can not hear very well. This long word consists of a root tusaa ( listen ) and five appended elements ( affixes or other lexical morphemes ):

Such word formations come in Inuit languages ​​everywhere. In a great work from Canada, the Nunavut Hansard, a collection of parliament transcripts, come 92 % of all words only once, unlike in most English Hansard. You can also go the idea of speech does not simply apply to Inuit languages, for fully inflected verbs can also be interpreted as nouns. Can ilisaijuq The word be understood as fully diffracted verb: he studied or as a noun: Student. The meaning is to be determined only in the sentence.

Morphology and syntax of the Inuit languages ​​are slightly different from dialect to dialect, but the basic principles can be applied and they all apply to some extent also on Yupik.

Font

In northeastern Canada, especially in the territory of Nunavut and Nunavik (northern Quebec ), the Inuktitut is written in the Latin alphabet except with a syllabary, which is a variant of the Unified Canadian Aboriginal syllabics (see also Cree font).